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Amen to that. When you live here full time - I dread those sad desperate faces during the low season months. During low season, I pray that all of you seasonals return as soon as possible to reduce the pressure off of us year-rounder expats and retirees.

Day 35 (01 Febuary 2025) I wake up to discover that the health of my Thai boyfriend has deteriorated. He now has a fever and is shivering and has a very sore throat. He gets one of his friends to go to the pharmacy to buy him some medications and throat sprays and lozenges. Breakfast in my room and I do some work on my laptop. For lunch I walk over to the Mactan Alfresco open air food market and I order a strange dish (when I am in a new country I like to try new things). This dish is called Pinakbet, which is an Ilocos vegetable dish made of okra, eggplant, bitter gourd, squash, tomatoes and bagoong (shrimp or fish paste). It was yummy – but I forgot that sometimes that I do not like okra – especially when it is too stringy and hard to chew down into digestible pieces. So, some of the okra was easy to chew and some were not. While they were preparing my meal I walked over to the Pickup coffee truck to order a Pickup Crème Latte – large – so good. I walked around the Mactan Newtown township checking out the various parking lots to see where I could put my to-be rented motorbike. I noticed that they all have the same pricing scheme of 30 pesos (~ $0.51 USD) per day for motorbikes. Not bad. All of the township condo buildings do not provide parking to non tenants (which us AirBnB “refugee” people are). Now the big question is why am I not calling a Grab car to bring me to the Q Adventures motorbike rental shop? I hate when I get in these procrastinating moods. I feel that it is based on fear of riding a motorbike in a foreign country. Back in Thailand, I will only ride a motorbike in Jomtien or over on any of the islands – where I feel relatively safe. I won’t drive a motorbike into Pattaya city as I just don’t feel safe and capable enough. Out here on Mactan island, the traffic is relatively calm – so I should not be afraid. My silly objective is to ride out to where Mactan island ends at its most exterior point. I come from Long Island, in New York, and I loved driving out to the most extreme point of the south fork, to Montauk point. I know myself – I just need to be ready to do it and it can only happen when my confidence is ready…. So, as a substitute and being a good procrastinator, I decide to walk over to the Mactan Shrine – which is only a 10 minute walk from my condo building. It is what I see when I stand on my balcony and look towards the sea (Magellan Bay), as the monument sits at the edge of the lagoon that becomes the eventual bay. The Mactan Shrine park is surrounded by this mysterious perimeter fence with the face of the Lapu-Lapu warrior, that I could not resist to take my picture with: You enter and it is free other than the people on entry who try to get you to rent one of their umbrellas for anti-sun purposes. I did not rent one. If you are a history buff, then this is an interesting place from a historical point of view. First point of interest is the monument where the Lapu-Lapu local men repulsed the Spanish invaders and killed Ferdinand Magellan in 1521 – the first time that Filipinos killed Spanish invaders. Behind the stone is a depiction of the battle that ensued. The next point of interest is the Mactan Shrine, where part of it is missing, when the nasty super typhoon, Odette, struck Mactan and Cebu, in December 2021. What is fascinating is that this shrine was built in 1866 and survived for 155 years quite well until the year 2021. Next point of interest is the Lapu-Lapu monument which is quite impressive. Towards the water are the mangroves and lagoon that go out towards the Magellan Bay. Other points of interest is the tourist souvenir area and I picked up a new sea shell necklace – I am a sucker for those and my previous purchase was on Koh Tao (Turtle Island) back in Thailand – but it is already starting to fall apart. I also note that the park is quite full of Filipino youngsters congregated in groups off in the perimeter edges, where there is some shade, dancing, listening to music, and having a fun time with their friends – it is a very high energy happy place. Lastly, here is a photo from my OPR balcony of the Mactan Shrine illuminated at night – notice the blue firefly types of lights in the background – those are attached to the mangroves to give it that mystical and magical look. To learn more, I share this link: https://pinkflushedcheeks.blogspot.com/2016/07/an-afternoon-at-mactan-shrine.html I go back to the Mactan Newtown township to get some dinner at my usual An’Dale food cart to eat my preferred meal = Cebu Chorizo Shawarma. Return to my room and I check up on my Thai boyfriend and there is no improvement. I try to push him to go to the doctor and/or hospital - and I believe that he will eventually do so, as you can only shiver for so long before you surrender and ask for help. With that, I call it a night. No massages or extra-curricular activities today. Day 35 (01 Febuary 2025) concluded.

Hi @EricV, I agree 200% with what you wrote. But, what should have I done in the case of the Metro department store staff created crisis situation? They were literally blocking me from leaving the 6th floor to get back into the Ayala mall - which unfortunately only goes up to floor 4 and I was on floor 6 in the Metro department store. I had no choice but to tell the security guard to move out of my way - to walk with my luggage on the immobilized escalator - as the only other alternative, the elevator was malfunctioning because they overloaded the only single elevator by taking the escalator out of service when the store is open. Perhaps they should do escalator maintenance after the mall closes at 10pm ?

To answer your good question, I need to refer back to the Megaworld Mactan Newtown master development plan document, which can be seen here at: https://yourhome.ph/property/the-mactan-newtown/ in the part of the document labeled: "Site Development Plan". From my corner balcony, which is at the end of Tower A of my OPR complex and next to Tower 4 in the primary Newtown Blvd complex there will be NO construction between our 2 complexes as there is just not any physical space available. However, that empty field (indicated in the blue circle below) faces towards the Mactan Shrine, which affronts the Magellan Bay - and as you can see from the extracted portion of this immediate area of the master development plan there are NO new condos slated for that area. However, there are 3 sites under construction (for which I can hear construction noises), which are for the: Mactan World Museum, The Pearl Global residences, and, see below updated map - new addition - the massive NEW Positano Mactan development None of these 3 additional construction sites will block the view of the OPR tower that I am in - which means that for the other 3 towers in my complex they may have obstructed views. I do like this end of the hallway unit - but I do not like facing the Magellan Bay, as it is not as majestic as the other sea views. I would much prefer to face the Hilutungan Channel that separates Mactan island from the Olango island as shown in the below map. I have not noticed any dusty conditions on me or on my balcony. The noise from the Mactan Shrine of the youngsters playing their boom boxes and dancing and having fun is more loud than the distant construction noises. But no noise to bother me from sleeping - as the city noises of honking jeepneys and motorbikes with loud exhausts are prevented by the Megaworld Mactan Newtown private security force from entering into the township - it is super controlled. On 4 February, I will move to the building across the street, One Manchester, for 2 nights, which will put me right next to the The Pearl Global residences, which are currently being built - so I can assess again the noise and line-of-site from that condo unit as it is supposed to have a beautiful balcony sea view. But, I am thinking that when I return from Boracay, to try and rent an AirBnB that is facing the sea that is towards Olango island so that I can assess which sea view is truly better. I do not know if it would deter the local trade that resides back in Cebu city to make the 1 hour journey to Mactan Newtown - but I am sure that I would need to add 1,800 pesos (for taxi) to their charge of 3.000 pesos to come all this way. However, I do notice that there is some local trade available - but to date I have only availed of 1 person so far, the kindergarten teacher - as I have not been feeling too horny of late - these things happen to us elderly retirees. Hopefully, my horniness will return soon. Plus, we need to remember, that the Mactan Newtown township is a tiny spec on Mactan island, which is primarily made up of Lapu-Lapu city, which has 520,418 residents, and if 10% are open to gay things - then that would be 52,000 potential possibilities.

And this is funny to hear you say this when the Philippines has been the primary GLOBAL benefactor of the BPO - Business Process Outsourcing call center phenomena. First it was India and then that did not work out as hoped. So, the world picked up many of their BPOs and moved them to the Philippines. I was part of the management team that created our internal BPO in Budapest, Hungary in 2008 and 2009. We lifted and shifted expensive work processes that were being performed in our expensive HQ in Rome, Italy and moved them to Budapest, where the labor arbitrage (cost savings) was around 66%. Some of our sister organizations had tried the India route but it did not go well due to the version of English accent that they speak there and consequently, they had to leave India after a while. What you wrote above also applied to our newly born internal BPO in Budapest - as they were formerly a communist country where they were VERY prone to follow the Policy and Procedures manual too exactly, which caused an uprising in our Rome, HQ office. So, to mitigate this cultural barrier problem, we brought many of the Hungarian staff over to Italy so they could learn about the Italian way of doing things: let's meet to have a coffee, let's discuss what appears to be the problem, let's look at the Policy and Procedure manual for the "scappatoia" = loophole or work around to make it happen, if one cannot be found, let us ask a powerful bureaucrat for a "deroga" = waiver to said crazy policy, ironically this worked, because we discovered that in the Hungarian language, they also have a similar word = "kiskapu" = little gate = loophole - that they used to get around the lazy communist bureaucrats, once the Italians and Hungarians understood that their respective cultures had already invented words to get around nasty bureaucrats, who have way too much time on their hands with the attitude of: "I am a powerful manager and I will make all of your lives miserable and codify it" they LOVED each other and then our new in-house BPO was then loved by our Italian HQ, we later found out that the Hungarians were better at their "kiskapu" talents than our Italian staff with their "scappatioia" skills --> truly a match made in heaven. How can we find this secret for the wonderful Filipino people ?

No - as one of the Philippine YouTube bloggers that I follow just had a MAJOR blowup in Dramagette (Dumaguete) and I do not want to waste my time there. Also, when I checked some months ago, I could not find a Jomtien type of place with condos directly on the sea in Dumaguete so I ruled it out. As there are more than 7.000 islands in the Philippiines I need to be very selective. Remember the Marathon runner that I met in Cebu city that I wrote about in my 12 January post? He recommends that I go and check out Subic, Zambales as he said that they have hirise condos directly on the beach

Day 34 (31 January 2025) Eat breakfast in my room. I start to prepare myself to call a Grab car to go to over to Q Adventures to rent a motorbike. I have heard great things about this place and they have a 5 star rating on Google. While preparing my backpack, I realize that I cannot find my new OwnDays magnetic sun visor. I look everywhere and it is nowhere to be found. Since I am going with Mr. B to Boracay on the 6th of February, and that place is sun heaven with white sand beaches, I will definitely need my prescription sunglasses. So, I regretfully do not go to the Q Adventures motorbike shop and I instead take a Grab car back to the CBP (Cebu Business Park) Ayala mall to visit with the OwnDays eyeglass team. Also, I need to buy a small luggage for the 5 day trip to Boracay, so I take this opportunity to go luggage shopping. I should have used this opportunity to take the city bus, to learn if a retiree would enjoy the experience – but it only goes to the Cebu IT Park, so I will save that for another day. Grab car departs from Mactan Newtown at 11:54am and we arrive at the Cebu Ayala mall at 12:51pm – so elapsed time is approximately 1 hour and the fee was 908.46 pesos (~ $15.55 USD). So, from a price point of view, the city bus is definitely great value for money at only 50 pesos (~ $0.86 USD) – except it is only IT Park bound. After getting off of the city bus, one could then take a Grab car from IT Park over to the CBP Ayala mall for around an additional 139 pesos (~ $2.38 USD) – with the total cost then being 189 pesos (~ $3.24 USD) with a total cost in time of about 2 hours each way. First stop is to the fabulous , but instead of my usual The Terraces ground floor shop, I instead go to the wonderful 4th floor roof garden to eat my eggs benedict (salmon) there with this amazing view internally of the shop as well as an amazing view of the CBP city skyline. 2 floor ABACA - usually they are only 1 small shop nice city views of the CBP park and surrounding skyscapers While enjoying the view and the excitement of being back in the big city, I am reflecting that I am torn between missing the CBP area, but at the same time, as I am a beach person, I do truly love staying at the Mactan Newtown township at the beach – but it is very boring there. What a dilemma to have. I could never live in the heart of Pattaya city, as I find it grimy, dirty and noisy, whereas, I do like CBP, as it is calm, not noisy, and a pleasant experience – but it is like living in the “the TRUMAN Show” movie with Jim Carrey – it is not real – in the sense that beyond the borders of CBP, or IT Park, or the new Mactan Newtown township, the harsh reality (poverty, noise, no sidewalks, pollution, crowds, etc.) is just outside those facades. In Pattaya, I isolate myself from these negatives by choosing to live in Jomtien (instead of in Pattaya city) – as Jomtien is big enough to give you entertainment and is not as grimy and ugly as Pattaya city can be. I found this equivalent here in Cebu and it is the new Mactan Newtown township, but it is still too small, as it is only 50% completed, so it is still boring. The other factor is that it is 1 to 1.5 hours away from Cebu city. Finished breakfast and my delicious Okinawa coffee and I head downstairs to the OwnDays shop and they tell me the bad news, the magnetic sun visor is only sold with the accompanying eyeglasses. I find this absurd and I tell them that I will go around and look for other sun protecting solutions for my prescription eyeglasses. I visit every other optical store in the humongous mall with no good luck to find a type of clip on sun visor. So, back to the OwnDays shop with my tail between my legs and I commissioned them to build me a new duplicate pair of eyeglasses so that I can have the important magnetic sun visor. They tell me to come back in 1 hour so I go to the huge Metro department store to the 5th floor. Well from floors 3 to 5 the escalators are having their maintenance and we need to walk up/down single file on the frozen-in-state alternate escalator. No problem as I am athletic. Sales clerk helps me to find the cheapest luggage for 4,100 pesos (~ $70.18 USD). I aggressively tugged on the luggage wheels – as the worst thing for me that lets me down with luggage is when one of the wheels breaks or no longer functions properly. All is good so I buy it. new mini luggage for 5 day trip to Boracay I will gift this luggage, as well as the towels and sheets that I previously bought, to Mr. B on 02 March – the day prior to when I will return to Thailand. Now the fun part, I need to get from floor 6 down to floor 2 and the security team that is now guarding the under maintenance escalators tell me that I need to take the elevator, as I am with luggage (it is empty and very light). So, I go over to the only single elevator and there is a crowd forming of elderly people who definitely are too fragile for the escalator. The elevator never stops at our floor – as we see it go past without stopping so it must already be overcrowded. Next to this elevator is an open stair case that is very busy with the Metro employees going up and down, so I enter into this stairwell with my empty light luggage and everyone starts yelling at me: “Sir, sir, sir, these stairs are only for employees” – I bark back, “well the elevator is malfunctioning and the escalators are out of service for maintenance – how am I supposed to get to floor 2?” Nobody has an answer and they just smile at you which creates more frustration. Now annoyed, I return to the escalators and the security guard boss tries to block me and I tell him to “MOVE OUT OF MY WAY, I am going to walk with my empty luggage on this escalator, as the elevator is not working properly and there are now many elderly fragile people at the elevator that need YOUR assistance NOW!!!.” Many of the Filipino people in the Metro store are now looking at me like a crazed mad man – but come on, these same Filipino Metro staff created this problem – you take the escalator out of service and now the only 1 single elevator is malfunctioning because you overcrowded it by sending anyone with purchases and/or the elderly fragile people to the single 1 elevator and now it is malfunctioning. This is what I do not like about the Filipino people – they are not taught how to think outside of the box and to take CONTROL when something goes wrong or goes in tilt. Perhaps they are indoctrinated to not own a situation and empowered to fix it? I do not know, but it is very irritating, as this is not the first time that things go in tilt and they just can’t deal with it. Someone needs to restructure the social order in the Philippines so that these kind wonderful people can be empowered to help during a crisis. They should not be punished by their bosses for going out of the script written by said boss when there is a crisis. I still have time to kill, so I go to my favorite cake shop, Treat Street Cafe, (where you may remember, I met our adorable Mr. B already almost 1 month prior) just outside of the chic Rustan’s department store on the second floor. The avocado cake is simply the best and my favorite. Back downstairs to the OwnDays shop and they check that my new eyeglasses with the magnetic sun protector fits perfectly. All is good and I joked with them that I will be back in one month to buy another pair in case I will again lose my magnetic sun protector in Boracay. I told them that they should stock up on the magnetic sun protectors, so that they can be sold separately of the eyeglasses. They just smiled at me. Request a Grab car back to Mactan Newtown at 15:55pm and we arrive at 17:11, elapsed time was 1 hour and 16 minutes, as it was near peak traffic time. The fee was 968.20 pesos (~ $16.57 USD). Relax in my room and later in the evening I return to my favorite place, An’Dale to eat my preferred meal = Cebu Chorizo Shawarma. Walk around the 1 single Mactan Newtown township street and see that it is buzzing with Koreans and some Arabs, and of course some Filipinos. Us from the West, we are also here, we are just the minority – where the Koreans are the majority of the foreigners here. No massages or extra-curricular activities today. Day 34 (31 January 2025) concluded.

also know that the guys in the Boyztown area generally do not have a problem going back to your room in Jomtien - I have done it several times from both X-Boys and Dreamboys - were I took 2 guys that looked almost like twins back to my room in Jomtien - @vinapu was my witness.

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1030397115769323&set=a.481952807280426 so, it looks like the advance SINULOG ticket sales went live 11 days before the actual event at: https://sinulogfestival.com

Day 33 (30 January 2025) Up until now, the previous 2 AirBnBs have been very small. The first one (in CBP) was 24sqm with a tiny balcony, and the second one (in IT Park) was 26sqm without a balcony. The first building, Cityscape Grand Tower was slightly upscale and the second building, Avida Riala Tower was middle working class for the locally employed BPO people. Now here in the Jomtien of Cebu = Mactan Newtown, a MegaWorld township project, the current condo building that I am in is luxurious and the rooms are standard normal size (not HongKong style) from a Western point of view. My unit is a large studio with 41sqm. The main entrance is elegant: Pool area on the 4th floor bridge is ample with plenty of loungers, showers, bathroom and attendant. There are also tennis courts on the 4th floor. The unit that I rented is listed as a studio – but it is more layed out as a standard 1 bedroom with ample space of 41sqm. In the photo above of the living room behind the couch is a sliding glass wall that separates the living area from the sleeping area. Behind the plant is the doorway out onto the balcony - I already showed that photo in yesterday's trip report update. Unfortunately, there is no office desk, but the dining room table is perfect for working on my laptop. And the bedroom, which is truly lovely. So, out of the 3 AirBnB’s this one here in Jomtien (Mactan Newtown) is my favorite. I prepared the below table to compare these 3 condos from an AirBnB vs. monthly rental point of view. Condo sqm AirBnB price per night Non-AirBnB rental price per month to rent Cityscape 24 € 700.37 / 20 nights = €35.01 per night ~ 2,122.12 pesos https://homes.trovit.ph/ listed at 25,000 pesos ~ $427.97 USD per month Avila Riala 26 € 440.16 / 11 nights = €40.01 per night ~ 2,425.57 pesos https://rentpad.com.ph/ listed at 22,000 pesos ~ $376.58 USD per month OPR 41 € 314.12 / 6 nights = €52.35 per night ~ 3,173.67 pesos https://homes.trovit.ph/ listed at 30,000 pesos ~ $513.51 USD per month ** I apologize for the use of the Euro – but as I used my EU based Skrill card for everything the invoices were prepared in Euro. I have not yet compared the above analysis to what I am paying back in Jomtien – as I am not quite sure how to make a fair comparison. I pay 28,000 baht (~ $828.65 USD per month) for a large 98sqm 1 bedroom condo in front of Dongtan beach with amazing Gulf of Thailand sea views. Anyone got any ideas how I can make a fair comparison? --> Perhaps I should do it at the sqm level ? so it would be apples for apples ? Thanks Ok, back to my daily grind as a retiree – I eat breakfast in my room and work for a little while on my laptop. Around 2pm I return to the Mactan Alfresco outdoor food court and eat a great lunch there. After lunch I walk over to the Mactan Newtown transportation center that has these nice buses that can take you into Cebu city, where the destination is IT Park. It only costs 50 pesos (~ $0.87 USD) one way, but can take between 1 hour to 1.5 hours. Unfortunately, this bus into the city does not stop at my preferred destination, CBP (Cebu Business Park), where my favorite Ayala mall is. --> So, my original idea to find the Jomtien of Cebu and to compare it to our Jomtien in Pattaya – fails in the sense that the transportation time back and forth is just too long. It is more like I would be living in Bang Saray instead of Jomtien. The Grab car takes 1 hour (depending on traffic) from Mactan Newtown to Cebu city. Then I go to explore the only primary street of this new township, Newtown Blvd., and I see underneath the 8 Newtown Blvd building, that there is a tiny “mall”, that has 2 ATMs, 1 barbershop, 1 luggage storage shop, fitness center, small grocery store, etc. I visited the X10 luggage storage shop to inquire about using their services when I will go for 5 days to Boracay with Mr. B, as I don’t want to drag my 62 day steamer trunk with me. The rate is 2.000 pesos (~ $34.25 USD) for up to 7 days. https://luggagestoragecebu.com/ https://www.facebook.com/TUFBarbershopMactan/ Then I walked next door to the TUF barbershop and got one of my best haircuts in my life. The guy was great and sexy, and the cost was reasonable, at 380 pesos (~ $6.51 USD) – now I have a nice military style Bart Simpson square cut. Below is the Mactan Newtown township Master Development Plan, which I would say is about 50% completed. So, it will be very exciting over the next few years to see how this place transforms into what it will become – which I believe will be an eventual GREAT retirement destination in like 3 to 5 years time. It is a beautiful afternoon, so I decide to walk to the official beach of Newtown Mactan. It is about an 8 minute walk and the beach is private and you must pay to enter if you are not a condo owner within the Newtown Mactan township or hotel guest at the Belmont and Savoy hotels. Also, entry is free if you are renting a condo long term (you have a rental agreement for more than 6 months). Price list: 1,088 pesos (~ $18.62 USD) – on a weekday 1,288 pesos (~ $22.05 USD) – on the weekend Entrance fee includes access to the infinity pool, sun bathing, and buffet lunch which is served between 11am to 2pm. I found the day use price to be expensive, as a day trip user, but it is still cheaper than when Mr. B and I, we went to the 5 star Shangra-La resort where we paid 2.000 pesos per person, and NO lunch buffet was included – however the Shangra-La grounds are better than this Mactan Newtown private beach. By the way, the border of the Shangra-La grounds touches the fence of the private Mactan Newtown Beach. Here are 2 short TikTok videos of the Mactan Newtown beach grounds so you can get a sense of what the experience is like. The water is cleaner than our coffee brown water back at Jomtien beach in Thailand – but it is FREE to gain beach access in Thailand. Also, I did not see anyone who might be gay at the beach. Hope is eternal. Getting dark so go to buy some dinner to eat back in my room and then I fire up the apps to see if there is any gay life out here on Mactan island. I was quite surprised – the apps were busy and within 20 minutes of chatting with a local kindergarden teacher we meet outside in front of the 7-Eleven as he wanted some beers. He checks in with his ID card with my new security team (they don’t bat an eye even though this area is a bit Hi-So). We go up to my room and we try to open the beers and realize that there is not a beer bottle opener in the condo. So, he puts the beers down and gets undressed and before you know it we are edging each other on my bed. In the chat session he was reluctant to do edging because he told me that his dick is hypersensitive and he would cum within 5 minutes. I told him that I was an edging pro and I knew what to do to make him last at least 30 minutes. When he would get near to exploding – like in 4 minutes, then I would stop and he would edge me for like 12 minutes when I asked him to stop so that I would not explode. Then I would do it to him and he actually lasted 10 minutes as he was now more calm. Then he finished me off and it was great. After our showers, he said to me, have you eaten at Jolibee yet? I replied no. He was shocked – 30 days in the Philippines and you have not yet eaten in our McDonald’s = Jollibee. I eat some fried chicken that was served with pasta that had like a watery ketchup taste to it. It was ok – the chicken was better than the pasta. The guy insisted that I eat a mango tart which was also good. After dinner, he took me for a walk in the immediate neighborhood which is outside of the Mactan Newtown township perimeter and it is truly “night and day”, where the minute you step outside there is intense traffic, crowded jeepneys in transit beeping their horns, many people walking in the street – as there are no sidewalks. As the Mactan Newtown township has not yet built their promised mall, he took me to the nearby LG Garden Walk 2 floor mall – which is great, as the township still does not yet have good places to go shopping. This mall is diagonally across the street from the main entrance to the Mactan Newtown township. https://www.facebook.com/lggardenwalkmactan/ Now I am tired and I want to go back to my room to chat with my Thai boyfriend, as he knows that I am out and about with a “new friend”, which can make him apprehensive. All is good when I tell him what the meeting with the guy was like and he is calm and relaxed. Day 33 (30 January 2025) concluded.

so true so true so true This made me laugh so hard hahahahaha especially when I hear the boys talk about us.....as if they are babysitting us....

Yes, soi 12 and generally after Supertown shuts down (by 2am) and all of us old farangs have been given warm milk and are already at home sleeping and snoring --> the guys vacate the darkened Jomtien Complex, as their bar work has finished, and now they go to party over on Jomtien soi 12 until the sun comes up. Once sunrise approaches, they scream and try to get back to their rooms to avoid: bright sunlight getting dark skin being seen in such a haggard state, as the more athletic farangs wake up to jog and/or do their gymnastics on the beach.

In my prior career, where I ran the technical side of our international payment systems and technical interfaces with our global banking partners - this issue that you talk about is rampant. Our IT software design people don't understand how things work in the real life from a functional point of view. Consequently, when you write up the functional specifications of what you require the software design team to develop - you need to be very wordy, clear, give examples, and provide for good workflow and end-design diagrams. In this way, you can improve the output from the software design team. Then there needs to be a good QA (quality assessment) process that has as a minimum 2 layers, where: - the person who wrote the functional specifications tests the solution built by the software engineers and then decides to: 1.) ask for further modifications, 2.) approves it for end-user testing, - the end-user team and their SME (Subject Matter Expert) tests the solution built by the engineering team that was approved by the functional specifications QA first step, where they decide to: 1.) ask for additional modifications and/or reject the solution, 2.) approve the solution to be put into a controlled Production environment. Since I was responsible for whatever went into our LIVE production environment - as it relates to both domestic and international global payments, I insisted on a Production control test where we would ask for volunteers in the impacted markets to receive small LIVE actual money test payments into their bank accounts and confirm back to us: 1.) money was received, 2.) no fees were assessed against the original payment amount, 3.) payment was credited into their bank account on the expected value date. If the above 3 criteria were met in the Production LIVE environment then we made it available to the end users. If not, then we kept it blocked from being used by the end-users until a fix could be implemented with either our in-house or outsourced IT people could fix it --> or if it was a problem on our bank partner side then we need to wait until our banking partner would fix their IT system so that we could perform additional live tests (small amounts) until everything was perfect. I think in the examples that you brought forward as well as what I experienced yesterday with the digital unlock the door app failure - they were not properly QA tested for ALL possible test scenarios.

I believe that I write very clearly what my plan and expectations are. Chatting with other Filipino guys in Heesay and Grindr, I have been told that this sudden demand for more money is an unfortunate occurence amongst guys who have bad intentions who are supposed repressed heterosexual types desperate to make quick money via extortion from their customers. The locals here already know who they are and avoid them because they can only play this game 1 time before they are blacklisted amongst those that live here. So, this bad evil element preys on us newcomers. We had this SAME bad element problem in Budapest, where the primary way to meet guys was via PlanetRomeo/Hunqz. So, what the local Budapest community did was to create a Romeo profile where you could list the bad apples in this 1 dedicated Romeo account via the comments section. Unfortunately, I am not aware of any such safeguard mechanism here in Cebu.

Welcome back Khun @reader 🤩🤩🤩

Well, I am not experiencing this phenomena here in the Philippines. Perhaps, it is something in the Thai water. Lastly, my mother (God bless her soul up in heaven), ingrained in me that you always take care of the people that you love --> especially if they are less fortunate than you are. When I was a child and my father abandoned us when I was only 5 years old with no financial support from him - it was up to my mother working as a poor waitress who took care of me and my brother. She always told us, "you boys see that tip that the customer left on the table?". We replied, "yes mamma". That tip allows me to buy you milk and bread because your father left us with no money. So, as my mother left her 50+ year waitress inheritance to me, out of respect for my mother's soul, I will take care of the people that I love who are less fortunate than I am. I can feel my mother smiling down on me thinking, I raised my son properly to be humble and not selfish and to remember the poorness and poverty that we came from. This is the same reason as to why I will leave Thailand if this new Thai government will follow through with their proposed OECD pushed Global Tax Regime. I promised my mother before she died to protect her financial assets. That also includes from the hands of this greedy Thai government. Here in the Philippines they do NOT tax bank transfers into the Philippines that us retirees make into the country. They still respect the Territorial Tax Regime that previously also Thailand respected. Amen.

Day 32 (29 January 2025) My brain woke me up at 3:30am – so that I could execute the Wise transfer to my boyfriend ( as it was now officially the day of the Chinese New Year ), as the Thais do love receiving those red envelopes. As it was only 2:30am in Thailand, my Thai boyfriend is still awake and is ecstatic that: I remembered him for the Chinese New Year, That I still followed through with this surprise even though we argued during the previous day. Then he asks me the question – how can you send me this lovely Chinese New Year surprise and not help me with my sister’s educational needs? So, I have to tell him that he put me in a difficult predicament when I only had available liquid funds in Thai baht outside of Thailand for one or the other and that I chose the Chinese New Year surprise over the needs of his sister. He was very appreciative – but I could sense that he would have preferred that I took care of his sister instead of him – but I did not agree. My brain finally allows me to go back to sleep with peace of mind. Thank God!! I wake up at 8am, eat breakfast, and pack my bags, as today is the BIG move from Cebu city (IT Park) to the Jomtien of Cebu, known as Mactan Newtown, over on nearby Mactan island. Now in Part 3 of this trip at my AirBnB #3 at Mactan Newtown I perform the required check-out activities at 11:50am with the owner of the IT Park AirBnB. Cart my luggage and towel bag downstairs and request a car in the Grab app for Mactan Newtown. Elapsed time was 45 minutes for a total cost of 709.67 pesos ( ~ $12.17 USD) arriving at 12:48pm. I added a 100 peso tip as the driver was really good and he helped me to get my steamer trunk out of his trunk and up the few steps onto the marble walkway into my new chic condo building at the beach. With this new AirBnB condo owner I asked for an early check-in of 1pm, but she could not get the cleaning from the previous person completed until 3pm. So, I gave my new security team a 100 peso tip to store and watch my luggage for 2 hours while I walked around my new neighborhood and went to get lunch. There is only 1 main street in this Mactan Newtown neighborhood as everything is new and there is still major construction going on as they expand this new mini-city complex. I notice that the main street is full of Korean people and I am quite surprised as I did not see many Koreans back in Cebu city. All of the restaurants are jammed packed – mainly with Koreans. So, I walk to the main entrance into the Mactan Newtown complex where there is an open air food court, which is not packed. It’s name is: Mactan Alfresco. https://www.facebook.com/MactanAlfresco/ I can report that there is a good assortment of food and beverage choices and I have a feeling that I will be eating here a lot in these next days. I need to kill 2 hours so I eat very slowly. Back to my condo and now the security team allows me to go up to the room. The complex is huge and consists of 4 towers, where if you are not in the tower where the main entrance is, you need to take a special shuttle elevator up to floor 4, where the tennis court and pool are and then walk to your appropriate tower and use those elevators from level 4 to get up to your condo room floor. Rather complex and requires lots of walking – but it is ok as this place is truly very nice. The owner of this AirBnB also had an electronic key access system and to access the room you need to install an app on your phone. I tried to do that back in IT Park but the app registration could not be completed for me because I could not switch the phone number country code from the default of +1 to +66 (or any other country code). Consequently, the cleaning lady had to leave the door unlocked where the physical metal room key was on the kitchen table. I love old-fashioned access – hallelujah!! And I love physical metal keys. I un pack and enjoy my balcony view that overlooks the Magellan Bay. I take a nap and then I go to eat at this independent type of food truck that is on the main road but is located all by itself on the opposite side of the road where there is a small field. https://www.facebook.com/andaleeats I eat this wonderful box set meal = Cebu Chorizo Shawarma that was truly yummy. It takes them a while to prepare your food – but it is well worth the wait. I ask someone why there are soo many Koreans here in Mactan Newtown and they reply: It is the Chinese New Year - wow I felt so dumb, There is a BIG English language training center here, Koreans love these luxurious type of condos that are at the beach instead of being in the urban city Afterwards, I go to the nearby 7-Eleven (which is full of Koreans) to stock up my refrigerator and I call it a night. I wonder if I will be able to get some Korean action this trip ? I had a great time 10 years ago in Seoul - so why not? No massages or extra-curricular activities today. Day 32 (29 January 2025) concluded in my new Jomtien like home:

Day 31 (28 January 2025). Woke up very late with a slight hangover. Ate breakfast in my room and then later on I had an argument with my boyfriend back in Thailand, as he presented me with an unexpected surprise monetary request regarding his sister up in Sukhothai. I was irritated, because tomorrow = 29 January is the Chinese New Year and I had already arranged a surprise (he did not know about it) money transfer via my Wise account into his Thai bank account. Consequently, I did not have any additional non-committed funds to: Surprise him for the Chinese New Year, and to also fund his sister’s education school related request. --> It would be one or the other, and NOT both. Wise is amazing, in that it allows me to transfer THB from my Belgium account within minutes into his Thai bank account. As part of my staying outside of Thailand to avoid the 180 days tax resident issue – I have decided to not use my in-Thailand bank account during this period that I am out of Thailand. My belief is that if the Thai government would challenge me about living in Thailand because they would see internal in-country bank transfers during my absence – I won’t have this possible issue to deal with and this is where Wise steps in to help me. So, when he surprised me about something that his sister needs for her school – I became irritated – because I am painfully trying to teach him about finances, budgeting, and that money does not grow on trees. So, I told him that his sister will have to wait until I can top-up my Wise Belgium account from New York – and that process via ACH within the USA is slow and can take up to 3 bank working days. Why doesn’t the Thai educational system and Thai society teach Thais about finances and budgeting? Why do they constantly believe that prayers and Buddha will provide for them? Back to Wolflink for another amazing Wolf Stew late lunch. I invited Mr. Lan to come to my room later to give me a massage, as this is my last night in my IT Park condo room and later in the week, Mr. Lan will transfer himself to Manila to try to regain his career in Philippine TV, as an actor – which he did prior to covid. He showed me some of his films where he is torso nudo trying to seduce a woman – it is very hot and he definitely has many talents. Mr. Lan comes to my room and makes me a soothing and wonderful massage. As this is now our 3rd meeting – everything is perfect. He is a great guy. He edges me perfectly while I edge him and our orgasms are almost synchronized. Clean up myself and kiss Mr. Lan goodbye. Then later I chat with my Thai boyfriend – now I literally have a “cooler head” in both senses to talk to him calmly. Whenever I get upset I am often referred to as the “Ba farang” (crazy foreigner), which then aggravates the situation – because it is not only my current Thai boyfriend and the past 1 year ago Thai boyfriend who say this – but it also includes all of their friends. So, if you lose your cool about your finances, the Thais label you as Ba Farang – which I find to be quite annoying. I guess this is just another example of the culture shock that we need to overcome when we willingly chose to abandon our home native country to live abroad as an expat / retiree. Day 31 (28 January 2025) concluded.

To be honest - at first I did not like it here. The poverty in your face and culture shock was somewhat over-bearing - but as with all new countries - you start to "normalize" and accept what you see with your own eyes as being what is accepted here. My initial few days here were somewhat in a fear mode - as my vision of what is normal - being Thailand culture, Thai version of poverty, beggars, etc. was being altered - and when you get old - change is sometimes hard to deal with - so you need to challenge yourself to push forward. Now I am in day 33 of my stay in the Philippines (CEBU) and I am liking it and I feel comfortable here with my new normal of Philippine culture, their version of poverty and beggars, etc. Tourism here in the Philippines is no where near the level it is in Thailand --> so consequently the people (boys) are much less jaded and are truly down to earth, naive, kind, and not yet jaded. However, there is a stark difference between the Filipino guys who work in the trade versus those who do not --> where those who work in the trade as their primary source of income are very jaded and on par with the trade that is available in Pattaya. Living in Pattaya your daily contact with the guys is that the majority are in the transactional camp Whereas, here in Cebu, your daily contact with the guys is that it is very rare to find someone who is in the transactional camp - which is nice and refreshing. Having said that, if you are addicted to transactional sex by living in Pattaya full time - it is hard to go somewhere where this is not the norm - especially when you feel horny. In Pattaya it is all around you and easy to get - here you need to work harder to get it. Different game with different norms and rules.

Is it easy to get these tickets? Do you remember the process to get them ? via internet? or via Philippine people here on the ground in Cebu ?

Good observation @macaroni21. I did not give the supermarket access any priority or emphasis in this trip - as I am not a stay-at-home type of guy who cooks and prepares meals for myself. I find it boring and the cost of food outside both here in the Philippines and back in Thailand is so cheap that I find it easier to just go outside and get it, or eat outside, or order it in via the Grab and/or FoodPanda app. I will say that in both the CBP and IT Park neighborhoods there were plenty of nearby full-on supermarkets. But, I only used the 7-Eleven stores for 95% of my related food and/or supermarket purchases. Also note that in an earlier segment of this trip report I discuss me going into the Metro Supermarket in the CBP Ayala mall - which is a super huge supermarket with a dedicated international section - which allowed me to buy certain body products that I was looking for. Also, they have this BIG discount store here called, LANDERS, which is like Costco back in the USA. But I did not venture there as I never even use the LANDERS equivalent back in Thailand. https://www.landers.ph/ So, I apologize in advance to our forum readership who find supermarket choices to be a determining factor for a retirement destination decision.

Hi @12is12, many thanks for sharing with us all of your wonderful SINULOG photos - the quality of your photos are much superior to mine - as I was stuck with the throngs of spectators in the Osmenia Fuente circle. For a while, we even had an annoying gay couple standing in front of us with those large feathered headdresses that blocked our view until the universe answered our prayers and one of the gay couple's headdress broke, and he could no longer wear it, thus giving us a view onto the parade again - until some of the elderly Filipina ladies decided to open their umbrellas because of the piercing sun, which again blocked our view. @12is12 when you paid this 1500 pesos ($26) stadium viewing fee - did it include a seat? if yes, was this seat shaded? Unfortunately, I was not made aware of this stadium viewing option by either of my 2 Filipino friends.

I agree But, 1 time I personally witnessed our KFC legend miss out on a hot guy opportunity, because when he went to the bathroom, the guy that he was oogiling was snatched by another customer in the Banana bar. It is often like a feeding frenzy.

Day 30 (27 January 2025) Breakfast in the room and work some more on my trip report writeup and postings. Go to my now favorite place for lunch, Wolflink, and I order my favorite dish, Wolf’s Stew, as shown below: https://www.facebook.com/wolflinkph Which is made from a Korean spicy stew with Wolflink’s smoked meats, ramen, kimchi, egg & cheese and vegetables. It is a nice slightly spicy mix and is fun to eat, as you need to pull your food from the bubbling still on fire hot cast iron pot into your plate with the spoon and/or tongs. It is truly yummy and a fun eating experience. Later in the evening, I go to the 8th Avenue Comedy Club, that was recommended to me by Mr. Lan (he has been my occasional sexy masseur and more importantly he was featured in the SINULOG segment of this trip report as my bodyguard / tour guide on that day). I arrive slightly before 9pm and I wait outside for Mr. B to arrive. The city is eerily quiet after the SINULOG crescendo. https://www.facebook.com/8thAvenueComedyBar/ We go in and there is only 1 other table with customers. Mr. B wants to sit off to the side – but I convince him to let us sit in the table that is directly in front of the stage (more fun). There is a ladyboy singing karaoke and Mr. B and I, we order a bucket of beers. This club has a 2.000 peso ( ~ $34.27 USD) consumable charge (minimum that you need to spend to see the show). The bucket of beers costs 600 pesos. I am thinking to myself – oh no, I will need to get very drunk to spend those 2.000 pesos. But that worry would soon go away. I fire up the Heesay app to see if Mr. Lan is online and he is and I tell him to come and join us, since it was thanks to him that we discovered this fun place. Before we know it, Mr. Lan is already up on the stage, as he is a regular in this club, as he loves to sing to his hearts content – and he is a good singer. So, tonight, I find out many things about sexy Mr. Lan – he was a pre-covid actor on Philippine TV, singer, masseur, body guard (is constantly in the gym), and tour guide. What more could one ask for in a guy?? As Mr. Lan knows everyone at the Club, soon they are joining us at the table and then my fears of having to drink 2.000 pesos of beer went away as my consumable quota was by the end of the night over quota and made the bar and staff happy – as it had been a very slow Monday night. And then during the evening – shortly before midnight – we discover the BIGGEST and most important news of the night. Mr. B, confides in secret that it is his birthday today but does not want anyone to know. So, when Mr. B was looking at his FB feed I whispered into the ladyboy’s ear that it was Mr. B’s birthday (I slipped a blue bank note into her hands as a reward for this favor) and could she arrange something on the stage. Before we know it, all of the ladyboys are up on the stage singing happy birthday to our adorable Mr. B and he is quite surprised and I believe that he enjoyed all of this extra attention -> until they insisted that he sing some karaoke with them. He refused as he does not like this kind of activity but it was fun anyway. So, the ladyboys turn their attention to me – oh no – and get me to sing the only song that I know - (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction by The Rolling Stones. As I already had a few drinks, there were few customers in the club, and by now Mr. Lan had probably already sang 10 songs, I had to just do it (as I do not like karaoke – but tonight was a special exception). After that disaster, they tried to get me back up onto the stage – but that was it for this old retiree. You just got to know when to STOP. Hahahaha Before the grand finale, our more energetic ladyboy performers decide to let lose and jump around everywhere, as evidenced in the below 2 short video clips. Part1_8thAve.mp4 Unfortunately, the 2nd part of the above video fails on upload - so just try to imagine these 2 jumping all over the place and making you laugh histerically. So, it was a great night out in Cebu with my 2 friends, Mr. B and Mr. Lan. So, as a retiree in Cebu, there is fun to be had and as you can see, the locals are friendly, which can allow you to create new friendships and to avoid that lonely retiree feeling in a new country. I would put this 8th Avenue Comedy Club in a similar category as the previously reviewed Cebu Cave Bar. The primary differences are: Cebu Cave Bar is owned and operated by the drag queen ladyboy performers and its audience is primarily gay. 8th Avenue Comedy Club is owned by a heterosexual man who is very gay friendly - but the targeted audience here is anyone who likes drag queen karaoke entertainment - so gay, bi, straight are all welcome. Note that this bar is all decked out with our gay rainbow flag everywhere. Day 30 (27 January 2025) concluded.

Day 28 (25 January 2025) Quick breakfast in my room because I woke up horny and a gay couple came to my room at 11am. I met them on Grindr the previous evening but I had already booked the previous evening’s psycho, that I told them to come on the following morning. They also sell sex related stuff and I ordered 1 bottle of Japanese lubricant from them as I was curious to try it as I had never used Japanese lubricant before. I notice that the more Filipinos that I meet in the apps I am finding that they are more industrious, in that they don’t only offer you a massage and/or sex, they also want to cross sell other products to you, which can include; lube, massage oils, poppers, sexual enhancers, etcetra. This gay couple explained to me their situation. The younger one (perhaps he was 28) works in one of the many gazillion BPOs here in Cebu and unfortunately, these Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) companies do not pay very well, as the starting salary can be between 13,000 to 15,000 pesos ( ~ $222.53 - $256.49 per month), so the guys resort to massage and/or sex work to help augment their monthly income. The older guy (perhaps he was 34) used to work in real estate but told me that the competition is fierce (too many real estate agents in the workforce) and the required sales quota targets creates too much stress, so he left that business to do massage/sex work full time. Furthermore, the older one told me that he imports sex related products from other countries and then sells them to his clients to augment his full time massage/sex income. I was impressed. So, they give me a nice massage with my massage cream and then we move to what the locals call, “ES” = extra services, part of the massage and I had ordered edging only and I was quoted 5.000 pesos ( ~ $85.46 USD) for a 4 hands massage + happy ending. Well, they started to get crazy to do oral and I learned my lesson from the previous encounters, that the Filipinos are good at milking you for additional money, as if to be on a RyanAir flight. So, they wanted to suck my cock and I kept saying that I am ok with the happy ending edging only. Well they started to beg and then I conceded but I wanted to know what would this cost and they told me that I could have, the Japanese lube, 4 hands massage, oral, and edging for an all inclusive price of 6.000 pesos ( ~ $102.64 USD), so for only an additional 1.000 pesos ( ~ $17.18 USD) I said ok. They were so happy and now I was back to my on average rate of 3.000 pesos per guy – but this time I got some Japanese lube included. --> But, I have to say, that I do not like this constant Filipino approach to interrupt the fun part of the sexual activities to start their upselling activities during the event. I find it like watching a TV show and the scene gets hot and you cannot wait for the next thing to happen - and then they break for a commercial. That really ruins the event. I do try hard to be clear in my app chats about what I want, but these guys are always looking for ways to upsell and get more value added business out of you. But if you loose your erection in this marketing process - is that a good business practice ? All went well, everybody had his orgasm and everybody was happy. They left and then I went over to the CBP Ayala mall to have lunch up on my new favorite 4th floor rooftop gardens terrace at the very good Brizket restaurant. Day 28 (25 January 2025) concluded. Day 29 (26 January 2025) Extended my eSIM subscription, as my initial 30 day subscription will expire soon. I acknowledge the suggestion by our forum member, @EricV, who suggested that I just bite the bullet and get a GOMO local SIM card with phone number included, as that price that he quoted is truly remarkable – but that forum message came to me today, 29 January and I had already extended my Airalo eSIM on 26 January – this forum update. But, @EricV is correct, that if you are going to have a long stay here in the Philippines (more than 30 days) than it is more prudent to go this GOMO route https://www.gomo.ph/get-gomo-sim/ than with the Airalo eSIM solution. I had never heard of GOMO before, so now I am enlightened. This is what I love about our forum is that all of us share our individual experiences and we can learn and benefit from each other. At 4pm I asked Mr. B to come to my IT Park condo room (no not to have sex – him and I, we have a platonic true friendship, and he also offers me tour guide opportunities) so that we could discuss what am I going to do with myself after 6 Februray 2025, when my to-be Mactan Newtown condo will expire?? Well, we agree, that Mr. B. and I, we will fly over to Boracay for 4 nights (neither of us has been there yet), so that the both of us can have an outside of Cebu experience. After I conclude my time in Mactan Newtown, I will have completed my objective of discovering the possibility of retiree life here in Cebu and I have decided that I should use the remainder of my time to transition into tourist mode and go see other non-Cebu places. So, Mr. B and I, we book our flight for 8 February to fly to Boracay in an evening flight, to coincide with when Mr. B will finish his afternoon hotel shift. As all of this was spontaneous and last minute it took us like 3 hours in total to book the flights (the easy part) and then to find a suitable hotel on the White Sands beach within the confines of the famous Stations 1, 2, and 3. We managed to accomplish our objective. Let me tell you that Boracay is not cheap and is a very expensive highly sought after tourist destination. Then, I said to Mr. B, I am famished, let us try to finally eat at the famous Sugbo Mercado market that is here in the Cebu IT Park. It was a Sunday night, and as we learned the hard way on our last attempt, it is not a Monday night and it should be open. Well it was open and SUPER packed. One of my assessments about life in the Cebu IT Park neighborhood is that whoever built this campus did not anticipate that it would be such a BIG success. Consequently, with all of the gazillion BPOs that have become an integral part of the success of IT Park, it has created a campus that is now over-crowded with all of the BPO workforce and their families and others who want to live in IT Park. In my opinion, the smaller Ayala mall that they built within IT Park is just too small and consequently often too crowded. Also, there should be more than 1 Sugbo Mercato (outdoor foot court), as 1 is just not enough to support all the people that are here. So, I think that soon, whoever is in charge of IT Park, is going to have to take a hard look at what should you do when you build such a large IT Park and it becomes too successful? On the other hand, the CBP (Cebu Business Park) is just the right size and mix of BPOs, residents, and size of what is available (malls, condos, parks, etc.) and on offer. Day 29 (26 January 2025) concluded.