Holidays on Boracay

During the passed week, I spent my first ever vacation in the Philippines. I had decided to go to the primary holiday destination: The island Boracay.
I flew with Air PhilExpress in a small Q300 airplane with a delay of about 1hr to Caticlan, a small airport very near from Boracay.

The runway of the airport Caticlan is very short. The plane was litterally coming to a halt on the last meter of the runway. But aside of that, the flight was nice and short (approx. 1 hr). And the new terminal 3 of the NAIA airport is much more convenient than the old terminals 1 & 2. And easier to reach by car.
Funny: While waiting at the terminal in Manila, the public announcements were so loud that they could no way be understood. It was hurting the ears. On the website of the NAIA airport, I found a phone number on which NAIA airport asked to receive suggestions and feedback by text message. So I sent them a message about the volume of the announcements at that gate, and promptly they replied that they have forwarded the note to the officer in charge. Wow.

On Boracay, I stayed 4 nights at the Hotel Red Coconut Beach. It is right in the middle of everything, especially of the mile-long white beach.

Away of any car/motorbike traffic. But this does not mean that it is more quiet! Until midnight or 1 a.m. the music from the beach and from the bar make sure that you don't feel like sleeping. But who comes to Boracay for sleepeing anyways, right...!?

First I had a room straight next to the pool. After the first night (and the loud music at night) I could switch to a more quiet (and larger) room on level 3.
The hotel is a good value for it's price. And the staff is doing a great job. And the location is very good. However, the rooms and the building are getting old and are not that well maintained I find. But clean they were. I can recommend the hotel to fellow travellers. However, you should not expect a four star hotel, despite it being advertised on www.booking.com as a four star.

Along the beach promenade, there are hundreds of bars, restaurants, hotels and stalls.

The water is clean, and has a perfect temperature. Sometimes, there are some green algae which seem to disturb the perfect look of the beach. I read about that. Those algae seem to appear every year right during the peak tourist season. However, I did not find them disturbing. Probably they have already mostly vanished by then.

The first day it was perfect weather. The following three days a strong breeze came up and heavy clouds brought a rain shower from time to time. I had to learn once more that you can get sun-burnt despite the sun not beeing seen.

The second night I met this couple in a bar, Denis from France, Chloe from South Korea. They just had their engagement on the same day. As they saw me sitting there on my own, they asked me to join them. They were already with 4 lively Filipinas which they met earlier. We had such a fantastic night all together!

On the second day I went for a tour with the glass bottom boat. This is a picture I took on the tricycle on the way to the pier.

This was on the glass bottom boat.

At the end of the tour, we even came across a rock which is inhabited by a tribe of monkeys. They seem to be used to be fed by those tours, as they were not too much afraid of the crew member swimming towards them to feed them.

Now I am back at home already.

I hope my membership application at the Makati Sports Club will be admitted, so I can play Tennis there soon.

About 2 weeks ago, I met Daniel in the gym of my condo. I learnt that he is German and used to live in Zurich before coming to the Philippines. He was sent here by Swissport, a Swiss company, too. And he moved in during January, too. That's the first neighbour I am getting to know in my building.

Avaloq training finally over

The Avaloq training of the newest batch of trainees is finally over. I am glad as this gives me back some flexibility on how to spend my working time on other areas. I hope I can finally travel a bit and the the Philippines, as I have never ever seen anything outside of the city of metro Manila yet.

I have finally got my holidays granted: 1 week end of May and 2 weeks beginning of August. In August I will most likely visit home (Switzerland) for 10 days or so.

Had a good night out with the Sofgen staff and Alain and the two Martins. We have been to the Palladium club which is at the basement of the New World Hotel. Quite a chic club I have to say. As we came directly from a laser tagging game (which was a lot of fun), we were not among the best dressed crowd though. But probably among the best drinking crowd, I'm sure!
I always know I had too much alcohol when I wake up next morning and the room light is still on.

Working visa (9G visa) aquisition: Nothing new there. It is so complicated and requires so many documents that the process is still ongoing. 5 months after having set foot on these grounds.

The internet connection at the office still is slow (ping=500ms, 5% packet loss). Especially the Citrix connection to Switzerland. Hopes are high that this is going to be substantially improved during the next few months.

Recently we had about 2-3 heavy rainfalls. However, the rain drops are warm here, so the rain doesn't feel that bad. And it usually lasts not that long. But it's heavier than in Europe. I took the following video while enjoying food at the shopping mall Greenbelt.

My new house helper has started work. And she is doing a very good job. Twice a week, 4-5 hours each time. Even cleaning the door knobs and tidy up inside the cabinets!

I read in the news that the Philippines and China are still seriously arguing about some islands offcoast of the Manila Bay.  There was even a rumor that China would be preparing for a military assault on those grounds. Which China denies, of course.

Finally got my HD TV receiver box yesterday. While checking it out, I noticed that the HD versions of the Discovery Channel and the National Geographic Channel are scrambled. Despite of having the most expensive channel package with Sky company. I don't understand. I will have to catch up on that later...

Recently I started playing a new (actually it's old, but I newly started playing it) game: Minecraft. Everyone who has played with LEGO will love it. It's marvellous. Check out the unofficial trailer:

I am still trying to fight off all those advertisement mails I receive, as I have the mail of my old mail address being forwarded to the Philippines. It just doesn't make sense to receive those ads on the other side of the planet....

With Kitchie, I have ordered food delivery once or twice. Look how many sauce containers they sent us for only two quesadillas:

I am glad to have Alain and his family here. It's good to have someone with a similar background, same language, and even doing the same experiences as a fresh expat. See all of us on this picture:

The big gym question

I decided I need to do more exercise. Now the big question is, whether I shall stock up the (shared) gym of my condo by sponsoring them a weight machine (there is currently none) or whether I shall get a yearly membership at a public gym.

So far, I have checked out the price for a good weight machine for my condo's gym:

How much a yearly gym membership would cost, is still unknown. The gym I plan to go (Fitness First) publishes no membership prices on the web unfortunately.

What do you think how I should decide? Participate the vote...

Back from Zurich and from Thailand

The last month was not planned like this:
First I had to travel to Zurich for 3 weeks to support my previous migration project for a local bank in Zurich. I stayed in a very small hotel room (11 sqm):

Additionally, the hotel had no gym or other facilities which would be convenient for a 20-days-stay. The laundry was priced with 12 USD for 1 T-shirt! For WIFI on the room they asked for 350 USD. I realised I was back to Zurich again....
But it also had the bright sides of course. Here my last lunch break at work with some office mates:

After those 3 weeks I was lucky enough to spend 1 week of vacation sailing around Phuket with my father, Tess and Jörg. I am going to publish the video clip as soon as I have edited it.

When arriving back at the international airport of Manila, I had no Filipino Pesos with me (as our money got stolen in Phuket). No problem I thought: Just use an ATM at the airport Manila to get some cash. There were 5 ATMs at the airport. But none of them worked for me:
Two of them were offline.
One of them did not accept any international cards (I have no local card yet as the visa application is somewhat slow here).
Two of them were out of cash.
It was not possible to get some cash at the international airport. Can happen...
I had to ask the taxi driver to borrow me some cash so I could at least pay for the tollway fee.

Back to Manila, the biggest change is: Alain (another expat from Switzerland) and his family have arrived! Welcome Alain & family! I am looking forward to have another pal here to talk to and to hang out.
Of course we all had to rush out and celebrate Alain's arrival with a 10 cent soft ice from 7-eleven in the flavor of chocolate and cheese (yes: cheese!):

Today I made walk at 30 degrees air temperature to discover my north neighbourhood. That's where I took this picture:

That was a good way to digest my anger after I got a bill from the Post office to pay the import taxes of USD 90 for a book purchased at Amazon worth only USD 70! I don't know how the Philippines can keep up such a high import taxation... That is really a drawback.