Filed under: BOOK, Buhay OFW, CALIFORNIA, HUMOR, My Life, TRAVELER'S TALES, TRAVELS
my book came out last week. hooray! read what my friends and relatives have to say about it:
i miss singapore. the four years jet and i spent there was one of the happiest times in our lives. it was there that we met lovely people who became close friends. it also gave us the security and comfort that i have not experienced anywhere else.
yes, i must admit that there are people there who have body odor that will make your nose bleed but so what. i love singapore – i love its people, i love its food , i love everything about it. i’d love to move back there again someday.
thank you singapore. i’ll see you again, i’m sure.
one thing good about company conferences is you get to meet old friends. most of my old colleagues in asia-pacific are here with me this week. it's nice seeing them again – when i look at their faces, shake their hands and get up to speed on all the gossip, i am reminded of all the great things we left behind when we were still based on the other side of the big pond.
Filed under: Buhay OFW, INDONESIA, MANILA, My Life, OFW, PHILIPPINES, SOUTH EAST ASIA, TRAVELER'S TALES, TRAVELS
jakarta, indonesia reminds me so much of manila. it almost has the same feel. it has the same sad sorry old houses on one side of the street and beautiful new buildings on the other. i could swear that the roads too have the same number of potholes. replace the many mosques with churches and you can't tell the difference. the people look the same – brown skinned, always smiling faces. we speak differently but we share many common words. some have different meanings or are pronounced differently but most of the common words mean the same. it's as if the indonesians and filipinos have been separated at birth and allowed to grow individually that eventually they ended up looking the same and yet somehow different.
this month marks my fifth year out of the philippines. i don't miss it really. in fact, i miss singapore more that i miss my home country. why is that? perhaps i am sick and tired of the politics. sick of the heat and the humidity. sick of the dust. sick of the traffic. sick of the corruption. i know this will change someday. but for now, i am loving sunny southern california.
my wife and i knew early on that we won't be able to have any kids. it was going to be the two of us together till death do us part and this was just as well. this made us mobile enough to move anywhere with ease. it was perfect for a life based overseas. which is why when the opportunity came for us to live abroad, we immediately took the chance and moved out. we haven't looked back ever since. it has been five years already and what a great trip it has been.
i’ve been on the road almost all my adult life. i’ve been to all the right places travelling for all the wrong reasons. yes “ive been to georgia and california and anywhere i could run” as the line of that most hated song goes. i’ve done it by bus, boat, plane, jeepney, truck, car, motorcycle and everything in between. i am an engineer and because of work, i’ve been hopping from one island after another all these 18 years. it’s been a rich experience – i’ve met so many people, seen so many things and been to many places that i would otherwise not have experienced had i done something else. well, i could have been a sailor and maybe travelled even more but i digress.
i am an accidental tourist.
