I’m about ten days into this trip. Here are a few observations thus far.
Getting a visa extension to stay here was easy. The hardest part was the demand that payment be made in cash. The cost was just north of 4,000 pesos ($66). I needed to complete a form, pay a fee, and then get the document processed. Your US passport gets you a 30 day stay. Processing the extension gets you an additional 29 days for total of 59 days. If you wish to stay longer, show up about a week before expiration and apply again. I don’t know what the next fee will be but for now let’s assume another 4K.
I guess the See’s two-pound box of mixed nuts was a hit. I gave it to my girl’s sister and never saw it again. We are still working on the almonds coated in dark chocolate. I would guess it weighed in at just over a pound. It was hand packed at the See’s outlet in Spokane. By the way, the Spokane location is sketchy and should only be visited during daylight hours.
The cookies from the Gathering Place in Bonner’s Ferry are just about gone. Those poor things—along with the See’s candy—survived the trip as part of my carry-on luggage.
Some of the dining places we have visited so far have been great.
Sunday night, we went to a place with dugout seating areas surrounded by Koi ponds. The place was covered by a metal structure, and we were quite comfortable during the intense thundershower that drenched the area during dinner.
OK, except for when the Koi decided to splash us at random times. The food was good and it was nice to be joined by pastor and his wife.
My second Wednesday here, we went to a restaurant near the ferry station that goes to the neighboring island of Bohol. I had visited this area during my last trip here but never went all the way to the end of the pier to notice the restaurant. The seating was covered but outdoors.
It had a nice view of the water’s edge. It was nicer than the Koi place, except for the fact that they were playing a happy birthday song very loudly and way too often on the sound system.
We even found two Gordon Ramsey restaurants here. The prices were reasonable and my reviews will be following in later blog posts.
My girl’s family is having a gathering in our honor in a few days. I bought a bottle of sparkling cider (ok, apple juice) to see if it might be fun to have on hand. I don’t think anybody has tried it before. I plan on introducing it to her in the next few days. The other reason I think nobody here drinks it is because it was on the bottom shelf in the grocery store and there were only two bottles in stock.
Apple cider update: warm apple cider, that arguably was a Martinelli’s knockoff, just didn’t cut it as a beverage option for the family gathering. This might be a case of refrigeration mattering but it was a nice try.
Today we opened the laundry that we picked up yesterday. It was washed by a different laundromat than last year. It is located within walking distance of her apartment. The place seemed well maintained and was not busy. The clothing was returned to us clean and neatly folded. Even my delicate clothing—which is what much of my stuff is these days—was in good shape.
Something else that I’m trying on this trip is using two cell phones. I tried installing an e-sim in my phone on my last trip but the phone only allows one sim at a time to be active. The results were most unsatisfactory. This trip I brought my old cell phone to use as a wi-fi hotspot. I bought a sim card for the old phone and prepaid for data. Now I have a local phone number if I need it and my text messages on my regular (US based phone) work 24/7. The one drawback is that cell phone calls only seem to work while on a hotel wi-fi system. This feature needs more testing to see if I can figure out the limitations of calling via IP.
After church yesterday we went to Shakey’s Pizza. Nope, not the same as the pizza of my youth. They don’t have honest-to-goodness tomato sauce here and the “cheese” is not really a dairy product—heck most does even require refrigeration here.
This trip, I haven’t had to drive … yet. Driving here is very different. Most vehicles are motorcycles, many with sidecars that can carry four or five people. There is also a lot of bicycle and pedestrian traffic. Many vehicles driving at night have no or very poor lighting; this also includes trucks. Imagine oncoming traffic with no lights and trying to pass people in narrow streets. To further stir things up, nobody stops at stop signs because they mean something different here, and it’s not stopping. Oh, you come up to a traffic light with no power, in our country we are required to treat such a light as a four-way stop, but not here. Folks here treat a light outage as a regular intersection, if you are thinking survival of the fittest and take your life into your hands, then you are on the right track. I’ve read that driving here is considered the worst place on the planet. I can’t say if that’s true but it might be.
I’m finishing this post at a place called “Tom N Tom’s Coffee.” My girl has two activities this week related to Attorney Mario and his ongoing work for us. More news about this in a month or so.
Oh, my staff in Elk Grove and north Idaho are enjoying their reprieve from having to produce content for the blog while I’m away. We are monitoring the upcoming election. Personally, I’m most interested in the Texas Senate race and Idaho’s Prop 1.
I’m gonna close this post and get started on my review of Gordon Ramsey’s Street Burger. Lot’s of photos incoming on that one.
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