Trip report Jan/Feb 2025 - Cebu & beyond - Research if an elderly gay retiree can live comfortably in Cebu

[12is12]

BKK, not to hijack ur thread - a note in parenthesis.

I belatedly read your post about Sinulog day, and I humbly submit potential visitors might get the wrong idea. 

The main event isn't the parade - obviously a worthy experience of its own, but the groups competition at the stadium where the parade ends.

For 1500 pesos ($26) u get 6 hours of SPECTACULAR world class dance and drums shows. 

I heartly recommend anyone planning to visit Cebu, to time it to the festival.

Attached are photos; vids of the dancings are too heavy/big to be uploaded.

[macaroni21]

@bkkmfj2648 One thing you don't seem to be checking out are the supermarkets. If I were planning on staying for months in a city, I would want an apartment with at least a small kitchen so I can prepare my own breakfasts or small meals if I don't feel like going out. A good supermarket stocked with the produce I would need would be essential. 

I have seen smaller Korean cities where the supermarkets don't have cheese, for example, or parts of American cities whose shops hardly stock fresh greens. Or Chinese cities where western style bread is unknown.

However you may not plan on having an apartment with a kitchen, so maybe the above is irrelevant.

[bkkmfj2648]

58 minutes ago, 12is12 said:

For 1500 pesos ($26) u get 6 hours of SPECTACULAR world class dance and drums shows.

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.

[12is12]

Included a seat

Un numbered

All the seats are shaded

[bkkmfj2648]

25 minutes ago, macaroni21 said:

One thing you don't seem to be checking out are the supermarkets.

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.

[bkkmfj2648]

3 minutes ago, 12is12 said:

Included a seat

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 ?

[floridarob]

So how are you enjoying the Philippines vs Jomtien.... I think with the number of expats and tourists in Thailand , the boys are more jaded 🤔 

[bkkmfj2648]

6 hours ago, floridarob said:

So how are you enjoying the Philippines vs Jomtien.... I think with the number of expats and tourists in Thailand , the boys are more jaded 🤔

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.

[bkkmfj2648]

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 3^rd 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.

[bkkmfj2648]

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:

[12is12]

BKK, I dont understand: why doesnt he use your NY gift in order to help his sister?

I humbly submit that no finance education by government can overcome finance education by generous farangs...

[bkkmfj2648]

42 minutes ago, 12is12 said:

I humbly submit that no finance education by government can overcome finance education by generous farangs...

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.

 

[macaroni21]

5 hours ago, bkkmfj2648 said:

I could not switch the phone number country code from the default of +1 to +66 (or any other country code).

I see this quite often, and in many countries. It's a problem of software design, but it's so basic an issue that it's amazing how unaware software engineers are that this is an issue.

The craziest was Turkish Airlines. It had that problem in all its self check-in terminals, demanding a Turkish country code and no other and in a mandatory field. And the same software was used at whichever airport around the world. Here's an international airline whose software designers didn't imagine that passengers might not have Turkish phone numbers?

Needless to say, the 5 or 6 self check-in terminals were hardly used. Meanwhile the human check-in counters had horrible queues.

I hope they have realised their mistake and corrected it by now.

 

[Olddaddy]

On 1/29/2025 at 1:17 AM, bkkmfj2648 said:

Day 27 (24 January 2025)

Today I have my FIRST experience getting my tourist visa extended at the main Cebu immigration office, as my initial 30 day tourist granted to me at the airport is set to expire.  Here is what I did:

1.       Watch this short 3 minute YouTube video of a guy who recently extended his tourist visa in Cebu:  

 

2.       Take Grab car (or any other suitable transportation to the GMall (aka Gaisano Malls)) and go to the 2^nd floor, and you will see the Bureau of Immigration (BI) office.  This BI office opens at 9am – even though the mall does not open until 10am.  You just tell the security guard that you need to enter the mall to go to immigration and they will let you in.  When you get off of the escalator you will see the BI office off in the distance – ignore the left side of the BI office – as that is the exit side and walk to the extreme right side so that you are in front of the Information Desk.  If you approach the office on the left side, you may encounter some opportunists (fixers), who want to help you for a fee, and will ask you to give them your passport.  I strongly suggest that you don’t do this.

3.       The Information Desk will give you an Extension of Temporary Visitor’s Visa form for you to complete over at one of the sit down areas that are nearby in the mall.  You will need your own pen.

If you want to see the form in advance, here is a direct link to the BI web page – valid as of 28-Jan-2025:  https://immigration.gov.ph/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/IRD04.QF_.004-CGAF-FOR-EXTENSION-OF-STAY-OF-TEMPORARY-VISITORS-VISA-1.pdf

Note that on the application form in the Contact Information section it asked for a Mobile Number in the Philippines, which I did not have, as I bought the Airalo eSIM, which is a data only plan without a phone number.  So, I left this part of the form blank and the immigration people did not make a fuss or even ask any questions.

Note that the form will also ask you if you desire “Express” service – click this check box if you want your updated tourist visa within a couple of hours instead of some days later.

1.       Return to the Information Counter and show the BI person your completed form and passport.  He will stamp the extension form if all is good and tell you to go to the Assessment Counter where they calculate how much you need to pay and they will also take your passport and extension form from you and put it into their work queue.

2.       With the receipt given to you by the Assessment Counter you then need to proceed to the Cashier window to pay the fees – see below for fee calculations.

3.       You now wait for your name to be called so that you can then go to the Releasing window to pickup your passport and sign a register book that you are claiming your passport.

Note that you will not receive an additional stamp in your passport but instead an important piece of paper, “Official Receipt”, which now has printed:  VISA VALID UNTIL :  XX XXX XXXX    KEEP this document in your passport in the same page as the tourist visa stamp that you received at the airport.  Note that this first extension only gives you an additional 29 days, whereas, the original entry tourist visa that you obtained at the airport gave you 30 days.

I performed all of the above steps and I was in and out of immigration in just 1 hour and 20 minutes – not bad for someone doing it all by themselves.  Back in Jomtien, this would be a nightmare and that is why I always use an agent in Thailand to streamline as much as is possible when I need to deal with Thai immigration.

So, I left the BI office as a happy camper.

Ate lunch again at the Ayala mall and then returned to my room.  Now I was feeling horny so I hired a sexy macho straight guy for a 2 hands massage.  I should have known that trouble was brewing when he would not remove his underwear.  His massage was excellent as well as his edging skills.  I was very happy.  But, he became angry when it came time to pay him, as we agreed to the standard 3.000 pesos and I showed him in the app our chat transcript.  He became even more angry and insisted that I pay him 7.000 pesos because I touched his nipples during the massage.  He raised his voice and then I raised my voice and I showed him my pants pockets which only had another 1,200 pesos in random banknotes that he begrudgingly accepted as I showed him the door.  No violence occurred – as I felt that it was definitely heading that way – but the good news is that they cannot enter the condo complex without giving up their National ID card – so I would have ran downstairs to security should the situation have escalated further.  What is weird is that during the massage this guy was chatting and laughing non stop and it felt like the beginnings of a new friendship.  I would have definitely rehired him as he was near excellent in his massage and edging skills.  So, I just don’t understand this Dr. Jeckell and Mr. Hyde bad transformative behavior. 

Any ideas ?

This is day 26 and only my 2^nd bad encounter out of around 13 encounters to date.

 

Day 27 (24 January 2025) concluded.

 

This is the second guy you have had trouble with 

I'm wondering if your making it clear what you want to do with them 

[bkkmfj2648]

1 hour ago, Olddaddy said:

I'm wondering if your making it clear what you want to do with them

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.

[bkkmfj2648]

4 hours ago, macaroni21 said:

I see this quite often, and in many countries. It's a problem of software design, but it's so basic an issue that it's amazing how unaware software engineers are that this is an issue.

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.

 

[Olddaddy]

2 hours ago, bkkmfj2648 said:

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.

Actually it just doesn't happen with "moneyboys,

I advertised for a handyman on the app Airtasker the other day it's a bit like Uber only it's handymen 

You pay the app before they arrive and they pay him 

Once he arrived he starts telling me Airtasker take out a 30% fee and was wondering if I could make up for it with cash ,then got angry so i told him to P off 

 

[macaroni21]

Haha, I am reminded of a Grab ride from my hotel to Suvarnabhumi. Nowadays the Grabcar can be a regular taxi taking bookings from Grab, and that's what I got.

5 minutes into the ride, the driver turned around and asked me whether I wanted to go via the tollway. The implied ask was for me to pay the rolls.

I simply reminded him "I booked you through Grab and I pay Grab."

He asked again, "tollway?"

I responded something about how Grab would want him to take the shortest and fastest route. For added measure, I said that Grab has a feedback mechanism though I don't think he understood those words. Nonetheless he understood my tone of voice.

He took the tollway and paid.

I know that Grab can add the toll charges to the final bill, but I also know that customers have been scammed by paying the driver for the tolls and then finding the toll charges added to the final bill too.

 

 

[10tazione]

17 hours ago, bkkmfj2648 said:

 

 

 

 

When I saw these pictures, I immediately thought, of the 3 locations, this is the one I would choose!

Thank you for your amazing report!

If you have time, go canyoneering to the Kawasan falls, the scenery is truly amazing! 

[bkkmfj2648]

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 4^th floor bridge is ample with plenty of loungers, showers, bathroom and attendant. There are also tennis courts on the 4^th 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.

 

[bkkmfj2648]

On 1/30/2025 at 11:02 PM, bkkmfj2648 said:

Do you remember the process to get them ?

via internet? 

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

 

[12is12]

Yes

I purchased mine 3 days before, relieved that the sale wasn't over. 

At the event itself I saw that not all tickets had been sold.

[floridarob]

23 hours ago, bkkmfj2648 said:

Unfortunately, I am not aware of any such safeguard mechanism here in Cebu.

Maybe somewhere in here??

https://peoplelikeus.activeboard.com/

[bkkmfj2648]

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 6^th 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 4^th 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 5^th 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.

[Olddaddy]

Thankyou I look forward to the updates 

Are you planning on going over to Dumaguete?

They apparently call it "Dramagette"because of the expats fighting each other