There's a popular video going around here in the Philippines about a foreigner "exercising his freedom of speech." That means he felt he could say anything negative he wanted about the Philippines and not get in trouble.  Hey, pal. You're not in Kansas anymore! The authorities snatched him up and wanted to make his a "pesona non-grata", basically black listing him from coming to the Philippines. That story inspired me to make a list of the things that I LOVE about living in the Philippines. Here it is:

1. I love being near the ocean.
2. Our neighbors very friendly and helpful
3. I think the Filipinos all have a natural beauty.
4. I just love the sunshine.
5. I just love the tropical rain.
6. I love going down to the open market and just walking around.
7. I love riding in a tricycle.
8. I love seeing the reactions of the Filipinos when I speak just a little bit of Cebuano.
9. I love the Filipino food.
10. I love it when the children put my hand to their forehead as a sign of respect.
11. just love the tropical vegetation.
12. I love being able to pay the locals to do various odd jobs from, electrical work, lawn work, carpentry work and so many things that I really don’t have to do.
13. I love the fact that I don’t have to have my own transportation here.
14. I love it that the domestic transportation, tricycles, buses and flights are so inexpensive.
15. I love seeing all the birds and butterflies in our front and back yards.
16. I love it that my wife can ask the neighborhood boys to help her carry stuff into the house or run an errand for her.
17. I love it that the cost of our rent and utilities are so low.
18. I love it that we have enough discretionary money here that we can help the community in some small way.
19. I love it that I am respected more by the children than where I lived before.
20. I just love going out in my little banca boat.

That’s enough for now.

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Ok, I'm gonna start by saying I wish someone would have told me this info. I hate to reinvent the wheel.

A little background:

My Filipina wife and I wanted to stay for an extended time in the Philippines. Because she was born in the Philippines she and I would both get a "Balikbayan Visa"  stamped on our passport upon entry that would allow us to stay up to one year. (We can extend after that but "visa extensions" is another topic.)

We wanted to bring our pet dog that we've had for 10 years.  I looked up the Philippine Consulate website and got the requirements to bring a pet to the Philippines. Click here to see that document. Here's another List of things to do.

1. Get Certificate of health from a Veterinarian.(Only valid for ten days

2 Pay fee and get said certificate stamped by the State Dept. of Agriculture (Hawthorne, CA)

3. Apply for Animal Import Permit from the Bureau of Animal Industry, Philippine Department of Agriculture. Go here to do this. After a couple of business days they will send the Animal Import Permit as an attachment to an email.

4. Pay fee and get said certificate "authenticated" by the Philippine Consulate in LA. Be sure you show them the flight  ticket.

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Additional considerations:

Make sure the airlines you choose will take animals as cargo. We took Korean Air (which on the web they said yes, but at the last minute, they said no. We had to leave our dog with someone in the States until we got settled in Cebu, then my wife went back to get our dog.

Philippine Airlines said they take pets as long as you have all the right paperwork and your give them 72 hours advance notice

Update: As I write this my wife has gotten all the paperwork, Import Permit, Vet papers, stamps by Philippine Consulate and the American Dept of Agriculture. Tomorrow night she should be flying out with our pet dog and hopefully in the next post I'll be telling you how smoothly things went. Wish us luck! 

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We just moved into a house here in Cebu, Philippines and it came partly furnished. I wanted to convert one of the bedrooms into my "office" but there was no bookshelf. I have plenty of books so I really needed to have someplace to put them. Since I don't have any vehicles to carry a bookshelf, I just didn't know how I  was going to buy one and get it to my  house. Just as I was watching a boy picking coconuts from the coconut tree in my front yard, I saw a man walking down the street carrying a bookshelf on his back! Watch the movie to see how this story ends!

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I am so glad to be back in the Philippines. I will be posting my adventures here in the near future. Meanwhile you can find my latest Philippine vides on YouTube….

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Hi everybody. Bud Brown here. My passions are languages and traveling , so you will see a lot of posts about these subjects.  Feel free to comment on any post. Till next time,

Bud

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