A Dutchman living in the Philippines

Flores de Mayo

2011-05-16T14:00:00.000+02:00

Sta. Barbara, Philippines, 15 May, 2011

Yesterday, Sunday, I was driving from a shopping mall in Dagupan to my house in Sta. Barbara and encountered on the highway a procession in barangay Tuliao.

I parked on the road shoulder and made the below pictures.

Later my sister in law told me that this is done in many cities / barangays as a celebration of the new season, the season of flowers (of May) called "Flores de Mayo". It is like we have in the Netherlands, called "Bloemen corso", but I haven't seen a lot of flowers, but lovely girls and women in nice dresses.

See the pictures.

Of course a cross in front, this is Philippines!

Little girls first ...

... some more and then ...

... the women ...

... and more and more ..

... finally the ....

... Queen it self, even with some flowers.

.

LK

Importing Household goods and Personal effects

2011-05-08T01:00:00.050+02:00

Sta. Barbara, Philippines, 8 May, 2011

It took me quite some (Internet) research to find out which procedures apply and what the importing tax rates are to import my personal stuff into the Philippines.

In this blog you find my experiences, some info and a serie of video shoots of the physical transport.

A brief video impression is attached at the end of this blog.

By October 2010 the picture was clear, however that time I had not all procedural details available, as there is relatively few info on the Internet. The most valuable info I found was from a Dutch/Filipino couple who returned to the Philippines from the Netherlands, so basically the same starting position as we had.

Most important what I discovered in my research was that in our case only exemption of importing tax was allowed if I had my 13-A visa, which is for permanent residents, married to a Filipino.

Returning residents (without a 13-A visa or Filipino) are exempted for only 10.000 PHP, but have to pay 50% import tax and 10% VAT. So if the value of your goods is 50.000 Euro, you will pay 30.000 Euro to the Department of Finance or DOF. If this were the case, I would of course never import my personal stuff, but sell it in my home country and buy new stuff here.

There are some important conditions to the regulations for import tax exemption:

The goods must be in your possession for more than 6 months before shipment;
Machinery and motorized vehicles are excluded from exemption;
You need a legalized document (affidavit) stating that all goods are yours;
The exemption can only be granted once in a lifetime;
Shipment must arrive in the Philippines within 60 days from shipper's arrival.

Note: a very useful summary of the procedures and conditions is the following document of IAM movers.

So a careful planning was required. The steps taken were the following:

Deciding how to do the physical transport, e.g. renting a container or buying or just outsource the whole operation, I choose finally to do the latter September 2010, as it is not much more expensive and it saved me a lot of headaches.
Making an overall planning to make sure the container will arrive before the rainy season starts (May/June), as in our case a container carrying truck cannot enter our lot when the soil is sucked with water.
Starting a bidding process for (door-to-door or any other) transport and selecting the preferred company/ies (I choose Meta Top movers), which I did from October 2010 to January 2011.
Applying for a 13-A visa (from October to January 2011, see my blog 13-A visa).
If required travel to your home country to organize the next 3 points (February to March 2011)
Allow the removal company to visit your storage location (February 2011), and ...
make an inventory list of all individual to be packed collies (boxes and parcels).
Join the company who is doing the packing and adjust the inventory list as required and receive the Bill of Lading when the container is closed and sealed.
Use the inventory list as an attachment to the Affidavit of ownership and let it legalize in the Philippines embassy in your home country (March 2011).
Return to your destination (Philippines) and wait for your shipment to arrive (May to April 2011) and contact the agent (Pak-Prime in my case) who is handling the container from the arrival port, contacts customs and organizing land transport, including unloading and returning the container.
Prepare all papers for the Department of Finance to get your exemption from import tax, which was done by my local agent in Manila (May 2011), I had no headaches at all, only one visit to them to deliver my passport, 13-A visa I-card and Affidavit of ownership.
Wait for delivery of the container and unpacking, which was finally scheduled for 3 May 2011.

Of course the whole process wasn't perfect, most notably are the following mistakes/events:

My packing list/inventory was not complete (some items were not on the list and had no number) and I had a gap in the numbering, which was confusing the receiving agent, and perhaps also for DOF.
My packing list was not very descriptive (to prevent questions from customs/DOF), so after receiving the goods, I could not very well localize specific items I wanted to retrieve from the piles of boxes.
There was some miscommunication on the exact delivery address between parties, as a result the costs were higher than fixed price offered to me (I don't know who took finally the extra costs).
The shipping company informed the receiving agent that the ETA was in May and not 15 April as was my information. Hence the agent had to organize the whole process last minute when the container indeed arrived April 15.
The arrival of the container in Manila port was on Friday 15 April, just before Holy week, which has only three working days. Time was limited to process the papers with DOF. So the container could at the earliest be transported the first week after Holy week if a truck was available and processing/inspecting of the container went smooth. However processing with DOF took some more time and non-availability of trucks led to a delay of 2 weeks.
ETA of the container in my place was scheduled for 10 am, but due to a broken truck, finally the truck arrived 4.30 pm, unloading was completed by 7 p.m.

It's a big relieve since the whole process is completed, after more than 5 months of planning and acting. The parties I dealt with, primarily Top Movers and Prime-Pak, did a good job and I can recommend them to everyone who intends to do the similar.

LK

Watch below the video shots I have taken:

A) Nijmegen, the Netherlands, 17 March 2011

1. Positioning the container near to the storage box

2. Loading the container

3. Inside the storage box all loose items are packaged for sea transport

4. Closing the container

5. Sealing the container

6. Transport starts from Nijmegen to Sta. Barbara

B) Seven weeks later, Sta. Barbara, the Philippines, 3 May 2011

1. Container moving through the corn fields

2. Arrival at the gate

3. Backwards through the gate

5. Passing the house and lifting the air cables

6. A little help from my workers to fill a hole

7. Final position is encountered, the driver signals this event

8. Opening the container, all Filipino are anxious watching to see what this Americano is bringing home

9. Unloading is ongoing until darkness sets in

Lighter refiller

2011-04-24T13:55:00.000+02:00

Sta. Barbara, Philippines, 24 April, 2011 LK

It was by accident that I witnessed a brief encounter of one of my workers, doing something along the road and two guys on a motorbike selling something.

When I looked for the second time I saw what happened. The guys had a gas bottle and refilled the lighter of my worker. It cost him 10 peso, saves 50 peso as a new lighter may cost 60 peso or so.

I remember that they had a special sound announcing their arrival, as every street seller has its own sound.

LK

Fish pond

2011-03-26T05:39:00.000+01:00

Sta. Barbara, Philippines, 26 March, 2011

Last weekend we had a rather strange activity on our premises. I was not in favor of it, but for the Filipino living with me - family and friends - it was a normal yearly event.

A few weeks earlier I took this picture

The issue was that, due to the long dry period since December last year, the fish pond was drying out. I estimate that we had only 50 to 70 cm water in the pond left. The water of course is warming up significantly and the fish would die if we wouldn't do anything. My solution was to add water with our pump to save the fish.

The water is pumped out and they are catching the fish with a net and manually

The Filipino solution however was to suck out the water with the pump, catch all the fish, eat the big ones and keep the small ones alive in a little tank and put them back later. It gave us the possibility of course to clean up the pond from all the mesh, like bottles, can's car tire and a lot of bamboo trunks.

Next day they will cleanup the pond and remove all the trash

To be cleaned from the mud, most of the fish is cat fish and tilapia

After cleaning the fish, they are put in the big gallon

A big catfish cleaned and put back in the gallon

Spouse cleaning the tilapia

Telapia

Janitor fish, looks like cat fish

Fresh water shell or clams, we had many buckets of it

Spouse with carp

The Filipino won of course and off they went. See the brief picture show. Apart from fish - I have seen at least 5 different species - it turned out that we had also a lot of living shells, which look like mussel. They assured me that the fish and shells will return, as the eggs are buried in the mud and if we have a flood again, river fish will be captured in the pond as well.

The end of the day we had a small party with the helpers/guards barbecuing some of the fish.

One of the guards had a painful hand and arm, which was caused by a toxic infection from a catfish they told me, which lasted the day and night. So he didn't really enjoy the BBQ.

LK

Animal farm (2)

2011-02-06T04:37:00.000+01:00

Sta. Barbara, Philippines, 6 February, 2010

Last two weeks our animal farm is extend with some more dogs.

First we got Anakin from the largest pet market in Manila (Sta. Cruz) and then a week later we got Padme from a pet shop in Nepo mall, Dagupan city. They are from the Shih Tzu breed from Taiwan or China. I don't see the difference between them, so I don't know who is who. See the picture and find the differences.

When we visited the pet shop again in Nepo mall last week for pet shampoo, they suddenly had two German Shepards for sale. As I planned already to get one the coming months as my personal dog and guard, I couldn't resist the wish to buy one of them. Finally I choose for the male puppy. He is 2 months old and I call him Xander, which means the "protector".
His feed are so big, it will become a real big dog. He is already as big as "kring kring" who is now almost 4 months old.

Last but not least our chicken is now breeding 10 eggs, so in a couple of weeks, we probably have 10 more chickens, 17 in total by then.

LK

13-A visa

2011-01-29T16:17:00.003+01:00

Sta. Barbara, Philippines, 29 January, 2011

Yesterday, 28 January 2011, I got my 13-A visa.
Read here how it started and what happened until I got it.

Wednesday, 17 November, we went to Manila with the whole family to bring my parents- and sister in law to the airport. They went to the USA. My sister is living there with her husband and her parents got a permanent stay visa to live there as well permanently. They are almost 70 and I was doubting they liked to do it, but it seems they do. It also seems that the US government will pay them a kind of pension. Much more generous than the the Dutch government is.

The same day we went to the Bureau of Immigration (BI) in Intramuros, old Manila, which is Spanish meaning: "between the walls". Indeed it is a special and old part of Manila, but it needs a lot of maintenance and apparently the government is not spending a peso to it.

Entrance to Intramuros is still guarded and closed at night.

The procedure was recently simplified in terms of documents you need. Now it is only a request letter (from your Filipino wife), an application form, a copy of your latest passport and entrance visa and true copies from the NSO (National Statistics Office) regarding the marriage to a Filipino/a and his/her birth certificate.
So no medical exam and other irrelevant documents are required anymore.

It would take a month to process and it gives many advantages to foreigners, who are staying here permanently. My main reason to do it now was that it gives you the right to import your household duty free.

If your Filipino wife/spouse wants to import the household, it is a balik-bayan import, which exempts you only the first 10.000 pesos from your 50% import tax. I guess that the value of our household stuff is between 50.00 and 100.00 euro (according to my household insurance). So even when it is only 50.000 euro, that would mean 25.000 euro import tax. Balik-Bayan status would reduce this amount with 166 euro only, whilst a 13-A visa exempts the full amount.

Further, with a 13-A visa (and affiliated ACR-I card) you can also open a bank account, get a Filipino driving license and only once a year you have to report your stay.

Indeed the filing process was simple, it took us about 1.5 hours. When I payed the application fee of 2.520 peso, the lady at the desk told me that we were expected for a hearing next week Monday, 10.00 am. The only thing to bring was the passport.

Next Monday morning 3.00 am we left by bus to Manila and arrived ca. 7.00 am. My sister in law, who is living in Manila, would pick us up at the bus station to bring us to BI again. First trip was by jeepney. Next was the mass transport rail. This was awful as it was so crowded on the platform and in the trains. It is very bad and performance compared to Hong Kong or Bangkok we were used to live before. This was once and we will never again use this commuter train.

Next was a kind of tricycle, but in fact a frame with 3 wheels and an engine as is used for farming vehicles/applications like pumps. The clutch is a pedal that loosens the belt so the engine can freewheel while waiting for traffic on a crossing. It has no gear box.

We arrived around 8.00 am, so had to wait 2 hours for the hearing. There was no description on the BI website or other info passed to me what really the purpose was. I expected an interview of 30 minutes and then back home.

However, when we entered the room of the attorney who would do the interview, he was flabbergasted about my clothing. Short pants, open shoes and a T-shirt. He could not do the hearing under these circumstances and asked me if this was normal in Europe for a hearing. I didn't answer, but realized that we had a serious problem and apologized first and then asked him to allow me to come back later same day, as he was suggesting already that the hearing would be repeated on Wednesday. Reluctantly he agreed.

We went to the Robinson mall near by. It took us 2 hours and more than 3000 pesos to buy a new outfit: shoes, long black pants, shirt with long sleeves and a neck-tie. On top of this come the cost of the cloths my wife and sister in law bought, the restaurant the 3 of us two times and 2 bus tickets back and fourth to the province, plus 1000 pesos for my sister's help, so in total costs were more than 6000 pesos for the application issuing only.

At 1.30 pm we were allowed to enter his office again. I looked like a director or the president himself and he was flabbergasted again, but now in the positive sense. No questions left, some small social talk, we all signed the document and before 2.00 pm were finished. He would call me personally when the papers are ready for pick-up in a month time at maximum, which I guess would be early January. He didn't do it of course.

As we were never updated on the status of the procedure, I decided to go to BI personally to find out. Calling them didn't work really, even when I contacted the attorney - we met during the application filing - didn't understand me or remembered me. Yesterday, 28 January 2011 we went again to Manila.

We woke up 2.00 am and departed 3.00 am to arrive at my sister in law in Manila at 6.30 am. This time we took our car/van, my brother in law driving us. From there (Caloocan) we (wife, 2 brother in laws, sister in law and nephew) went to to Intramurus to the Bureau of Immigration. I wanted coffee and a croissant in Starbucks, they went as usually to Jollibee for their breakfast.

After breakfast we were just in time in BI at 7.15 am to see the employees coming in and to determine that the attorneys are not the first ones to start working. We were waiting for one of them as he could give me the status of my visa application process. I was surprised that they could not check the status at the inquiry desk.

At 7.45 am an attorney's secretary, who was very helpfull to us before, told me that on 15 December 2010 my application was formally approved and ready for implementation. I had never received a mail by post or Internet or a text message that this was the case, although I had given them all the details to contact me.

So we could start same day the implementation. I Thought this would take maximum - as is explained in the instructions - one day and the cost would be 4.600 peso, according to the BI website. This is including the express lanes for visa and ACR I-card.

At 8.00 am the lady at desk #1 told me that you can also go for the double express lane for 5.600 peso. This would reduce the procedure to 4 hours. As we had more to do, I decided to go for this option.

Next we had to go to the HSBC bank Head Quarter in Makati to close an account, and due to traffic problems we were only back in BI at 1.00 pm. The papers should be ready by now. So far we had only processed the visa implementation.

The I-card implementation was yet to come. We had to go to another desk to pay for the ACR I-card fees, which was 2.708 peso.

Next was the finger print session (electronic and paper version), electronic photo and data collection for the I-card.

When this was completed they told us that we had to come back in a few weeks to pick-up the I-card. This was not as expected and I really was sick already from the fuzzy procedures, very noisy environment in BI which was at times like a busy market. The outlook that I had to come back here was not a pleasant one.

Happily, the lady at the desk we were dealing with for the I-card came from the same province as my wife and were we live now, Pangasinan in north Luzon. And that helps.

It turned out that a third express lane (XXX) was possible if we were willing to pay another amount (1000 peso). She could organise with some other employees a ame day delivery of the I-card. I was happy to do that and at 4.00 pm I got my Icard.

So the whole procedure involved the following of cost:

visa application
visa implementation
I-card implementation
travelling (3 times)
new cloth
food and family support for helping me
extra express lanes (under the table payments)

I estimate that it cost me 25.000 peso. This is excluding an airline ticket that I lost because of no-show as a result of the long procedure.

Anyway I am happy that it is done and I can prepare/start now the next steps.

Remark:

the amount of 25.000 peso (about 400 euro) is still far less than what I payed for my wife to get a 1 year permanent resident status in the Netherlands (MVV).

Animal Farm

2011-01-23T06:28:00.002+01:00

Sta. Barbara, Philippines, 23 January, 2010

Last weeks we have got some pets to enrich our live. Although our house is not yet finished, we keep them most of the time on our property.

The first one was a dog, called Kring-kring, it seems to be the sound of the telephone in Pilipino. The dog was brought by my brother in law, and originates from his sister in San Carlos, who could not raise the dog (time, money??). So now we have to do it.

Kring kring is about 2-3 months old

We got her just after Christmas

One month later, do you see the difference?

Next are the chickens. Now 2 weeks ago we got a small rooster and bought a bamboo cage.

I bought myself 4 chicks in the market, 20 peso each, but I should have negotiated, as you can buy them for a few peso if they are so small.

Last week a relative brought us 2 chickens and a rooster, quite large already.
The chicken on a rope was bitten by the dog of the neighbors and lost a lot of feathers, so we had to move them.

And yesterday I wanted to feed the chicken in the cage, but she escaped and flew away, so we have one less again. Stupid action of me, I really have to learn how to handle chickens.

The wound is at the left side, so is not visible here

Last but not least my wife came this morning back from the market and brought this little dog for 100 peso. Seems to be 4 weeks. Will see what kind of dog it will become.

No name yet

Don't think this was the last animal we will got. I expect that we might get also some gooses, ducks and goats, and I would like to have a horse, but cannot handle it. Maybe my sister can help me, she is an experienced horse rider.

Banana

2010-12-24T06:18:00.001+01:00

Sta. Barbara, Philippines, 23 December, 2010

Everyone knows the banana. Every supermarket in the world sells banana's. Nothing special. But ...

The messy banana tree

Not everyone recognizes the tree, so here it is.

As you can see it is not a nice tree and to be honest it is basically not a tree.

The stem is like an onion, it has a lot of soft layers, which can be peeled off. The big leaves look very messy, but are very useful for all kind of purposes in the kitchen as to pack food for cooking or to use as a table sheet.

The flower protected by grey leaves, the banana's are already harvested

Even more amazingly is the banana flower. It is a big, usually red organ, that is also used in the kitchen. In the Chinese and Philippine kitchen it is cooked as a vegetable. In the Thai kitchen it is served as a kind of salad with spicy dishes. It is easy to buy in the market in the Philippines.

I am not a specialist in this area, but believe that this flower is the reason that banana's have no seed. The seed is in the flower, a remarkable phenomenon.

We intend also to plant some banana trees - several different types and tastes - not in the garden, but in the back yard. Just to make it green and of course because of the banana's themselves.

LK

Jack fruit

2010-12-24T05:47:00.003+01:00

Sta. Barbara, Philippines, 23 December, 2010

Since I have now a bit more time to give attention to other topics then posts in Lolo's House B(uilding) LOG , I intend to report with brief blogs on local animals and plants that I encounter here. Also because we intend to plant fruit trees in our new garden soon.

This time I want to show you Jack fruit. This tree is growing in our garden for probably three years, grown from some seeds.

Each piece can weigh up to more than 30 kilo. It is the largest tree borne fruit in the world.

It looks like a durian, which I saw first time in Indonesia, but unless the durian, the jack fruit is not so irritating smelly. It seems the two are not related.

What amazes me in the garden - well it is not really a garden, but just a few meters between the house and the fence - that we have three such trees in a row, but only one bares fruit, the others not. May be it has to do with the fact that the fruit baring tree is next to the sink of the pump and gets most of the water.

This is an interesting tree for us to put in the garden as the tree grows fast, gives a lot of shadow and the fruit looks nice and can be used for all kind of desserts and even as a kind of vegetable.

LK

Dog for dinner

2010-11-20T15:12:00.001+01:00

Sta. Barbara, Philippines, 20 November, 2010

For those who are still doubting that they eat dog in the Philippines, I want to show you what I saw last week.

As they do with pigs, they clean the skin with a gaz burner.

One of our neighbors was preparing a dog they had killed and will be served later the same day at a party.

My wife was asked to try to taste the dog, which she did, and it seems to taste like a goat.

As we have here so many dogs, barking every evening/night, one more or less will not make a big difference.

LK

Owner (Jeep) sold

2010-10-24T09:58:00.000+02:00

Sta. Barbara, Philippines, 22 October, 2010

Today, more or less unexpectedly, my owner was sold.

We were discussing already for months whether to keep or sell our owner (jeep or jeepney), as we are not using it quite often and the technical status is not as it was before and should be. The LTO licence of 2009 was expiring this month as well.

The new owner of the owner (jeep)

A few month ago there was an interested buyer from San Carlos, but he finally he decided to not accept our latest asking price. A few weeks ago suddenly the owner of the property we were buying was interested and we had several negotiations and offered our lowest price, which was finally rejected again.

So when yesterday I heard we had another potential buyer, again from San Carlos, and I lowered the asking price a bit, but still on a reasonable level compared to what we paid 5 years ago, it seemed that the sale was close. Today my brother in law went to San Carlos to show the car and within an hour we got a call that the car was sold.

Bye bye owner

Selling something like a car or needs a "deed of sale" (original plus 5 copies), which they prepared before they came here to offer the money. My wife needed a "sedula" (a kind of residential certificate) for the deed of sale, however the city hall was closed because of the barangay captain's elections next Monday. Nevertheless the money and the car were delivered, processing of the deed of sale will be completed next week.

LK

Super Typhoon Juan (Megi)

2010-10-20T11:12:00.001+02:00

Sta. Barbara, Philippines, 20 October, 2010

Typhoon Juan (international name Megi), would be my first typhoon experience in the Philippines, as last year's (super) typhoon Pepeng I just missed with 1 day.

It was a disaster for us, as we were in the middle of building up our new site and fence. The small shed built by the workers to hide for the sun when taking a break and to bend the reinforcing steel would not last and the cement bags would be destroyed by the water, if we didn't take last minute measures. The financial damage is not very serious, but the mental damage and delays are there of course.

Luckily we had just moved our bahay kubo from the fish pond to the building site and put it on the highest point. Some people were sleeping in the bahay kubo, since we started a week ago, and they took the first measures when the typhoon has its landfall during the night. There was no damage at the bahay kubo. other than that the water reached finally until the floor.

My brother in law and a neighbor tried to get a truck to load the cement bags and tools and bring it to a safe place, but most roads were blocked already. They just found a farmer close by with a farming vehicle who wanted to help. All tools and small materials were moved into the bahay kubo.

When I arrived early morning, the water has risen already such that we couldn't return the same way with our jeep, as like last year the government had opened a dam in the river to prevent the river dikes to be damaged and break. The water that came through the dam flooded our barangay and our area in particular.

So I learned a lot in terms of how better and quicker to prepare for a typhoon and what levels to use for the garden, house and garage, when we start building.

See below a few pictures in chronological order.

Afternoon just before the expected land-fall that evening,
everything still okay but the weather is changing.

Next morning, the water level is rising.

Discussion on saving the cement and tools,
as it is expected water will rise further.

This is left of the shed, the cement is saved already

The water is at the highest level, just at the floor of the bahay kubo

We are leaving for lunch, walking on the barangay road,
in front of our property

This shows how deep the water is on the road,
the rice fields at the road are even 0.5 meter deeper

Hospital privacy

2010-10-02T12:34:00.000+02:00

Sta. Barbara, Philippines, 2 October, 2010

Early this week my family was on a trip to Manila for US visa. The same day my sister in law, who stayed home with my wife and her baby, got an increasing stomach ache from a spontaneous abortion the day before.

A lady from our barangay with hospital experience, as a former secretary from the barangay captain, was called and the plan was to visit the emergency department of a governmental hospital in the area.

We went around 10 am and she was hospitalized for a day treatment room in the genealogy department. It seems that it is now government policy - as part of the family planning policy - that all women should deliver their baby in hospital, so that was probably the reason that all rooms for 2-3 beds, where now occupied by 6-7 patients.

This meant not only more patients, but also shortage of doctors and a big crowd of family walking around. Visiting hours do not exist, at least not for this department.

It must have been between 3 and 4 pm, when some people in and the crowd before the room, next to it where my sister in law was, started panicking. A whole bunch of nurses were sitting at ease in the shadow some 20-30 meters away. Some of them became reluctantly active and walked to the particular room.

It turned out that one of the women in that room was starting to deliver her baby. There was no doctor around and the crowd of all other rooms, including all nurses - still boys and girls - who were relaxing in the shadow. I learned later that the doctor had said before that it would take still a couple of hours and hence she was not brought to the delivery room.

I was sitting quite close to the room, but could not see what was happening inside. My privacy principles told me not to do what the other people were doing. Nobody decided to close the door and shut the windows, so it was a free theater for the whole crowd. It seemed that also for most of the nurses this was a special happening they had't seen before. Apparently it is also not in their eduction system to protect patients and secure their privacy.

What I understood later, the whole affair lasted maybe 10 minutes, was that the baby during delivery almost fell on the ground, happily it didn't happen, but I heaven't heard the details. I am still not sure of their was a doctor in the room or she came too late.

While my sister in law was examined and had her last treatment around 6 pm, we still had to wait until 8 pm for the payment process to be completed, so after visiting Jollibee to buy some takeaway food, we were home 9 pm, just 30 minutes before the family returned from Manila.

LK

John Grisham

2010-10-02T04:58:00.000+02:00

Sta. Barbara, Philippines, 1st October, 2010

Since I read for the first time a book of John Grisham, early September this year, I bought another one just after I finished reading.
And now I have become a real addict to his legal thrillers, as you can see in my book index, which is still expanding.

Last week I bought again 6 books of him and I am sure in 2 or 3 months I will again buy the remaining books, as far as available in my bookstore in Dagupan, however other priorities the coming weeks will slow down my reading pace.

Interesting for me as a European reader is, apart from the plot, to get a better understanding of the US legal system, which is really one of a kind, even it is derived from British law.

Although I have no legal background, I do understand that it is much more complicated than at least the Dutch legal system.

Interesting as well is the educational aspect of the law system. In the US system you have the law school and the bar-exam to become a certified lawyer, while we have in the Netherlands a system based on a scientific education and next practicing and certifying in e.g. a law firm. Similar differences are with medical education.

An additional advantage of digging into US law system is that it helps me to understand the Philippines law system, which is quite close to the US, although in the Philippines there is no federal law system of course and religion plays a more important role than in the US law system.

LK

Flashback: My Car history

2010-09-19T08:12:00.004+02:00

Sta. Barbara, Philippines, 19 September 2010

Below is a summary of all cars I owned or used as a company car. I tried to recall the period that I used it, but this will not be accurate in all cases. I will have to gather info from family and friends to fill-in the details, so updates may follow. For more details click the brand/model (if available).

P.S. At the end I added other used motorized vehicles as well.

1968-1970: Ford Anglia, this car was purchased as to be used as the basis of a special DIY design car, but I didn't complete the project, my friend Ernst (later brother in law) completed the project years after.

1972-1973: Citroen 2CV, this was my first car as a student; I remember that once, after having consumed some alcohol, we decided in the middle of the night to drive to Amsterdam (2 hours) and have fun there. Actually the color was white.

19xx-19xx: Renault 4, I lived in Nijmegen, street?

19xx-19xx: Renault 6, don't remember the color but certainly not orange, I lived in Nijmegen, Malderburghtstraat?

19xx-19xx: Renault 16, I lived in Nijmegen, stree?

19xx-19xx: Citroen GSA, I lived where?

19xx-19xx: Simca 1100, I remember that I bought this car from the spouse of a PD in Molenhoek, they had a nice house near the railway bridge. I guess I lived then in Malden, Dille.

19xx-19xx: Alpha Romeo AlfaSud, I lived in Nijmegen, Wezenlaan??

19xx-19xx: Triumph Herald, I lived in Nijmegen, Wezenlaan??

1982-1986: Peugeot 305, I lived in Malden, Huikeling!!

1985-1989 Opel Omega A, my first company car, when I started to work for Philips in The Hague.

1989-1993: Fiat Croma, company car BSO Advies?. I remember that I misused the car due to my aggressive style of driving and the engine broke down. Happily the company payed for it, but we were not allowed anymore to order an Italian car.

1993-1997: Mazda 626, company car, BSO Advies?

2002-2010: Skoda Octavia, station wagon, company car Atos Origin, I ordered this car three times, from 2002-2005, 2005-2009, 2009-2010.

2005-today: Jeepney(owner), as new purchased in Urdaneta (Philippines), manufacured in Cavite, based on a Mazda diesel engine.

2008-today: Hyundai Starex SVX, purchased as new in Dau (Philippines), it is a repainted model from 2000. In Europe this model is called H-1 or H-200.

2010-today: BMW 316i Touring, second hand (built 2002) purchased in Haaksbergen (Netherlands) to house hunt in France.

Other motorized vehicles that I owned.

1965-1968: RAP, Dutch brand small motor bike, which I used the last period in high school.

2003-2009: Yamaha FJ1100, motor bike used for fun driving only. Because I was most of the time abroad, not used very often. I had to sell it again because of our emigration.

2010-present: new Suzuki motor bike 125cc, purchased in Dagupan, Philippines.

Returning to the Philippines!!

2010-08-30T07:38:00.005+02:00

Hengelo, Netherlands, 30 August, 2010

Well it was a difficult process to design our future again, discuss all alternatives, the pro's and con's and take a final decision whether to come back to the Philippines or not and start a new live in Europe, France.

My sister and spouse during a family gathering,
after we had taken our final decision

This is just to give you a brief view on the options, alternatives, pro's and con's. I am not talking about agreements, disagreements, emotions, family and other private issues that we had to review and evaluate.

I can tell you it was one of the most difficult decisions we had to make and I am still not sure if we did it well, but I don't see another option now.

Just to make a long story short, these are the most important reasons for going back to Asia.

Money: in Europe we have to pay many kinds of tax, and as a middle income man you don't get any compensations and in the Philippines no tax (except property tax) and no compensation as well; daily life is cheaper in Asia, especially services, fuel and local products.
Weather: I hate winters not only because of the low temperature, freezing, snow and dirt, the cost of heating, but also because of the many cloths you need; in Asia the cloths you need is minimal, no socks and shoes (I can't wear them since I had cellulites).
Culture: the way of living is so relaxed in Asia, while in Europe I always feel stressed, due to the many social and governmental rules that exist.
Elderly support: in Europe we have houses for the elderly and other services for the old people; I always have told myself and others that I never want to live in such circumstances when I am getting old; in Asia the family will take care and without any expensive (state) insurance, or you hire a care taker.
Living: it is relatively easy to develop your own living environment (house, lot), there are not many rules and you are the boss on your own property.
Investments: the last couple of years we have invested in the Philippines assuming that once we would live there, like a Jeepney, a car/family van and a motor bike, amongst other things.
No tax: and I mean not the financial aspect, but the hassle of keeping records, filling in the forms, and even more the sample checks they sometimes do, which is a financial risk and a lot of work, so this contributes to the relaxing way of living.

Of course there are also drawbacks, such as:

Family will be far away, especially for my mom and children not a preferred situation.
For having your own property you are dependent on your spouse and it is difficult to sell again.
No legal status in the Philippines, you are always a foreigner without the same rights as locals.
Availability of food and drinks in the Philippines is limited/expensive especially products like good wines, cheese and sugar-free products.
Noise is a general problem in Asia, I experienced it first in Indonesia years ago, then in Thailand and now also in the Philippines; in every shopping mall it is very noisy and even the country side has karaoke parties. Further, sometimes the roosters (early morning) and the dogs (late evening).

For the first time we would fly with Emirates, with a stop-over in Dubai

Dachau

2010-08-21T13:39:00.002+02:00

Dachau, Germany, 21 August 2010

For many years I wanted to visit a former concentration camp of WWII, but I never had/made time to do so. A few years ago I worked on a project in Munich and discovered that Dachau - one of the better known concentration camps from my history books - was quite close and had a rail connection from Munich. However, I never took a day off to visit the site.

Since I am retired I really do things I didn't do before and as I was close (Nurnburg), I decided to go this time. My son - who I was visiting - was interested as well to see and experience it. I was happyly surprised about his interest in this part of recent history.

It is a 1.5 hours drive from Nurnburg, the weather was good (clear and sunny morning, but rain in the afternoon fore-casted). We arrived around 11.00 am and the parking place was less than 50% used.

We were surprised to see that around the place the German life just had continued and people have their houses built there with the camp in the back yard. I would not be able ever to live there and to be confronted with it every minute of the day.

When you walk from the parking place to the camp / museum and have passed the little bookstore you suddenly see the entrance building and the remainders of the train platform where the prisoners arrived.

The camp was established already in the mid 30's as a political prisoner camp and it became finally a kind of model camp where all kind of specific things were invented and tested, from the layout of the camp, the organisation to the gas chambers and crematoria.

Many other camps that were established in WWII by the Nazi's were based on what was developed in Dachau. When we approached the entrance gate I got chills to my spine and a scary feeling, because so many people who entered this camp never returned and we will visit it for only a few hours and will then return to our daily life.

I think the most photographed subject is the entrance gate with the famous German phrase: "ARBEIT MACHT FREI" or in English: "Working gives you Freedom". Obviously very ambiguous since we know that most prisoners have never experienced freedom again.

What I remember from the pictures of Auschwitz concentration camp is that the same text was located above the gate (also copied from Dachau?). Here it is part of the gate. Therefore it was a bit "funny" as many wanted to close the gate for taking the picture and others wanted to open it as to enter the camp.

If you passed the gate you see how big the camp was. I shivered again. On the right are the administrative and technical buildings in a U-shape. It contains now the museum of the camp.
On the left is the area with the barracks. There were two rows in parallel with 17 barracks each, so in total the camp had 34 barracks. Between the two rows was a kind of lane and at the other side of each row was a lane as well between the barracks and the fences. The whole camp was a rectangle, with in total 6 watch towers.

Because all the barracks - except no. 1 and 2 - were removed, you had a pretty good overview of the camp from all positions within the walls. The foundations of the barracks are still there.

In the 2 remaining barracks different ways of living are portrait-ed from the early times to the last years before the end of the war. It is unbelievable how people have lived and some even survived if you know that the barracks were designed for a few hundred prisoners, but at the end of the war each barrack was a living for a few thousand prisoners.

Even more horrifying was the visit of the old and new crematorium and the gas chambers, just outside the camp. The new crematorium was the blue print for other camps as well.

It looks quite clean now and the air is fresh, but that time 65 years ago this must have been one of the dirtiest places on earth.

If you are around you should visit this camp as it gives a good overview of what a concentration camp really was, or visit the web site of the Dachau KZ foundation.

Let's hope and pray that below memorial stone will be remembered as long as human beings will live on this planet.

adidas

2010-08-13T21:24:00.009+02:00

Herzogenaurach, Germany, 13 August, 2010

This week I went to Germany to visit my son and later on to pick-up my wife in Paris. My son is educated in marketing management for sports related businesses (like sportswear) and he is a soccer fanatic, but also very uptodate on other sports.

In Germany he is doing an internship at adidas (1920), in the soccer marketing department, adidas HQ in Herzogenaurach, Bavaria, Germany, near to Nurnburg.

He is living in a small hamlet near to the HQ, but unfortunately for a young boy it is a boring place to spend your leasure time.

When we had our dinner together yesterday, he told me that he had an offer for a "student" room in the very center of Nurnburg, only 15 km from the HQ.

So we decided to go there today and try to come to an arrangement. Indeed he is accepted by the other students and can move into the room in 2 weeks, lucky him.

To celebrate this we had a nice Thai dinner near to his future room in the center of Nurnburg. It seems to be the oldest street in Nurnburg, very impressive houses, but unfortunately it was showering when I took the picture.

You might be interested in the history of adidas. Well of course you can visit their site or many other interesting sites, but to me the most important thing is what I felt when he showed me around in the area and especially the main "communication" building - for meetings, seminars, customer presentations and of course the "hall of fame", where famous sports men and women, who used adidas sports wear are portaited with their real old gear. And of course the founder of the company: Adi Dassler was portraited. It is an impressive company with many young employees and very relaxed to work for.

Adi (Adolf) started the company, being a shoe maker, with his brother Rudolf. However, after a family feud his brother Rudolf founded the Puma company (1948), which is just a mile away in Herzogenaurach. An interesting marketing conflict between the 2 brands was with Johan Cruijff and the dutch national soccer team in the seventies. Johan had a contract with Puma, the dutch team with adidas.

This story reminded me at a similar story with the 2 german brothers, who founded the Aldi supermarket chain, they also split up, but they both continued to use the same name Aldi. The feud this time had to do with a different business view on to sell or not to sell tabaco wear in their super market.
Be aware that adidas is written with a small "a" and Puma with a capital "P". The most recent marketing hype of adidas is of course the "Jabulani", the soccer ball designed for the latest soccer world championship in South Africa.

If you are around, I advise you to visit the big Adidas and Puma outlets in Herzogenaurach, where you can find gear for almost half of the price.

LK

URL: adidas

House Hunting France

2010-07-28T10:36:00.000+02:00

Hengelo, Netherlands, 28 July, 2010

The last couple of weeks we have visited many properties in France as to see what our options would be for living in France in stead of in the Philippines or the Netherlands.

Initial research showed - the best source for me was French Property - that from a way of living point of view France could be an option. The tax regime for elderly (retired) people is much better than in the Netherlands. Also the rules for reconstruction of your property are much better (easier) than years ago and last but not least property prices - in rural areas - are affordable for my available budget.
In the Netherlands you can't get similar properties for such prices, but in the Philippines you can get even more.

I would like to thank all agents and others of Leggett Immobilier who showed me most of the properties (from 5 to 9 July) and Tony of Homes in France who also showed us around a whole day (20 July).

Below I have listed the properties - dates, location, price and pictures- we have visited, including some comments. The best three ones I have put on top of the list, the rest in timely order. Note that most prices are negotiable and will end-up 10-20% lower.

We also learned that some - or maybe many, because the reason for sale was not always discussed- properties are being sold because the owner(s) had specific problems with their health and wanted to return to their home country (usually UK) as to being treated there (local treatment seems difficult due to language problems) and/or they wanted to be closer to their family when the end of life seems approaching.

These were also important eye-openers which we have taken into account for our final decision, which I will discuss in more detail in one of the next posts.

Conclusion: All the houses we liked had the same architecture, the French Pavilion, a basement with garage, utility rooms and a second level comprising of the living, kitchen and bedrooms and the entry via a wrap around balcony.

Melle, Deux Sevres, Friday 9 (& 20) July 2010, price 180.000 euro
Comment: Our 1st choice overall, it had all, lot of space, basement, oil fired heating, garage, barn, swimming pool, in a nice village, but above budget and sold a few days after our 2nd visit

Louin, Deux Chevres, Tuesday 20 July 2010, price 139.000 euro
Comment: House was perfect, also large garage, in a small town and separate shack and veg garden opposite across the road, but no shops and garden to steep to easy maintain

La Tardiere, Vendee, Friday 9 July 2010, price 130.800 euro
Comment: Perfect, basement, garage, oil fired heating, well maintained, small bathroom, but rural (3km from small town with shops), and a bit smelly from farm next door, but our favorite before we visited Melle

Sacierges-St. Martin, Indre, Monday 5 July 2010, Price 125.350 euro
Comment: Too rural, much work to do, no garage, but nice view

St. Mathieu, Haute Vienne, Monday 5 July 2010, price 149.950
Comment: Impressed, nice house and lot and situated along the road, big basement with garage and oil fired heater, some work to do upstairs, this was our preference until the last day of the first week

Pressignac, Charente, Monday 5 July 2010, price 139.950 euro
Comment: Surprizing property, very well maintained, on the hill, nice view, lot of space, basement with garage, extra B&B facility detached, but we didn't get the wow feeling

Near Pressignac, Charente, Monday 5 July 2010, price 150.000 euro
Comment: When we approached the property we knew already it was not hours, new area with bungalows, next to a cemetery, no vegetation, it looked like a school.

Ruffec, Charente, Tuesday 6 July 2010, price ???

Comment: Good location, basement with garage, but should be rotated 180 degrees (back side is in front)

Ruffec, Charente, Tuesday 6 July 2010, price 130.800 euro
Comment: Unbelievable property, it looked like a museum, upstairs you had to bend going from room to room, it was attached on 3 sides to other properties.

Monpazier, Dordogne, Wednesday 7 July 2010, price 139.520 euro

Comment: Nice location, along the road, but a lot of maintenance required, could be well used for B&B

Genise, Dordogne, Wednesday 7 July 2010, price 141.700 euro

Comment: It looked impressive, but very old inside, lot of maintenance required and we couldn't see the big garage.

Rouillac, Charente Maritime, Thursday 8 July 2010, price 137.000 euro

Comment: An old lady's bungalow with garage, well maintained, garden needs some updating, in a small hamlet. Not our choice.

Rouillac, Charente Maritime, Thursday 8 July 2010, price 165.000 euro

Comment: Nice property, same hamlet, next to a wine factory, a big area and nice view, basement with garage, good for me but too remote for us.

Chambre d'hotes

2010-07-23T17:32:00.002+02:00

Coulombier, France, 23 July, 2010

When we returned from our latest house hunting activities in France on Wednesday 21 July, while driving in the direction of Paris, we were confronted with a disaster with our new second hand car, a BMW series 3.

First the indicator for battery charging went on, next the water temperature meter showed that we had a cooling problem and then I heard a loud bang. What I expected was indeed true, the belt was broken that drives the generator and the water pump. Later it was found out that the broken belt had also cut the water hose and severely damaged the water pump. So we were in big trouble, but fortunately it happened close to a patrol station at the A10 between Niort and Poitiers.

In France you call the " depannage", which is a network of certified car service garages. They send a truck that will transport your car to a local garage. In our case we went to Coulombier. The problem was investigated and a repair plan made. Earliest on Friday that week the car could be ready again, as they had to order next day some components.

So we had to find a place to sleep for a couple of nights. There were 2 options: the local hotel or a "chambre d'hotes". Of course we choose the second option. Not only because it is usually cheaper, but you get more personal attention and the place is often more attractive.

Indeed we were lucky. The owner Isabelle was willing to pick us up from the garage and she had still 1 twin room available for us for 2 nights. Remember the high season holiday period just started.

Her husband, a carpenter, had made their house suitable for this kind of business. It is basically the same as Bed & Breakfast as is known from other countries. But in France you need to comply to many rules of the organization called "Gites de France" that rules, organizes, controls, etc. this kind of business.

What I learned from Isabelle is that a "Chambre d'hotes" is meant for one or a limited number of nights like a "bed & breakfast" service and is cheap, while a "Gites" is a service where you rent a room or (part of) a house for a period of say 1 or more weeks, usually with a number of people. It seems t be more expensive, but I have no experience with this service.

It turned out that Isabelle had designed our room with only one theme in mind: FROG. Everything was related to the frog. The colors, the bed sheet, the bathroom, really all.
I must say her husband had done a perfect job. The room was excellent, the bathroom well done, the hot water supply much better than in many expensive hotels I have visited in Europe and Asia.

Next day we went to another small neighboring village called Lusignan. Isabelle brought us there, to the super market, and would pick us up the end of the day. So we couls spent our time in this nice village with an old church and castle (medieval period I guess), a small river down the hill, a camping place and a roman like railway bridge, that was used by the TGV as well.

Many thanks to Isabelle for her help. If you are around between Niort and Poitiers and need a room for a night, please drop by and say hello from us.

The Web address is:Chambre d'hotes: La Verrerie

Mont St. Michel

2010-07-19T20:54:00.001+02:00

Mt. St. Michel, France, 19 July, 2010

Long ago I visited with my parents the famous chapel village mountain in the sea, called Mont Saint Michel, at the boundary between Normandy and Brittany. It was during our first holiday with the caravan my father made himself, a copy of the Kip caravan, which was called that time the "egg". I guess it was back in 1963.

Now, being back in France for searching a retirement place and house, I wanted to show my wife this tourist monument, as you have to see it once in your life if you visit France. I didn't mind it was the third time for me.

It was a bright day, the same day we did the Normandy visit, and as usual too many tourists from all over the world. Nothing has changed, apart from the parking places, so you can now visit the place independent from the tide.

The pictures will tell more than words, so enjoy the pics if you haven't been there up to now.

LK

Normandy, 6 June 1944

2010-07-19T15:59:00.004+02:00

Normandy, France, 19 July, 2010

We are now in Niort in a F1 hotel preparing for a couple of visits tomorrow of vacant houses in the Vendee, France.

I decided last week to visit Normandy first and especially the remainders and remembrance places of the largest invasion ever, the beginning of operation "Overlord" and usually called D-day.

As there is so much info on the Web and available historical books - I recently read a diary of a sea man who was involved, see my book index - I will not repeat the story here, but show a few pictures taken, which were my personal high lights.

Famous poem used to activate French underground.

Remainders of the temporary sea-port made of
sunken ships and/or prepared containers

Part of the US war cemetery, they really take care
of their fallen citizens, it is an impressive site.

We have much more pictures, but my advise is to see it yourself if you are interested. Unfortunately one day was not enough to see all interesting places. We had to move on to Niort - 3 hours to go - and skipped the visit to St. Mere Eglise, where the para troupers made their unfortunate droppings.

LK

Intermezzo

2010-06-15T22:48:00.005+02:00

Netherlands, Hengelo, June 15th, 2010

We had a difficult time since early June, as Europe was still an option for my wife to settle, but not for me. So after many and long discussions, sometimes even quarelling and shouting, I agreed to return earlier then planned, as staying longer was not in my interest anymore.

As a result I also decided to close my blog, because the title would not cover anymore our new life, my dream and the place of living. So rather than changing the title like "a Dutchman living abroad", I decided to close my blog until the future was clear and bright again. Later on I also can open up again and add new story's and developments.

We had a return ticket to Amsterdam for end of June to be able to join the cermony and party for my daughter's PhD promotion and to prepare the transport of our household from a storage box in Nijmegen to the Philippines.

The current plan is to visit properties for sale in SW France (Spain was already cancelled as an option) and to inform our selves about the way of living and tax rules in France. I will report about it later in this blog.

So it will be a very stressing time the coming weeks and maybe months, until we have made a final decision on where to settle and perhaps on which house to buy.

LK

Freedom (3)

2010-05-12T07:23:00.004+02:00

Lingayen, Philippines, November, 2009

My last contribution to the trilogy on freedom is based on my visit last year November to Lingayen. We have been that time to visit the regional land registration office for some info on our lot.
The office is opposite to the memorial place and monument for the assault on the Philippines by the American army and navy in world war II in the Gulf of Lingayen, see the map below (apologies for the reflection stains on the picture, they are from the glass cover, protecting the map).

It is an interesting place for those who are interested in history and especially in World War II, which I am already for longtime. For more info on and a description of what happened it is recommended to check wikipedia.
What I learned is that the assault was an amphibious operation of the kind done before (June 1944) in the France Channel (D-day).
In January 1945, just 7 months before the war ended in Asia, liberation (freedom) of the Philippines started here and in some other places in the Philippines as well, like Bataan, Manila, Leyte island.

If you know the region well, as I do now after a couple of years, it is interesting to see there on the maps and many photo's they display, what happened in those years, like where the landing bridge heads were, where they established a temporary air field, etc. I learned from it as well that the church in San Carlos I have visited a year ago to join the baptismal ceremony for a niece of mine, was turned into a military hospital that time.

It was from here that the troops of general McArthur found their way south into the direction of Manila and Bataan (Subic). If you travel these days from Manila to Pangasinan (Dagupan and Lingayen) you travel along the McArtur highway.

This is the monument where you find the old documents, photo's and other material from that period. It is recommended for a visit and afterwards a walk to the nice beach, take a rest and a cool drink. It is also worth visiting when you plan to go to Alaminos 100 islands.

LK

Freedom (2)

2010-05-12T06:32:00.005+02:00

Sta. Barbara, Pangasinan, Philippines, 12 May, 2010

Everybody knows that there are many forms of freedom. My personal freedom meaning to do what I like and without the whole family watching me was described in my blog Freedom (1).

In this blog I show you the freedom of people here in the Philippines, especially the woman who is regularly doing maid work in our home and her family.

For reasons I don't know, and do not want to know, they moved from their home nearby our house to a place a bit further, perhaps at 100 meter distance from their previous home. It is build from bamboo and other natural materials and from garbage you can find along the river, similar to what I would like to call a "bahay kubo", which we are planning to install later on our lot. You can buy them from 20 to 50 thousand pesos, but this one they built themselves and for free.

The house is built along the river. The river is extremely low now, due to measures taken by the authorities, as they are repairing the river dikess and cleaning up a bit. It also eases for the local people fishing and swimming, as it is not dangerous with this low water level.

Taking these pictures was easily done, they rather liked it and I will make sure they get copies to hang them inside their new home.

You see the heap of fine sand in their background? It comes strait from the river bank below, and is used to make cement or concrete. It might be that they will use it to strengthen their house later on. Although it is built on bamboo poles, when the river is swelling later when the tropical rains will come, they might need to take some measures, I hope it will not be too late for them.

Anyway when the river destroys their house, they simply will build a new one again!

LK

Freedom (1)

2010-05-12T05:36:00.004+02:00

Sta. Barbara, Pangasinan, Philippines, 12 May, 2010

One of my personal limitations sofar in the Philippines was that I never had a moment for myself when I wanted to do something or to go somewhere alone. I believe this is because our western culture is quite different in this respect. We have more individually organised our lives, we are also raised as such. In South East Asia, whether it is in the Philippines, Indonesia or any other place, life is more socially organised with the family in the center.

Another reason is simply that people here in the Philippines, especially those who lived abroad, are extremely anxious that a foreigner, will be involved in a robbery or even be murdered. Of course this happens, but it happens everywhere, even in my home country. Statistically maybe more here then there, but statistics is theory and not real life.

So if you go shopping, you don't go alone, you go with the family. And family means all those people who are in home when you intent to go, so it varies with the day. When it is lunch time they all join you for lunch of course. That's why I had to buy a family-van in stead of my jeep(ney), which was only for my own fun. I admit, it was my fault in 2006to buy the jeep, I didn't understand it that time.

What is also frustrating sometimes is that even when I explicitly say I want to go alone to check or buy something, I am not allowed to, my brother in-law or my cousin should join me, just in case. And what about checking the price of something? I cannot show-up because they say the price will go up. Of course in the market this will be the case, but not in a regular shop, where they have fixed prices and can give some (cash) discount only when the manager agrees.

Anyway last week I decided to buy my own motor-bike. Actually it is a Susuki scooter and the maximum number of passengers I will allow is two, including myself. My asawa wanted me to buy a big motorbike as I had in Europe, but I didn't want, I like to relax and have a simple automatic bike that brings me from A to B the way I like it.

Of course I didn't go alone to search for the bike, we were 5 in total, visited about 5 different shops in 2 different cities. But now, since I have my motorbike, I feel much more free. We, my asawa and me, go together, even sometimes I go alone, or take one of the family members out for a ride when I like it. This is my freedom and feel much better now since I arrived last month

LK

Elections 2010

2010-05-11T06:38:00.004+02:00

Sta. Barbara, May 11th, 2010,

Yesterday was elections day in the Philippines. I was following the preparations at a distance last weeks, but now on E-day I was very interested in the implementation of the new (electronic) way of voting, for the first time ever in the Philippines.

Usually it took several weeks to count (and recount) all votes and publish the official results. Of course there are many options for fraud if it takes a long time and is done manually. It is expected that the official results will be available in 2 days time.

However, this doesn't mean that there is no way anymore for fraud and other glitches impacting the results and speed of the process. Reading the news papers today and following the sparse news on the only TV channel we have here in our house, it seems that many problems and fraud cases were reported. Even in our city it was said that "vote buying" was the case, but there is no proof.

A voting glitch that appeared quite often was that the voting machine was broken, as it was the case in Tarlac, and a new machine was ordered from Paniqui, which left the people in the voting queue waiting for more than 4 hours, including president candidate Noy Noy. In the heat of this month (far above 30 degrees) this is almost inhuman, given that drinking is not allowed in the voting buildings.

The elections are for all levels of public management, from president to mayor and city councilors, except at the lowest level being the barangay (captain). The implementation of the voting process itself is however done by the barangay's.

From what I have sensed so far on presidential level, it seems that the results are unofficially available already. Many believe that Noy Noy Aquino (son of the beloved former president Cory) won these elections. It seems that the election day is a bank holiday, as most shops were closed, the big malls opened only at 12.00 noon and there was almost no traffic. Many people were in or around the elementary schools where in most barangay's the elections were held. So for some people of course a good place for business like delivering food, drinks, jeepney's and tricycles; and for young and older people to show-up and meet, so it was a social day as well.

Attached pictures (see explanation below) show some impressions of 2 different barangay's I have visited, one time in the morning and a second visit just before the original closing time (6.00 PM), which was later extended with one hour to 7.00 PM due to problems with the voting (scanning) machines in some areas.

1. Falling in line for voting can be a hot undertaking
2. Identifying yourself
3. A poll watcher (barangay appointed official)
4. The scanning machine
5. An example of a voting form for machine scanning

LK

Cat eyes

2010-05-10T07:39:00.001+02:00

Sta. Barbara, May 10th, 2010

This very short blog was inserted only, because I noticed that one of our four white cats (mother and 3 kids) has two different colored eyes - blue and green - and I wanted to share it as a curiosity I have never seen before.

LK

A lot of lots to choose from

2010-05-06T12:51:00.007+02:00

Sta. Barbara, Philippines, 6 May, 2010

Since we discussed the option to settle in the Philippines for retirement, to be honest I was pushing this idea, we have come across many people and situations where a "lot" was for sale.

I believe that the first lot we have visited was along the provincial road, from the General Mc. Arthur highway in Pangasinan, leading to Sta. Barbara town proper. This was already in May 2006, when we still lived in Hong Kong. It was said that there were electric cables in the ground, I could only see there were electric cables in the air of the provincial distribution system. The asking price was too high anyway.

Since then, every time we visited the Philippines, we used some time to visit potential lots for sale. Usually people who got the message that we were back from abroad and looking around, came to my in-laws house, to inform us about "interesting" options. Also when we left already after our visit regularly people came to let my family know that they had or knew a lot for sale.

In 2007 we had a bad experience, when we got an offer from a former barangay captain's wife. The lot was close to my in-laws house. They needed money for surgery of the captain and because one of the children would go to the US for work.

We did a first down-payment as the papers (title) seemed okay, but the surveyor we hired to measure the lot and investigated the papers, it seemed that it was not all okay. They pretended to be the owners, but apparently were not.

The original owner was dead and, although they might have been the official heirs, it is not sure following Philippine law that they will be in the end. It can take years to get it all clear. The money we payed was already spent for the surgery. It was in vain as he died the next half year.

That's why we suggested to start a case against this women. She was willing to cooperate and we came to a settlement as proposed by our attorney. The settlement was that we would acquire another lot from her, that had a clean title and ownership.

Another source I used for searching available lots, was the bank. Especially the Mangaldan Rural bank had interesting lots for sale and published on their website, usually because the owner could not pay the mortgage anymore and had to deliver it to the bank, which prepared it for sale. We have seen may lots in places like San Jacinto, Mapandan, Mangaldan, Sta. Barbara, Manaoag, San Fabian. But via other banks we have also been in San Carlos Calasiao and Dagupan.

Most people advised me to go for a sub-division house and lot. Especially in Wedgewood, Sta. Barbara. A near family member is a civil engineer and building houses there and we have visited the place several times. But as of the first time I was not impressed and even had no good feeling with this type of living.

Everything organised, they have rules of course, a guarding system that does not really guard you, a public swimming pool and small but very expensive lots. It reminded me on the building projects in Germany, just over the border with the Netherlands, where many dutch people moved to. I visited these places many times. Big houses on very small lots, many rules, no real privacy, no real garden, basically nothing what I like and a lot what I don't like. I need space, want to do some farming and have a machine and wood working shop/shed.

In November 2008 we came across a very nice lot in San Fabian. We liked it both, it was love at the first sight. Originaly rice land, some palm trees, nice view on the mountains (Cordillera) and close to the beach. It had however a tenant and that made me already nervous, as this is a complicating factor, which can cost you a lot of money and time to get rid of them.

It took us another half year and surveying cost before we had to conclude that the seller an old (ego-centric) lady could not - or was not willing to - show us and our surveyor the papers we required for a clean sale and in the end to obtain a title. So we had to decline the proposal, and very disappointed.

Next and last was the offer we are working on now, which is also rice land, very close to a barangay center, along a barangay road in Sta. Barbara, with a view on the Cordillera as well and a nice shape (40m wide, 250m deep), including a fish pond.

The road was a rough road before, but the seller was defending his asking price with the statement that it would be improved (with concrete or asphalt) in the near future and thus the sqm price would increase. Indeed two weeks ago they started to asphalt the road and since last week we have a nice clean road in front of "our" lot.

Last year November, during our last visit to the Philippines we came to an agreement on the price and conditions, and since then we are working on the papers, like the deed of sale and the sketch plan. We are making use of the services of a local attorny and previous mayor. It seems that within 1 or 2 weeks we are ready for the transfer of the money and the property ownership. Finally we need to transfer the title, for which we will follow the "rush" procedure.

The lot will be used for both living (residential) as well as for (hobby) farming, including fish production. It is our intention to start building after the rainy season this year and it should be ready for living 2nd half of 2011.

Change of Blog name and style

2010-05-02T04:01:00.005+02:00

Sta. Barbara, Sunday, May 2nd, 2010

Those who read this blog before will remember that it was intended to share my experiences in the year before my retirement and to see whether my plan to move to Asia would become true.

Since I started this blog (May 30st, 2009) almost a year has passed and indeed I retired and we live now in the Philippines. Therefore it is time to change the title and refurbish the style and format of this blog, which will be effective as of today, rather than starting a new blog.

Happy reading and you are still invited to comment.

LK

"Digitel" Internet

2010-04-20T07:46:00.003+02:00

Sta. Barbara, April 20th, 2010

Within a week after arrival in the Philippines, we have Internet at home now. Wow!!

Since my father passed away in January I didn't have time or was not in the mood to update my Blog. Also the approaching retirement, as of April 1st, meant too many things to organize, so I failed to work on my Blog, which I will rectify the comming days and weeks, by writing little stories or remarkable events in the past. I will back- or anti-date them as well.

Last week we have visited the branch offices of the major Internet providers in the Philippines, being Globe and Smart. It turned out that Smart could only provide wireless Internet in a barangay close to Urdaneta and not our barangay. Next we were informed by the Globe sales lady that only in an area at a distance of maximum 1.5 km from town proper wireless Internet was available and via landline they did not service our barangay.

Friday 16th of April we visited our neighbours, as the daughter seemed to have an Internet connection. When we were still in the Netherlands my wife had discovered her in Facebook. I could ask her some questions and see the equipment she was using. It turned out to be a DSL connection with an ethernet modem. The provider she used was Digitel.

Monday morning 19th we went to the Digitel branch office and indeed after some investigations regarding the end-point for the DSL line, they could offer us a contract, called Plan 999. For peso 999 per month you get a DSL connection, 512kb/s speed, single IP out and an analog telephone for free local calls and inbound calling from everywhere, also international.

The contract is for 3 years, initial costs Peso 1.120 and 150 m cable included. Early termination fee is 2 monthly terms only (in case we cannot move this contract to our new location next year).

In the afternoon a Digitel team would do a local survey regarding available capacity and the distance from their "pole" to our house, which was 280 meters, so an excess of 130 meters, which would cost us Peso 1.500 additionally.

The surveyors told me that they needed at least one, but preferably two poles of 6 feet high, to guide the cables from their network to our home. Costs for me of course. Bamboo poles as a temporaly solution was acceptable.

Next day the installation team of 5 men arrived. Meanwhile my brother in law had purchased the poles in his home city San Carlos, which is famous for bamboo furniture, and installed them in the ground. I guess we will never replace them by steel poles before we move.

The team installed the cables and equipment in 2 hours time and after they left, another team arrived to check for the correct working and configuration. Perfect job done and a reasonable Internet speed. It took less than 2 working days since my first visit to their office. Recommended!!

Ash disposing

2010-04-07T23:52:00.000+02:00

Boekelo, April 7th, 2010,

As we will soon leave the Netherlands to start a new live abroad, we decided to plan the "ash disposal" of the cremation remains of my father before departure. The date scheduled was today.

In agreement with my mother, we decided for a simple ceremony, just as my father would have selected. So no permanent sign at the cemetery.

When we, my mother, sister, brother in law and my wife, arrived at the crematorium, we were invited by an employee of the crematorium. After a coffee break he explained the procedure and options you could choose of. Just for the record, the cremation number was 89870. This sign, made of ceramic, is the only physical remembrance my mother took home.

As decided already, we choose a simple ash disposal procedure on the field called: Taxus, at the boundary of the crematorium. A lovely field, it was a nice sunny day, with a big pond and wooden bridge, many colors of all the fresh flowers deposited on the field the last days.

We decided to let the ash dispersed in a circle on a clean part of the green field. First i made a half circle, then my sister the other half and finally my mother a full circle. It is much more ash than I expected.

It was a short, but important and emotional ceremony, which I will never forget.

Retirement

2010-03-31T22:11:00.003+02:00

Nijmegen, March 30st, 2010

Today is my last official working day for my company Atos Origin, although I retired already a bit earlier due to some remaining holidays I still had to enjoy.

I joined the company in 1990. That time it was called BSO, a small IT company in the Netherlands, but fast growing. First of all because the market was exploding, but secondly because of the organisational growing model developed by the founder and owner original owner Eckart Wintzen; he died in 2008.

In the mid 90's the company wanted to expand internationally and a first merger was executed with the IT department (C&P) of Philips, a large electronics company in the Netherlands. Other mergers followed in the 90's and the first decennium of this century, leading to a growth from several hundred employees to now 50.000 worldwide.

In the afternoon I will meet my manager for the final handover of company assets like my PC, car, keys, entry badges, etc. I had decided before already that I didn't want to have a company retirement party with current and former colleagues. Most people do, but for me not a promising event as I have no binding anymore with the Dutch organisation, since I did my projects abroad, in Hong Kong, Thailand and the Philippines.

Last week Saturday I had invited my family for a private dinner party in a well known and special restaurant called "Heertjes", center of Nijmegen, my current home town. The party was not only meant for retirement, but also a "to be together" party, before we, my wife and myself, migrate to the Philippines in a couple of weeks.

Of course we also had speeches. Apart from myself, also my sister, daughter and son did a speech. And presents of course. On the picture you see my eBook (brand Onyx Boox) which I got from all present in the party. This will allow me to order (dutch) book titles and read them abroad.

Emigration Fair

2010-02-11T13:58:00.006+01:00

Netherlands, Nijmegen, February 11th,

This weekend I will go to the Emigration Fair in Houten, The Netherlands. I have an appointment with a Forwarding company, to discuss an offer they made for transporting my container.
Here is a promotion summary of the fair.

Emigration Fair - February 13 and 14 - 2010! The best resource for a future abroad.
Discover the world - Discover all the options for jobs, study, investment, property and settlement abroad. The 14th International EMIGRATION FAIR brings together all the options in one place for a generation who is planning to start an international career - improve their lifestyle - find a job abroad - escape from every day life - live their life overseas - set up their own business - discover the world through study abroad, work and volunteer opportunities.

Exhibitions and free presentations from experts in a variety of related fields provide visitors and fellow exhibitors with a copious amount of resources - plus a wealth of free materials - about all aspects of emigrant life worldwide. Every year more than 120.000 people are leaving the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany in search of a new life abroad. If you are considering starting a new future in another country, in Europe, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa, Australia, the United States, Scandinavia or elsewhere you need all the information you can get! For a complete overview of the Emigration process don't miss the Emigration Fair on February 13 and 14 2010, in the Expo Houten Exhibition Centre Houten - Utrecht, in the heart of The Netherlands just 100km away from Belgium and Germany.

Emigration Fair URL

LK

Sea container forwarding

2010-02-04T22:06:00.004+01:00

Netherlands, Nijmegen, February 4th

As I am planning to move all our household things and machines to the Philippines shortly, I am now investigating the opportunities to buy a container and forward it to our new home country.

Our household stuff is currently stored in a City Box (company) storage box of 54 cubic meters. So this means that we need a 40 feet sea container, which is ca. 60 cubic meters.

There are two options:
1. rent the space
2. by your own container

The first option is cheaper of course, but the second means that at the destination you don't have to unload all immediately. Especially when you don't have a location to store everything like in our case, it is easier to just put your container on your lot or any other safe place.
Another advantage is that if you partly unload the container, you can use the free space as a work shed while building your house and later on as a storage room or to start an export business.

Below is the offer I got (in Dutch) from Hacon Logistics BV:

Aankoop 40DV, gebruikt, csc gekeurd € 950,00 p/c
Containertransport vanaf HACON naar Nijmegen,
per sideloader op grond geplaatst € 365,00 p/c
Containertransport vanaf Nijmegen
naar Maasvlakte Rt € 415,00 p/c
Zeevracht vanaf kade Rotterdam tot aankomst
bestemmingshaven, niet ingeklaard € 1.435,00 p/c
Lossingskosten (THC), van zeeschip op
kade Manila € 115,00 p/c
Opmaken bill of lading, verschepingspapieren € 55,00 p/zending
Opmaken standaard exportdocument
(verhuisboedel) € 50,00 p/c

Optie: Een eventuele verzekering kunt u afsluiten tegen een premie van 15 pro mille over de waarde van de goederen met een minimum premie van € 125,00 + poliskosten a € 5,00. All risk met een eigen risico van € 250,00 tevens gedekt tegen eventuele bergingskosten etc. van zeeschip.

Bovengenoemde tarieven zijn BTW 0-tarief ivm uitvoer uit EG.

Afvaarten : Wekelijks, op basis van acceptatie en beschikbare ruimte
Transittijd : 35 dagen, haven-haven

Above statement about 0-tariff VAT did remind me that I have to collect VAT notes of the more expensive things we want to move, because it seems you can get back the VAT we payed before.

URL to HACON

LK

Arie

2010-01-11T21:10:00.006+01:00

Netherlands, Hengelo, January 11th.

As a remembrance to my father, here is the speech spoken during the cremation ceremony.

Soms zou je willen dat gisteren nooit voorbij ging, omdat vandaag alles zo anders is…..

Met die woorden die zoveel zeggen over de impact van dit onverwachte verlies wil ik u van harte welkom heten.
Er is afgelopen maandag een einde gekomen aan het leven van Arie, onze man, vader en opa.
Zijn lichaam staat hier in ons midden en we brengen eer aan dat lichaam.
Om de mens die erin geleefd heeft.
We moeten vandaag afscheid nemen van een lieve man, vader en opa.
Met respect en dankbaarheid zetten we deze plechtigheid in het teken van zijn leven en liefhebben.

Het leven lijkt als een cirkel, van geboren worden tot sterven.
Vandaag moeten we onder ogen zien dat de cirkel van het leven van Arie gesloten is.
Onverwachts en meedogenloos.
Die cirkel is het symbool van verbondenheid en geborgenheid en juist daarom zo passend wanneer we afscheid nemen van een geliefd iemand.
Verbondenheid willen we ook symboliseren door licht.
Daarom zullen we straks een cirkel van licht ontsteken.
De cirkel als symbool voor verbondenheid.
Het licht omdat het verwarmt en troost.
Het is donker in het leven van mensen die een verlies moeten verwerken.
Daarom ontsteken we licht, omdat het altijd sterker is dan de duisternis.
Licht om zicht op elkaar te houden en elkaar niet uit het oog te verliezen.
Licht voor wie achterblijft, zodat de nacht niet te donker en de dag niet te koud wordt.
Een klein gebaar met een groots effect.
Deze cirkel van licht zal jullie voor altijd verbinden met Arie.

Arie werd geboren op 7 november 1923 in Rotterdam.
Hij was de één na jongste in het hechte gezin en hij had een goede jeugd samen met zijn broer en 4 zussen.
Er werd een basis gelegd voor een warme familieband die altijd is gebleven.
Na de lagere school ging hij naar de Ambachtsschool en vervolgens ging hij naar de avond MTS.
Hij wist wat hij wilde worden; boordwerktuigkundige.
Toen hij echter op sollicitatiegesprek ging naar de KLM werd bij de keuring ontdekt dat hij kleurenblind was en die droom ging aan hem voorbij.
Het was een grote tegenvaller voor hem.
Gelukkig kon hij bij dezelfde maatschappij wel aan het werk als grondwerktuigkundig.

Na de oorlog, tijdens de bevrijdingsfeesten kwam Arie, die gek was op dansen, een meisje tegen dat ook erg hield van dansen.
Ze kregen verkering en op 3 oktober 1946 stapte het gelukkige stel in het huwelijksbootje.
Twee weken later vertrok Arie voor zijn diensttijd naar Batavia – Indië waar hij ging werken op het vliegveld.
Zodra er een plek om te wonen was scheepte Loes in om zich bij hem te voegen.
Er volgden fantastische jaren waarin het jonge stel veel vrienden maakte die jaren later nog steeds tot hun vriendkring behoorden.
Het was een saamhorige tijd.
In oktober 1947 werd in Batavia Leo geboren en bijna vier jaar later, in augustus 1951, werd dochter Loes geboren.
Maar die laatste gebeurtenis was in Vlaardingen want het gezin was in 1950 voor verlof teruggekomen naar Nederland.
Af ze terug zouden gaan naar Indië hing af van feit of Arie werk in Nederland kon krijgen.
Dat lukte; Hij kon een baan krijgen bij Hollandsche Signaal in Hengelo en zo kwamen ze uiteindelijk in Twente terecht.
Het was erg wennen voor Arie en bovendien moesten ze, materieel gezien, bouwen aan een nieuwe toekomst want ze waren door de politieke situatie in Indië veel kwijtgeraakt.

Vader Arie was een man die altijd bezig was.
Hij was heel erg handig en deed echt alles zelf.
Als er iets te bouwen viel dan kon je op hem rekenen.
In Hengelo woonden ze eerst aan de Hendrikstraat maar later aan de Breemarsweg en altijd viel er wel wat te bouwen of te verbouwen.
Arie legde cv aan, bouwde kasten en bouwde zelfs eigenhandig een caravan.
Op serieuze en precieze wijze was hij altijd bezig met zijn baan of andere werkzaamheden.
Uiteraard was er ook tijd voor zijn gezin want de kinderen hebben diverse fijne herinneringen aan die periode.
Samen met de auto op pad, dagjes uit naar de familie en later heerlijke vakanties in binnen en buitenland en dan natuurlijk met de zelfgebouwde caravan.
Arie reed en Loes stippelde de weg uit.

Als vader kon Arie behoorlijk streng zijn maar dat was hij niet alleen voor zijn kinderen ook voor hemzelf lag de lat hoog.
Hij leefde volgens duidelijke regels en was erg beschermend voor zijn zoon en zijn dochter.
Hij vond het moeilijk om zijn liefde te uiten en compenseerde dat met bezorgdheid en aandacht.

Het is al gezegd, Arie kon alles, een super-doe-het-zelver.
Kundig en handig maar dat betekende ook dat hij slecht uit handen kon geven wat vervolgens nog wel eens leidde tot een confrontatie met zijn zoon.
Later werd het allemaal wat milder maar voor Arie bestond er eigenlijk alleen zwart en wit.
Hij was geen man van compromissen en met hem in discussie gaan had weinig zin.
Maar hij was ook een man die streefde naar gelijkheid, onderscheid maken daar hield hij niet van.

In 1970 verhuisde het gezin naar Losser omdat Arie directeur werd van een vestiging in Gronau.
Het was een positieve ontwikkeling want het was een heerlijke tijd in een heerlijk huis.
Mooie jaren zijn het geweest.

In 1978 werd het eerste kleinkind, Irene, geboren en tot 1983 volgden er nog drie; Eva, Marjolein en Jasper.
Het leek alsof Arie wat meer ruimte aan de kleinkinderen kon geven.
Hij betrok ze bij zijn bezigheden en opa was er altijd voor ze.
Hij had interesse en was belangstellend naar hun vorderingen want het was natuurlijk wel belangrijk dat ze goed terecht zouden komen.
Hij volge trots hun prestaties.

Zo kwam de periode van zijn vervroegde uittreden en hij bereide zich daar grondig op voor.
Er kwam immers veel vrije tijd en als voorbereiding bouwde hij eerst maar eens een garage aan het huis.
Daar kwam een hele werkplaats in en tevens een oven voor zijn hobby, het pottenbakken.
In die jaren bouwde hij ook een kweekkas en er werden groentes en plantjes verbouwd.
Overigens was het bouwen van de kas leuker dan het hebben van de kas.
Zo ging het ook wel een beetje met de vijver.
Arie bouwde nu eenmaal graag dingen,
Van zandkastelen, tot locomotieven – hij wilde altijd iets maken.

De periode na de pensionering bracht ook tijd voor fijne vakanties met zijn zus en zijn zwager.
Daar genoot Arie van want met die zwager deelde hij zijn grote passie; modelbouw.
En natuurlijk ieder jaar een lang weekend met pinksteren of hemelvaart weg met het hele gezin.
Dat vond hij belangrijk en hij waardeerde de saamhorigheid.
Fijne herinneringen zijn er aan die periodes.

In 1992 besloten Arie en Loes vanwege het hartinfart van Arie naar Hengelo te verhuizen en ze kregen daar een heerlijk appartement.
Voorwaarde was wel dat er een mooie hobbyruimte zou zijn zodat hij verder kon met zijn hobby’s - het bouwen.
Toch werd zijn wereld de laatste jaren steeds kleiner en zo kwam er dat moment dat hij moest besluiten om zijn hobby los te laten.
Hij liep slecht en zijn gezondheid werd minder.
Het was een zware strijd voor hem en hij verloor de interesse in het leven.
Hij was altijd zo opgegaan in zijn hobby’s dat er weinig ruimte was geweest voor andere bezigheden zoals lezen of sporten.
Hij probeerde noodgedwongen nog vertrouwd te raken met de computer maar daarvoor miste hij het inzicht en dat frustreerde hem.
Pas toen hij echt los kon laten en de hobbyruimte opgeruimd werd kwam er verzoening.
Het leek als een bevrijding en hij voelde zich weer beter.
Hij genoot weer, samen met Loes van de dagen en van alles wat het hem bracht.
Lekker uit eten en de familie om hem heen, daar deed je hem een groot plezier mee.
Juist daarom is deze kerst zo bijzonder geweest, het hele gezin compleet.
Overigens leek hij deze dag te voorzien want hij was ervan overtuigd dat het de laatste keer zou zijn.
Hij maakte daar een opmerking over en die was doorspekt met een dosis cynisme.
Want hoewel hij nooit een prater is geweest, dat soort grappen waren typerend voor hem.
Eigenlijk kunnen we zeggen dat hij altijd een echter Rotterdammer is gebleven, inclusief de voorkeur voor zijn voetbalclub.
Zo zijn er heel wat dingen geweest die hem plezier brachten in het leven.
Naast zijn vrouw die zoveel voor hem betekende, zijn gezin en zijn werk was er bijvoorbeeld het dansen van de tango.
Daarom willen we zijn levensverhaal afsluiten met de klanken van deze dans, de klanken die ons voor altijd zullen herinneren aan Arie.

We komen langzaam aan het einde van deze plechtigheid.
De cirkel is rond.
Ik wil u allemaal veel sterkte toewensen bij het verwerken van dit verlies.
Dat er altijd iemand zal zijn die in verbondenheid naast je wil staan, die een arm om je schouder wil leggen of eenvoudig in stilte nabij wil zijn.
Vooral voor jou Loes is de weg die voor je ligt een onbekende weg.
Jullie waren zo met elkaar verbonden en het sterven was zo onverwacht.
Ik wens jou toe dat de kracht van de cirkel van licht voelbaar zal zijn als een liefdevolle deken van verbondenheid.
Alle familie en vrienden wens ik toe dat alle mooie herinneringen aan Arie voor altijd een speciaal plekje in het hart zullen krijgen.
Zo zal hij liefdevol verder leven.
Verder leven in alle mensen die hij gekend en liefgehad heeft.
Zo zal de cirkel rond zijn.

LK

Pa, thanks for all

2010-01-07T17:52:00.015+01:00

Netherlands, Nijmegen, January 7 th, 2010

Last Monday, while driving home from my work in Eindhoven to Nijmegen, my sister called me to let me know that my father suddenly passed away, probably less than an hour ago.

Although in his mid 80's, he had no serious illnesses, so it was a shock for us all, and of course especially for my mother. She was very dependent on my father, not only as a mate to share their happy and sad moments, but also because of her "macula degeneration" disease, which makes it difficult to run her life alone, as her sight is only 20% or less.

My father has now been placed on a bier in the Smelt auditorium in Hengelo, waiting for his cremation next week. We as a family are allowed to see him any time any day this week.

I am glad that we had a family gathering last Christmas with my parents, all children and grand-children and all partners. It was where he was waiting for the last couple of years. Because of my long stays abroad, there were almost no gatherings where the whole family was present, but since my wife and I returned from Thailand in November 2009, his dream became true.

As you know I am planning to emigrate shortly after my retirement, later this year. One of my worries was my father, as he didn't like my staying abroad. Of course also my children and mother and other family members don't like it, but they are stronger, more flexible and more understanding and willing to visit me abroad.

I know that my father was really waiting for his death, since he was not able to enjoy his hobbies anymore and he had his small elderly annoyances, and told us that he would not make it until next Christmas. I am thankful for him that his wish came true as it did. We all have to accept it and I am sure even my mother will as she is still strong.

Merry Christmas 2009

2009-12-23T23:42:00.013+01:00

Nijmegen, Netherlands, December 23rd 2009.

Just a week ago we moved from our house in a small village near to Nijmegen city to the center of Nijmegen, as our property was sold as part of the plan to emigrate and leave the Netherlands when I will retire next year.

It seems that we will have a white Christmas in many places since 28 years. That is why we decided to use a snowy picture as our Christmas card. The picture was taken in front of the "Waag" (weighing building in the 15-17th centuries) in Nijmegen, close to our new home.

I would like to wish everyone a merry Christmas and a prosperous New year and hope to be able to publish more blogs next year than I did this year.

All Saint's day

2009-11-06T01:49:00.014+01:00

Sta. Barbara, Philippines, 1 November, 2009

Today we arrived from Thailand in the Philippines, via Clark Air Base, north Luzon, after an emotional farewell party in Bangkok organized by both companies I was working for/with. The flight was perfect and fast, we arrived before schedule 3:00 am. I expected to arrive in the remainders of tropical typhoon "Mirinae", but nothing, no wind, no rain. It turned out that this typhoon (locally known as "Santi") has hit southern Luzon, so Clark AB was not affected.

As usual my family and my car were waiting were waiting for us, my wife, mother in-law (nanay) and myself. So in the car we had, apart from us, father (tatay), 2 sisters, one brother in-law and 3 nephews, in total we were 10.

From Clark to Sta. Barbara is a 3 hours drive or less by night. As it is All Saint's day today the plan is to get some sleep first and then in the afternoon we go to the cemetery. They told me that the "party" starts in the morning until the night and even till next morning early, especially for the youngsters, they party the whole night, as it is also Haloween since October 31st. The two coincide more or less, but as far as I know Haloween has not a Christian background, but is also about the ghosts of the dead people.

We go indeed around 3:30 pm. In the middle of the town you can hardly park your car. It is crowded as I have never seen there before, even more then with Christmas Eve, whih is incredibly crowded already. We are there with my 2 cars and a lot of family. The drivers stay at the cars and we go by food to the cemetery. It is less than 100 meters from the car, but walking took us about 45 minutes, step-by-step 4-5 rows wide towards and also 4-5 rows back from the cemetery.

Along the road are many small market stalls where you can by all kinds of candles, but a bit further also Haloween articles, fruit, food and a lot of other things you don't need. It is really a kind of a market.

After a while we arrived at the cemetery itself, first in a separate area at the left some big shrines and tombes with a gate, white colored and because it is already starting to darken, lighted candles are everywhere. If we pas the gated private area we arrive at the "public" area. Many small corridors, everywhere tombes, sometimes 3 to 4 levels high. Everywhere around and on top of the tombes are people sitting, talking, enlightening candles, jumping from tomb to tomb and playing and talking youngsters. People also organise pick-nicks, the food was bought along the road or prepared at home.

We are with my wife, 3 sisters, 2 nephews and one niece in the age of 15-20 and one almost 2 years. Father and mother didn't join us, so we couldn't find the tomb of mother's family, only the father of my father in law. Nevertheless, it was impressing to see so many people on such a small area, with the same attitude and objective: to honour the dead people, family or not, they are all honored. And of course the ghosts, but that subject was forbidden to talk about. My wife is really very scared of it, so I skipped that topic on her request.

Although I didn't check, it seems that the next day(s) more people are visiting the cemetery, so the total number of people joining this important celebration must be enormous. Television the next day reported the return of many people from their home island by ferry to Manila and other large harbours in the Philippines.

Farewell Bangkok

2009-10-30T07:39:00.010+01:00

Bangkok, 31st October, 2009

Tonight is my farewell party organised by my host company and customer. It was splendid, many friends, good food and drinks and a continuous show of dancers and singers in "German Brewery Ramintra Branch". Thanks a lot.

Below are my last farewell emails. I might add responses later in comments, but will do it anonymous.

To my customer,

Today October 30st is my last day working for the program within my company, but mainly working with and for you as customer employees in Asia Pacific, in Bangkok and Cabuyao and on occasion on other sites as well.

It was a great pleasure for me to work in the program, in different roles in APAC the past year, with many ups and downs, and many new contacts. I learned a lot of you for which I am very grateful.

I wish you all a lot of success the coming weeks and months to complete your individual targets for this program and hope you enjoyed it likewise.

As you may know, I will move on now to pickup my next project in The Netherlands, until my retirement early next year. By the I hope to permanently relocate to the Philippines. At arrival a new large private project is waiting already for me, so even then no dull moment for me.

To complete the Bangkok project, my project assistant and team manager, will continue as project lead.

A special word of thanks goes to Tom, who was my main APAC customer contact and counterpart the last year. We had many discussions, and although we didn't agree always, we respected each others business background and different targets. Tom thanks for your support and private moments we had after business.

To my guest company,

Today October 30st is my last day working for the program, but mainly working with you and for the customer in Asia Pacific, in Bangkok and Cabuyao and on occasion on other sites as well.

It was a great pleasure for me to work in the DC sourcing program, in different roles in APAC the past year, with many ups and downs, and many new contacts. I learned a lot of you for which I am very grateful. Unfortunately I did not take the opportunity to explore your beautifull country further than Bangkok, perhaps during my next visit.

I wish you all a lot of success the coming weeks and months to complete your individual targets for this program and hope you enjoyed it likewise.

As you may know, I will move on now to pickup my next project in The Netherlands, until my retirement early next year. By then I hope to permanently relocate to the Philippines. At arrival a new large private project is waiting already for me, so even then no dull moment for me.

To complete the Bangkok deployment project, Lek who worked as my project assistant and team leader the last 3 months, will continue as project lead, supported by Peter, who did the Nijmegen and Kaohsiung deployments. I am sure Lek and Peter will make it a success, Lek good luck.

A special word of thanks goes to the management team and HR department for their help with my visa and work permit, housing and office services. I will never forget the hospitality and many occassions when we had a lunch or dinner together with foreign guests organised by Steven or Chaiyut. The same goes for the time we spent in Europe, first Nijmegen, Plasmolen, Malden, the several trips we made in the Netherlands and later with some of you even in Switzerland.

Steven, Chaiyut, Rama, Prasert, Lek and many, many others, thank you very much for this wonderfull time.

Hospitalized in Vibhavadi

2009-10-04T10:38:00.012+02:00

Bangkok, October 4th,

Last Friday I was released from the hospital after being hospitalized for almost a week.

On Friday September 25th, I went to my office in Bang Khen, north Chatu Chak, but decided already before arrival to go back. I felt sick, had to vomit, head ache, and was not able to start working.

Coming back home again, I tried to text message some people to inform them on my sick leave, but SMS service to Europe didn't work. Already for several weeks I had many problems with mobile communication from and to Europe. It seems that there is a roaming problem, as people trying to call me get an automated voice message that my number is not registered, but local calls without any problem. I felt too sick to setup my PC to send an email, so decided to go to bed and solve the communication later, when I felt better.

Next day I discovered red stains on my lower left leg and it was also painfull after some rest to stand on that leg. Only after 5 minutes excercising it felt better and I could walk again. Still overall I was sick and didn't understand what the problem was and where the red stains were coming from.

Next day, Sunday, the problem was still the same and a friend advised me to go to hospital, but being a "low land" boy, I thought not on Sunday and maybe tomorrow it is less.

That day we went out for a light lunch and I showed him my leg. He again advised me to go asap to the hospital, which I promised. After lunch we went to the Nokia service center in Ratchada Phisek, near to Fortune tower, as my friend needed a new part for his mobile phone. It remembered me on my "roaming" problem and decided to ask for a firmware upgrade, that could help, another solution I could not think of. It took one hour and was free of charge. Being home later that day I tried out and indeed it seemed to have helped.

Next day indeed I went to the hospital, near to my apartment, the Vibhavadi hospital. Modern, clean and friendly people. They also have 2 international hostess/nurses. One of them helped me and within an hour an english speaking doctor helped me. He advised me to stay as he wanted to do some diagnosis investigations. He didn't tell me for how long, but I assumed 2-3 days would be sufficient. So I went off again to my apartment, took some clean underware and T-shirts, my toilter gear and book and went back to the hospital.

As it was busy at the radiology department where I had to go, the hostess advised me to first select a room and go there and then go back to radiology. They have several room rates and choose the single room for foreigners, rate 2.200 baht per night, including Internet, TV, newspaper. I also choose for the hospital food. The international nursing department (ward) is on level 16, it was not too busy, some people but Thai, I didn't see any foreigners that week.

After changing my close for a hospital split gown, they pulled me in the wheelchair to the radiology department. When it was my turn, the doctor scanned with a ultrasoon transmitter my legs from top to bottom, to find a trombosis tightening of my vaines in both legs. He couldn't find it apparently and later that day he said it was no trombosis, but an inflammation of the inner skin structure. It is also called Cellulitis in literature.

The traetment was to give me high concentration anti-biotics via an infusion pump, three times a day. Further some medication against tissue swelling.

Blood pressure and pulse was also measured 3-4 times a day. It was surprisingly that all values were much lower than usually. Puls below 50 and Systolic pressure dropped from above 150 (including hypertensia drugs) below 100 (whithout any hypertensia drugs). After a few days it went up a bit until 120, which is rather normal.

Meanwhile I had informed my health insurance company to send a statement to the hospital that they were willing to pay my bill -I had to put signatures on about 5 different forms, including the one for payments. After 2 days this was organised for a stay of 3 days, but when it turned out that my stay woulkd take longer, they had to send a new one for the extension.

The guarantee the insurance company gave was for a maximum of 1000 euro per day, excluding any medical costs of course. For this amount you can stay 25 days in stead of one.

The first night several people of my company visited me and brought me presents - birds nest drinks, a well known Chinese medical drink. Even a representative of my apartment visited me that day.

Since Tuesday it went slowly better and I asked the doctor for how long I had to stay.

Next days were relaxing and I did some work via telephone, as my PC didn't work on the WiFi of the hospital. I didn't mind, as it kept me relaxed.

On Friday I asked the doctor after his morning visit to release me. He reluctantly agreed and prepared the prescriptions for the medicines I still had to take the coming days.

Next week Wednesday I have to visit him again to checkup.

My Cabuyao project

2009-09-21T15:56:00.004+02:00

Bangkok, September 21st.

Last week I was asked to write an article for an IT newsletter of the company I am working for. I have copied the article here in my blog, but taken out the name of the company and names of individuals.

If you are smart, and I think you are, you can easily find out with some googling, which company I am working for and which contract is at stake.

Since mid 2008 I am active in the APAC region for the data center out sourcing program to deploy the manufacturing sites in the APAC region.

To give you an idea of the size of the region, the sites range from Jilin, near the Chinese / North Korean border, to Seremban in Malaysia. Currently we are supporting 7 manufacturing sites located in: Jilin and Guangdong in China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Thailand, Malaysia and the Philippines.

These sites are separated by vast distances, for example flying from Bangkok to Jilin requires a 6 hours flight to Being and a 2 hours connecting flight to Jilin, followed by a 1 hour taxi ride to the site. Such a trip could easily take one day. Staff in this region speak 6 languages with various dialects.

Each country observes its own national and religious holidays. For example we celebrate 3 different New Years (Western Jan 1st, Lunar January/February, Thai in April) and Christmas is not a public holiday in many of these countries, but a week in the Philippines. This makes regional planning sometimes difficult and I remember that we made a mistake in the beginning, and lost almost two weeks in our baseline planning.

Apart from coordination I also was deployment manager for the site Cabuyao in the Philippines and currently Bangkok, which is also my place of business. The manufacturing site in Cabuyao is an Assembly Production site of moderate size, located in the Light Industrial & Science park, near to the city Cabuyao, province Laguna, Luzon, the largest of the ca. 7.100 islands of the Philippines, 43 kilometers south east of the capital Manila. It has ca. 200.000 inhabitants, but not a hotel facility according to company standards, so I had to stay in a hotel in Alabang, half an hour drive by car from Cabuyao.

In the deployment project we had to transfer the support of 70 computer systems including the local network to our support sites in Thailand, Netherlands and Poland. Apart from the technical transfer, it was my responsibility to find a solution for the IT staff on location that would be layed-off. Fortunately for three of the five employees I could find a new employer in Thailand, and for two I found an opportunity as well, but they decided to choose their own career opportunity.

Apart from the on-site team I had a team from our partner company in Thailand on site, varying in size from 3 at the start to 1 at the end. We have been there for many weeks in March-April to prepare the transfer of services and again in July-August to execute the transfer.

Cabuyao was the APAC pilot site, more or less in parallel with the EMEA pilot site in Nijmegen. We went life August 31st. The lessons learned from this site are being used for the next sites. It turned out that several weeks after care was required to stabilize the operation again, which is still ongoing.

Apart from this deployment project, I also had to find project managers for the other APAC sites. At the time of writing this article, I found project managers for all other APAC sites and last week I kicked-off the projects for the sites in Hong Kong/Guangdong and Malaysia in person.

Being back in Bangkok, I will continue the coordination for APAC deployment with manufacturing deployment management in EMEA and NXP IT manufacturing operations in Bangkok. Further I will continue with the Bangkok deployment project.

Lot for sale

2009-09-12T03:40:00.015+02:00

Bangkok, 12 September, 2009.

It's a while ago that I wrote in my blog, but it were busy times and a while no Internet in the Philipppines. This week I went back to Thailand via Hong Kong and Kual Lumpur where I had to initiate two new projects.

After my three weeks project work in Cabuyao, Laguna, I took a week leave to start processing the purchase of a piece of land (lot) in Pangasinan, north Luzon. I had asked my wife to come from the Netherlands to join me the last week in Laguna and Saturday 29 August we left together heading to Pangasinan, where we met the family again.

On Sunday we went to the lot that was offered to us half a year ago, to see it again. It was really magnificant, the view over the rice fields to the moutains of the Sierra Madre, quiet, along a barangay road. We loved it both, it was love at the first sight.

Meanwhile - this was reported a few weeks ago already - there were also a British and a Canadian interested to buy the lot. But because we were the first ones that offered a price half a year ago, the old lady wanted to sell the lot to us if we were willing to agree with her asking price, being 240 peso per square meter.

Given the fact that there was competition - I checked of course wether it was really true and not a sales trick - I agreed with the price under the condition that we could do an investigation to check the ownership, location, lay-out etc. The area was 7.228 square meter, so a price of ca. 1.7 M peso, a bit above my budget, but anyway we had to agree.

It seemed that she had the right papers (Absolete Deeds of Sale). but very old (from 1947) and a description that did not match with the layout plan that was made in 2006. So I decided to have our surveyor involved to measure the land and investigate the papers and finally to get a "clean" title for the lot. He told me that these days this takes maximum 3 months. Before it could last one or even more years, I know examples where after 2 years and 60.000 peso procedure costs, the title is still not available.

A title in the Philippines is a government registered proof of ownership and description of the lot, including mortgages if any. This is the most safe way to by a lot in the Philippines. My wife didn't like the surveyor as she was afraid that it was bad luck, as the previous times it ended up in a no buy due to unclear papers.

Monday we went to the surveyor - it was a holiday, the rememberence day of the guy who had established the "Iglesia ni Cristo" - so he had nothing to do and a chance to earn some money. He is 70 years old, but still active, the people call him Engineer. He is a certified geodetic engineer.

We agreed on the price, 5.000 peso for the land survey and 3.000 peso for the paperwork. It was my intention to do the paperwork first and if clean then the land survey, but everyone else wanted to do it the other way. I knew already the procedure for measuring the land from a previous survey 2 years ago. It takes about two hours in the heat of the day. My wife organised a lunch in the field. After completing all measuring we went back to the old lady for the real lunch, Philipino food like sinigang. In total I think we had to feed 15 people, our own family members who joined us that day and all the neighbours of the old lady. The lady herself did not join. Total cost 1.500 peso.

After lunch we went to the old lady to get the papers for making xeroxes and the surveyor even tried to convince the old lady that the price was too high, but she was not willing to lower the price. She was born in 1923, so 86 years old and she had even more and bigger lots, so a real millionaire, but very greedy. That is why the people in the barangay don't really like her I was told.

When we had all copies, the party was over and we went home. The surveyor asked us to get the next day a "true certified copy of the tax declaration" of all the lots she had as input for his investigations. You can get such a copy from the city assessor office. Next day it was organised by my family, but it turned out they asked for the wrong documents. So I decided to do it myself and went to the assessor's office. The man was very helpfull and the whole archive came upon the table, even the tax books from 1947 and later. On the maps in the office the lot was identified. It took him an hour until lunch and after lunch he continued. In total he must have been busy for me 2-3 hours, but finally he concluded that some papers were missing and it was not possible to clearly proof that the old lady was the owner of the whole lot.

The problem was that the lot had a "tenant" for already 60 years. We met the brother of the tenant before. It seems that in such cases the tenants have certain rights. The old lady had offered the tenant 300.000 peso to exit the lot, but she said she could only pay if she had received the money from the buyer of the lot.

From the archive in the assessor's office it was not clear who the owner was of a partial piece of the lot, so it could be that later on someone would claim it, perhaps the tenant or another clever Pilipino. The assessor went to an office around the corner, where they work on reforming of the farming land in the Philippines, but also there they could not find proof of ownership. Hence he advised us to cancel the deal with the old lady and the fear of my wife came true, we failed again.

By the way did recognise the picture I used for my blog intro on top? Indeed it is the lot that I was talking about now.

SCTEX bridge cages

2009-08-22T12:13:00.006+02:00

Alabang, Laguna, Philippines, August 22, 2009.

In the Netherlands and other European countries there is incidentally the problem that car drivers are attacked by heavy objects falling down from a crossing bridge.

They are thrown down from a bridge by crazy people, who want to hurt the driver and knocking the car.

It seems a kind of game, and I guess it are usually young boys, but I have never heard that they were catched. Of course it could as well be older people with a mental disease like a pyromania.

It was reported several times that a brick was thrown through the windscreen and you can imagine that, if one drives with a speed of 120 km/h, it might kill the driver or other persons in the car, which actually happened several times.

In the Philippines there are not so many freeways, actually there are only three on Luzon, the biggest island of the Philippines: SLEX, NLEX and SCTEX.

SCTEX is the latest and completed a few years ago. It is the Subic to Clark to Tarlac EXpress way. It was on this freeway were I saw recently that all bridges have a kind of cage covering them, such that it is not possible to throw large objects to driving cars below. I am not sure whether this problem exists in the Philippines and they invented this solution, or it might have another purpose, but at least it could be a solution for the problem that I mentioned above in the Netherlands.

I have never seen such cages on the SLEX (South Luzon EXpress way) which is being renewed now, or the NLEX (North Luzon EXpress way). So it remains a mistery why only the SCTEX has such bridge cases.

Who knows the answer?

"Google speaks"

2009-08-08T16:16:00.009+02:00

Bangkok, August 8, 2009.

A couple of weeks ago, when I went to the Philippines, I bought a book at the airport Suvarnabuhmi, titled: "Google speaks", written by Janet Lowe.

I was interested already some time in the company Google, so an opportunity to get a better understanding, and I would have ample time to read during my visit to the Philippines.

Since some time I use several products of this company and for free (browser (Chrome), mail (Gmail), photo store (picasa), iGoogle search

engine, profile, Google earth and map), but even more important, they are good products, well designed and rich of functionality. I like them much more than Microsofts products, especially since Microsoft started with their Live products.

The book gives an insight view in how the company started, about the two guys Larry Page and Sergey Brin who started the company some 12 years ago, where it all started in Stanford University, where other IT companies started as well, the business model and strategy, policy, privacy problems, and many many more.

Even when you are not in IT, but interested in recent business miracles, you should read this book. A quote from the cover:

"Sergey Brin and Larry Page, transformed their vision of a better search engine into a business colossus with about $16 billion annual revenue. ... how they both live fairly modest lives, despite having a net worth in excess of $ 15,9 billion ... how they have created a culture that fosters fun while, at the same time, keeping Google at the forefront of technology through relentless R&D investments and imaginative partnerships with organizations such as NASA."

As I am going again to the Philippines tomorrow, I will buy another biography of this author, or may be the story of Bill Gates father, seems interesting as well.

Sari-sari and OFW

2009-08-02T15:54:00.008+02:00

Philippines, Manila, NAIA airport, August 2^nd.

As usually the departure time for the ride to the airport was far too early. My flight departure is 2.20 p.m., so I suggested to depart from home at 7.00 a.m. It is a drive of 5 hours usually, but because it is Sunday, I assume the traffic will not be as on business days.

But because of the heavy rain of the last days and a chance of flooding , it was decided that we needed more slack in our planning, therefore we would leave 6 a.m. We took an alternative road, because from Urdaneta to Tarlac is not a pleasant road to drive. A lot of tri-cycles, buses, trucks even on Sunday. So we went via Malasiqui, Bambayang and Saint Ignatius to Tarlac. It is a quite road, easy to drive and some times nice views, especially just before Tarlac, small hills with rice terraces.

From Tarlac we took the new SCTEX toll-way to Dau and from there the NLEX to Manila. In total ca. 250 peso toll. Manila did have no traffic jams, so we arrived at NAIA at 10.30 a.m., where I had to wait an hour before the check-in gates were opened. This blog was written in the lounge and I will publish it when I am back in Bangkok later today.

The day before was a rainy day. Sometimes heavy, then less and then heavy again. It didn’t stop, even during last night it continued to rain. It was during the evening, just before we went to bed, that I made the above picture. It is in the sari-sari store of my mother in law (nanay), here she is together with my father in law (tatay for insiders). The store was build years ago and is attached to the house. The initial investment was done by my wife, when she was still working in Hong Kong.

What they sell in a sari-sari store is what people need from day to day, so a sachet with shampoo or washing powder, sucar, salt, a cup of cooking oil, a plastic bag with ice (she fills them with water every night), cigarettes by the piece, peanuts, beer, lemonade, etc. Every week or so they go to the super mall to replenish the store again.

It generates not a lot of money, but they can live from it, of course we have to help them now and then when they have to pay at once a “big” amount such as the electricity bill when we have been there for a while and used the aircon’s and the electric pump.

Apart from the money that comes in, it helps also to do something in their lives and it is a place to meet people and talk, so it has a social function as well. The whole family helps. When nanay goes to the market or bath room, then tatay will sit in (he is a retired tri-cycle driver), or the daughter when she is there, or one of the grand children.

At the moment there are 4 grand children living here. Nanay and tatay are raising them, bring them to school and pick them up again. Their parents are working on a contract in Macau. For them there is no work available in the Philippines, so they are now Overseas Filipino Workers (OFW), like my wife did before in Hong Kong.

I guess that OFW and running a sari-sari store are the most common businesses in the Philippines for people who are not part of a larger business. Most of the sari-sari stores are sponsored by OFW family members, but many of them are out of business again after a year or so, because they have no business plan. My mother in law has, she is not delivering anymore on credit!!

Kanin Club

2009-07-30T14:34:00.008+02:00

Philippines, Laguna province, Sta. Rosa, July 30, 2009.

It is almost the end of my visit to the Philippines today.

Tomorrow, Friday, I will go to my family in-law, north Luzon. It will be a trip of 5 to 6 hours by bus, so I decided to leave here from the hotel at 11 am. On Sunday I will fly back to Thailand, so again 5-6 hours, but I will ask my brother in law to bring me to the airport with our car, a van that we bought early this year.

Just because it is the last day with the IT team on the plant, I have invited them for a lunch meal in a Filipino restaurant in Sta. Rosa. It is called the Kanin Club. My Tagalog language knowledge is very limited, but I believe Kanin is a brand of rice, perhaps it has more meanings, if so let me know by posting a comment.

Let me introduce the team, from left to right around the table:

Jhay, Lolo, Dennis, Tetet, Ida, Nonie, James.

The restaurant is usually very busy during lunch time. You have to book or be in before 12 am. Business people are coming for lunch from many places, as the business population in the direct environment is not too large as it seems.

There are many more restaurants and some shops, but I haven't seen big offices or housing buildings, although there are many buildings under construction. It seems this place is build on the future expectations for much more business and many sub-divisions to be populated with Pilipino's who can afford it and perhaps foreigners.

Indeed there are so many sub-divisions in this area, but I don't see many houses, which they need to be make it a self supporting (financially) business. I think I better continue to develop my own housing plans in Luzon north, same landscape, close to the sea as well, but not so many business expectations, which drives up the prices for lots and building projects.

Biking

2009-07-28T14:58:00.007+02:00

Philippines, Laguna province, Alabang, 28 July.

Copy of my personal email today to my wife, after a long phone call.

Hello darling,

I am very proud that you can really bike now. You are getting a real Dutch woman. Please make sure you are not getting too much Dutch, because then we have a reversed cultural potential conflict.

It is good that you keep trying and get experience, even if you are sometimes a bit nervous or fall down. You know, if you don't fall while learning to bike, you will never be able to bike relaxed. Everyone is nervous in the beginning and will fall down, that is normal.

When we are together again (I hope it will be soon) we can enjoy together, whether it is in the Netherlands, in Thailand or in the Philippines, it doesn't matter, biking is really nice to do and good for your (and of course my) body.

And as you experience now, biking is for short distances faster than the bus. If you go through the forest or along the canals or river, you can see much more than by car. That is why Dutch people like to bike in Bangkok. You see so much more, you will not see otherwise.

I love you,

your spouse, asawa, echtgenoot.

Vivere

2009-07-26T08:20:00.016+02:00

Philippines, Laguna, Muntinlupa City, Alabang, 26 July.

One of my Asian projects is in the Philippines, in a factory south of Manila. I am here now for 2 weeks, to help local management to prepare for the new way of working with their IT systems.

Despite an awful pain low in my back since last week, I went yesterday, Saturday, to the large shopping center called "Festival Super Mall" opposite of my hotel "Vivere Suites". It's a 31 storey building, with suites of different sizes and a small restaurant on the 31st level with a splendid view over Laguna bay and, if the air is clear, you can see the sky-line of Manila. It is opposite of the hotel were I resided the last time, called "Bellevue", a French word, meaning: "nice view".

The whole area is a business and modern living development area, many new business buildings, shopping malls and sub-divisions for the Philipino who can afford to live in such sub-divisions.

The mall opens 10 am and is open until 9 pm 7 days a week. I was early and looked around in a hardware store, to see what you can buy and more important what not. I always do this as to get a clear picture of what I should bring when we are going to settle here permanently and we start building our house. Well there is more variety here than in the province, but even there you can find basically everything what we have in Europe, except for two area's.

First area is electricity components for buildings, especially the flexible colored wires with solid core, the flexible tube, the tool for pulling the wires thru the tube and the wire connectors for in a wall mounting box.

Secondly model trains and all the other technical small items, like motors, wheels, rails, switches, electronics (chips) and scenery items.

After an hour or so, I saw a kind of waiting room for something that looked as a health care business. A sales boy started to talk to me and invited me for a free massage. As I was interested (not for the free, but for the massage) and accepted his invitation, got an orange plastic ticket with number 26. Some people were still waiting in the waiting room, but I was pushed thru the door and came into a big space with a lot of people.

Half of the space was occupied with beds, people were laying there with a blanket over their body. It looked like a moratorium after a plain crash.

The other half was full of chairs and a kind of stage, with a young lady and microphone, a projected screen of a kind of instruction slide show and a white board. The audience started to shout: "there is a new comer" louder and louder. It turned out it was me.

The lady was talking and talking, there was no begin and no end. I had to sit and took a chair at the back end. Then she started to talk to me in her microphone, everyone looking over their shoulder at me. The cord of the microphone was too short to come to me, so I had to come to her.

Then she started to interview me. My name, age, where I came from, illness, etc. The audience was listening and giving comments. They didn't believe I was 61, they said I looked like 50. She called me tito Leo in stead of lolo Leo.

After the interview I was put in a chair next to a young man, maybe 30 years of age, who started to talk to me. I got a beld around my hips, which was powered such that it radiated heat. It felt nice. He explained that this was a Korean based therapy for sick people.

Indeed the whole atmosphere was Asian, a bit based on religion, technology, mystery, believe, stimulation of the folk, and a lot of noise. He told me that he had problems with his shoulder joint and now after many times being here it is all okay. He comes here several days a week. I saw also very old people and even some infants of less than a year.

Suddenly the lady stopped with the show and the people laying on the beds stood up and the people waiting on the chairs went to the beds. I had to go to bed 26. As I found out, it was not a normal bed, but it had a massage machine under it. I laid down, my back on the bed and I got a blanket over my body.

Then the machine started to work. It was like there was a strong wave under my body, tilting it up where the wave top was. When it hit my low back, I got crazy from the pain. First the wave went fast from feed to head and vice versa, but after a while the speed reduced, but it looked like the amplitude increased.

There were many ladies walking around in the same red uniform as the lady who interviewed me. One of them sat down next to me and started to explain the therapy and giving food advices. After a while she stood up and another came to sit down. It was hardly impossible to understand them, as the lady on the stage was talking as a waterfall. This is Philippines, the more sound the better.

It was after an hour that I was outside again. The method was called Nuga and the instruments and beds they used are also for sale. Look here for more information on Nuga.

My next stop was a shop for nail care. It was already long ago that I had got a nail care treatment in the Philippines, from one of the neighbour ladies of my family in law. They are much better than the Thai, according to my wife. So I ordered a foot and hand nail cutting and caring service.

As I love this kind of treatment, I was disappointed to understand that 2 ladies would do the job. This meant that it would take only half of the time. Nevertheless it was magnificent, it took between 30 and 60 minutes and they gave a massage as well. I must say they did a perfect job, even much better than what they do in the province.

When I was outside again, my plan was to visit a barbershop as my hair had to be cut. It was next door, this one was indeed only for men and the barbers were men as well. I started with the haircut, and when finished I asked for a head and shoulder massage.

The guy was happy to earn some more money and serving a foreigner, or Americano as they are called, means that is more to earn, so he offered me to shave me first. Indeed I usually do not shave me in the weekend, so I agreed.

After shaving he offered me to (dry)shampoo my head, I agreed again. Next the shampoo had to be removed with water, so we moved to a chair with a sink. The massage was excellent. Head, neck, shoulders, arms and hands.

When I found a Filipino restaurant, it was already 5 pm, I sat down and enjoyed the "eat as much as you can" formulae. Relaxed and full I went back to Vivere.

Vivere is an Italian word and has the following translations: "be alive", "dwell", "live", "reside", "subsist", so a nice word for this nice accomodation. For more info see the website of Vivere.

Centipede

2009-07-19T08:42:00.010+02:00

Bangkok, July 19, 2009.

Some time ago, it was on the bridge over the klong (channel) to enter the Dutch embassy in Bangkok, I saw this creature walking.

Luckily I had my camera with me and could take this picture. I am not sure whether it is a he or she, so I will call it it.

Official name of this creature is centipede, sometimes called milipede, in English respectively hundred-feet or thousand-feet. It seems that there are many variants of it, smaller than this one, but also some are bigger, the biggest one found 30 cm. I guess the size of this one was 8-10 cm.

I do remember now, while I am writing, that a few years ago when I was in Indonesia for holiday, it was in Jakarta, just opposite of the house where I lived as a child, they had a kind of permanent market for flowers, living fish for aquarium, and there I saw a bucket with centipedes. These were of similar shape and size, but the feed were bigger. The owner played with them, put them on his body, and they crawled up and under his cloth, it made me shivering.

This one was walking rather fast, I guess 10 cm in 1-2 seconds, hence that is 360-720 m/h, on average 500 m/h. I have counted the number of segments: its about 55. Each section has 2 legs at the visible side (right), so I assume 2 at the other side (left) as well. Hence it has 4 x 55 = 220 legs, so the centipede name is better chosen than the milipede.

From the picture you can estimate the length of the legs. I measure 4 mm, while the total length of the centipede on the picture is 140 mm (in reality assume 100 mm), so the legs are 100 x 4/140 = 2.86 mm long. Now assuming that the legs motion (you can see the maximum angle on the picture) is 30 degrees forward and 30 degrees again backwards, then the step-size of one leg is 2.86 mm (because it is an equally sided triangle geometry).

Now comes the apocalypse of this story:

having 220 legs, each stepping 2.86 mm, makes that if all legs did one step, the centipede stepped 629 mm, or 0.629 m. Given that the speed is calculated as 500 m/h, it means that the centipede stepped 500 x 220 m/h = 110.000 m/h = 110 km/h.

Conclusion:

it is not a very efficient creation of nature, but an interesting creature.

My Thanpuying apartment

2009-07-18T09:05:00.003+02:00

Bangkok, July 18, 2009.

Almost a year ago, since september 2008, I am living in the Thanpuying Suites building. For me it is really an excellent environment to relax. It is quiet, not many guests, sufficient facilities, clean, a small swimming pool and last but not least in the middle of north Bangkok, but it gives me the feeling of the country side.

It is only 5 minutes walk to the main road (soi 54) in this area and again 10 minutes to the Ngam Wong Wam, opposite of Kasetsart university and close to the Vibhavadi hospital. The area is called Chatu Chak.

Since I am here I have had a room on the 8th floor, 11th and 12th. This year I am on the 12th floor. It is a one bed room style apartment, okay for me alone. Last year I had a 2 bed room type, as I expected some visitors. That one had a better view than this one.

Last year I lived here with my wife, until february 2009. We went back to Europe for a month, then she decided to stay, as the apartment was not her favourite, she likes more the Hong Kong style of living. That is you go down from your apartment and ... wow an awfull lot of people walking around, shopping, walking to the office, always busy and cheap, the paradise she called it.

My paradise is here, quiet, relaxing. Before there was as well a small restaurant near the pool on level 5, but since the number of guests is gone down, maybe it has to do with the economic crisis, they fired the cooking maid and closed the restaurant.

If I want to go to the office, sometimes I work at home, I go down and one of the guards jumps on the motorbike and gets me a taxi. It is without traffic jams half an our by taxi, 100 Baht. From here to the mall, Mall Ngam Wong Wam or Central Plaza in Lad Prao, is 15 minutes by taxi, or 60-70 Baht. I usually go in the weekend to do some shopping. For daily shopping I go to the Tops supermarket, 7-Eleven or the market at the corner of Pahon Yotin.

Should you need an apartment in Bangkok, check out this website.

Takraw

2009-07-12T09:33:00.002+02:00

Bangkok, July 12, 2009.

When I want to go for shopping or visiting one of my favorite restaurants, I have to walk a few minutes to the main road (soi) thru the area where I live.

One of the buildings that I pass by, was an unfinished apartment building of 5 storeys, when I settled here in August 2008. Only the walls and floors were done, but since half a year suddenly they started to finish the building. The people who are doing the work are living in the apartment with their families, I guess it are 4-5 families. Also the women are doing construction work like mixing cement. It is now almost finished.

Opposite of the apartment where they temporarily live is a small area with grass and dirt, and between 5.30 and 6.30 pm, just before it gets dark, the guys are playing there a game. It is like volley ball, but in stead of using their hands, they use all other parts of the body, except their hands. The ball is rather small, very light and it looks like it's made of bamboo.

When my son was here, he is a specialist in sports by profession and hobby, he told me that this is a well known sport, especially played in Asian countries and there are even tournaments. So it took me only a minute to find out on the Internet what the name of the game is. This is what I found on Wikipedia.

It is a popular sport in Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia, Malaysia, Laos, Indonesia and the Philippines.

In Thailand the game is simply called takraw. It is also thuck thay (Lao:: "twine" and "kick"), while in Malaysia it is sometimes called sepak raga. In the Philippines it is known as sipa, meaning "kick".

Takraw on Youtube.

LK

Sarah

2009-07-12T07:36:00.008+02:00

Bangkok, July 12, 2009.

When I was waiting July 4 at Schiphol airport for the gate to be opened for my flight to Bangkok, I looked around in one of the bookstores and found a best seller titled: "Haar naam was Sarah" a dutch translation of the original title: "Sarah's key".

As the cover told me that it was about the holocaust in 2nd worldwar in France, I was interested. I read a lot about this period in history, remember I was born just after the war, but was not familiar with what happened in France those years.

And indeed what was said by several criticasters, "you can't stop reading" or "very emotional, you can't keep your eyes dry", is really true, it happened to me.

Paris, July 1942: Sarah, a ten year-old girl, is brutally arrested with her family by the French police in the Vel’ d’Hiv’ roundup, but not before she locks her younger brother in a cupboard in the family's apartment, thinking that she will be back within a few hours.

Paris, May 2002: On Vel’ d’Hiv’s 60th anniversary, journalist Julia Jarmond is asked to write an article about this black day in France's past. Through her contemporary investigation, she stumbles onto a trail of long-hidden family secrets that connect her to Sarah. Julia finds herself compelled to retrace the girl's ordeal, from that terrible term in the Vel d'Hiv', to the camps, and beyond. As she probes into Sarah's past, she begins to question her own place in France, and to reevaluate her marriage and her life.

Tatiana de Rosnay offers us a brilliantly subtle, compelling portrait of France under occupation and reveals the taboos and silence that surround this painful episode.

Source: readinggroupguides

I started reading 2 or 3 chapters on Friday evening and then Saturday morning at the swimming pool continued reading. By the time it was getting dark I had still 25 pages to go. After having a break for shopping and a dinner, I started again 8 pm and read the last part. Just to get rid of my emotions I had to do something, so started quite late that evening writing my 2 blogs on Greece.

LK

Acropolis

2009-07-11T18:33:00.009+02:00

Greece, Athens, 27-28 June, 2009.

I don't like to cite other sources, but in this case I do. As I am not a historian of the old Latin and Greece histories, I prefer to put here a brief history description of the site we have visited during our Athens visit. It is easy to find more and detailed descriptions on sites like Wikipedia, which I used for this summary.

Quote:
Acropolis (Gr. akros, akron,^[1] edge, extremity + polis, city, pl. acropoleis) literally means city on the edge (or extremity). In Greek, Acropolis means "Highest City". For purposes of defense, early settlers naturally chose elevated ground, frequently a hill with precipitous sides. In many parts of the world, these early citadels became the nuclei of large cities, which grew up on the surrounding lower ground, such as modern Rome.

The word Acropolis, although Greek in origin and associated primarily with the Greek cities Athens, Argos, Thebes, and Corinth (with its Acrocorinth), may be applied generically to all such citadels, including Rome, Jerusalem, Celtic Bratislava, many in Asia Minor, or even Castle Rock in Edinburgh.

The most famous example is the Acropolis of Athens,^[2] which, by reason of its historical associations and the several famous buildings erected upon it (most notably the Parthenon), is known without qualification as the Acropolis. Although originating in the mainland of Greece, use of the acropolis model quickly spread to Greek colonies such as the Dorian Lato on Crete during the Archaic Period.

The Acropolis is a flat-topped rock which rises 150 m (490 ft) above sea level in the city of Athens, with a surface area of about 3 hectares. It was also known as Cecropia, after the legendary serpent-man, Cecrops, the first Athenian king.
Unquote.

We did the tour like most visitors do, I assume. We took the tourist bus, you know the one that goes around, with a spoken tour story in your headphones, two levels, and the top level in open air no roof. No problem in Athens, it was sunny, hot and dry.

I am not sure whether it is the sound quality of the earphones or that my ears are getting aged, but most of the sentences I can hear but I don't understand the message. I am customed already to this problem. Fortunately my wife is not really interested in the details and history, so I have not to explain or repeat it to her.

When we arrived in Athens, after a boat and bus tour, both took abaout 2 hours, we searched for a hotel, near to the bus square/station where we were delivered and had to depart again the next day. We found one only 100 meters away, simple, I would say 3 stars, including breakfast.

After our tour around Athens, and especially the Acropolis, we went back to our hotel, took a shower and started to contact my wife's cousine. Finally contacts were established and she went in a taxi to our hotel. We could see her from our balcony, getting out the taxi with her daughter and we started to rush downstairs to meet her, for my wife it was the first time after 30 years or so to see her again. She was not really changed.

Her daughter was a bit afraid for these new people, she has never seen before, but that changed later that evening, when we had a dinner together. Later on she even was willing to sit on my lap and we took many fotos to show what we did.

LK

Skiathos

2009-07-11T16:41:00.009+02:00

Skiathos, Greece, 23-30 June 2009.

My work in Asia Pacific is so hectic that I even cannot really plan a holiday as I was used to do when I worked in Europe. The only opportunity I could think of to have a short holidy break was end of June. In July I have to complete my project in the Philippines and in August I have to start a project in Malaysia and one in Thailand.

Just 2 days before I would land in Amsterdam I could call my wife to tell her that I was coming back for two weeks and that we had to find a last minute trip to Greece. I had never been in Greece and she either. My children and mother visited Greece already, my son even two times. So we were excited.

As my wife wanted to meet her niece in Athens, we went to the travel agency to book a last minute to the capital. It turned out to be quite expensive and asked the lady for other options. The problem was that the cheap charter airlines went only to the holiday islands and not to Athens, so the only flights were regular airline flights, being two or more times expensive than the charters. Finally we found a 1 week last minute to "Skiathos" one of the Sporade islands north of Athens, but only 4 hours by boat and bus and decided to go to the capital from Skiathos for 1 or 2 days to visit her family member and daughter.

It's a small island, the high summer season was not started yet and everything is close by. It was lovely, the apartment (hotel Renee) was nice with an excellent view over the sea from the balcony or the terras where we took our simple breakfast.

We rented a motor bike for a couple of days but later on decided to extend the rent for the whole week. It was 15 euro a day only. The route to the apartment on the mountain near Skiathos city was quite steep and I didn't want to walk that part one or more times a day, I would have died if I did. Later on I found out that a taxi up hill was 5 euro already. And anyway, if you want to discover the island you had to go around by bike or car, there is only one bus from the main city to the other end of the island, where one of the few nice beaches is located.

Interesting was a trip to one of the highest mountains, where an asylum for pets, mainly dogs, was located, close to an old chapel. It seemed to be ran by an english lady. Visitors/tourist could walk with the dogs, but you could also adopt an animal. Depending on your home country, there was the ability to bring the pet to your home, the organisation behind it could arrange it for you. For The Netherlands, they have another procedure as I heard from my daughther. She has a Greece dog herself.

Another day we took a boat tour of a day to the other 2 sister islands, called Skopelos and Alonissos. Of course we had to see the dolphines, and we really saw them jumping next to the boat, the small cities and harbours and the little church on a mountain near to the see where the wedding in the movie "Mama mia" was shoot. That's what they told me and what they use to attract tourists to take the tour, I had never seen this movie, but I have to do now or at least shortly.

Another day we went to the north part of the island and went to the beach to make a foto shooting of my wife in her bikini, with some rocks and the see as background. The water is so clear, I have never seen this before, not in other Mediteranian beaches, nor in Asia Pacific. While we were doing the foto shooting an aeroplane came over so low and noisy, it was really frighthening. The beach was at the end of the runway on the island. It had a very short run way, and I remebered that when we arrived, the pilot had to use the brakes as I never experienced before. When he turned away from the landing strip, the end of the strip and the sea was only 50 meters away.

One of the last days, we went to another part of the island, we crossed the highest point and found close to it a restaurant for lunch, with a stunning view over the island, Skiathos city and the see. You could see the giant ferry's coming and departing again. They must have so many ferries in Greece, I was not aware of it. After lunch we visited a small chapel again, with very nice icons (wall and ceiling paintings) and a place with monks and a tourist sales outlet, where you could buy wine, honey and much more home made products.

Usually we had our dinner in one of the many restaurants at the boulevard along the two ports. The greek salad was excellent, I think we had it every day, simple but a good starter, we will repeat it back home many times. The fish and meat is good as well, my wife loves the fish, I love both. But even more than the food, I liked the sailing boats anchored in the new port. It remembered me on my own sailing life, almost 10 years ago. Maybe next time when I come back here, I will rent a sailing boat in stead of an apartment.

The last day we visited Skiathos city and climbed the old city streets up to the tower with a view over the old and new ports of the city. Nice view and many pictures taken again. It was a short holiday, but we have enjoyed it so much and fell in love with the country, the island, the wheather and the food. If there is a chance we will come back.

LK

Elephant

2009-06-09T14:56:00.009+02:00

Bangkok June 9th, 2009

If you happen to be in Bangkok, there is a chance that you suddenly are confronted with an elephant on the street or boardwalk.

It happened to me already several times, usually in the evening, but I believe that is because usually I am walking around in the evening, going to a restaurant or shopping place.

For me it was always a bit shaky, as it comes so unexpectedly.

The first time was when we had a birthday dinner in a restaurant on Sukhumvit road, the first month of our stay in Thailand, when we still stayed in a hotel, close to the restaurant. It was dark already and suddenly at the other side of the road there was a big one walking slowly with his driver.

Next time was close to our apartment, Ngam Wong Wan road in Chatuchak, when we walked to our restaurant, early 2009. Suddenly the animal was there, it was dark already, and blocking the way on the board walk. Quite busy as the Kaset University was closing and all the students had to pass by. The driver was trying to get money from people sitting there in the food court and enjoying their dinner. He let the animal bow for the audience and sit on his knees. The picture above was taken at that location.

The reason for telling you all this is because what happened today. I was going from the office back home quite early, as I had problems with my email in the office. My taxi driver was a guy who liked to drive as I do, as fast as you can, given the traffic circumstances. We drove at the right side of the road (traffic in Thailand is left oriented) just along the middle shoulder of the road, separating the traffic at the other opposite lanes, I guess 80 to 90 km/hour.

Suddenly we saw an elephant on the middle shoulder of the road, wobbling to move forward to cross the lanes of the road where we were driving. His driver could just prevent the animal to set its first fore leg on our lane and a crash was just prevented. At that moment I remembered a news item I had read last year, telling the story of an elephant and his driver killed in Bangkok, while walking on the street, by a drunken car driver. Both were found dead, the driver and his elephant. The car driver survived. This wasn't the first incident, there were more already in Bangkok. The government was considering to submit a law preventing elephant drivers to come to Bangkok for collecting money. I am not up-to-date with the current status, but as I learned today, it still happens.

Therefore I am also feeling uncomfortable when I meet an elephant driver again, to give money or not. He surely needs it to be able to take care of his elephant. But if you do, he will come back and that is not in the interest of driver and elephant. What would you do?

LK

Jasmin Tower Office

2009-06-07T19:07:00.002+02:00

Bangkok, June 8th, 2009

Almost every day I go to my office from Bangkok north to Nonthaburi. It's a 12 kilometers ride. If there is no traffic congestion, it takes about 15 minutes. It costs me 100 baht, so 2 euro. Usually in the morning there is not a lot of congestion, but in the evening there is, especially when there is flooding from the heavy tropical rains.

The office is in the Jasmin tower, close to the new mall @ Pakkret road, opened last year. If the air is clean, which is an exception, you can see the Bangkok downtown skyline very well.

The floor is shared with another company, we are in the upper half of the 31 storey building. The office is not very specific, just as everywhere in the world. However, what is different from my office in Europe, is that here I guess 50% is female, in Europe maybe 10%. I am talking now about the IT industry, in other industry area's it might be different.

And when I say female, it's really female. How they dress, walk and behave. They are much more fashion oriented than in any other country I have been, in Asia, in Europe as well as the America's. Although I think the Philippines comes close. Also in the office in Cabuyao, Laguna, where I've been several times, they know how to dress but not like in Bangkok, and amazingly also in that office the female population is about 50% maybe even higher.

Most staff comes in in the morning between 9 and 10 a.m. But most of them do not leave before 6 p.m. Time recording system is not used, all is based on trust, just as in our European offices. Usually I am early, like 8 a.m. and leave 6 or 7 p.m. Sometimes I work first in my apartment and then go to the office.

At noon almost everyone disappears, in 15 minutes the office is empty, perhaps one or two persons stay. All the rest goes down, to the food court. This is a phenomenon you see everywhere in Bangkok. Just outside the building is a big court, open but with a roof against the son and rain, along all sites are small food shops where they prepare the food or drinks, you order what you like and for 30-35 baht, less than a euro, you have your lunch. There are also many small shops where you can buy shoes, cloths, DVDs, etc.

Once I ordered a DVD. The guy called someone and after 5 minutes the DVD was brought in, including a colored cover. All illegal of course for 100 baht, made to order. The quality was very poor, so will not do that again.

After lunch back to the office. Within an hour the whole food court is empty. All small businesses are gone and will return in the morning the next day.

LK

Black Canyon Coffee

2009-06-07T08:25:00.013+02:00

Bangkok, June 7th, 2009

Today and yesterday I woke up early, mind you it's weekend, went to the swimming pool, on the 5th floor of the apartment building, and did my swimming exercise of 10 laps of 10 meter, so one hundred meters. That is a lot for Lolo, isn't it. I can feel it in my arm.

Then take a rest on one of the pool beds and read my book, this time I am reading "Bourne Supremacy" of Robert Ludlum. Seems to be the second of a trilogy.

At 11 a.m. back to my apartment, dress and walk to the main road, take a taxi to Central Plaza, Lad Prao. This is one of the older large shopping malls in Bangkok, but always very busy, most are young people as you see in every shopping mall. It seems that most elderly people do not like this kind of shopping malls, or have no money to spend.

I am here to buy a USB cable for my new printer, which I bought yesterday in the Fortune IT mall at Rama 9 road. I went there after visiting the "Black Canyon Coffee" bar and restaurant, the one were I am heading to now again.

This is a chain with a franchise formulae similar as S********s, the American coffee bar chain. But this one is much better. The coffee is really nice, the presentation good, staff is friendly and helpful, but even more important they have more variety in coffee, also ice-coffee, the and ice-the, ice cream, beer (only Heineken) and also a variety of food, like salads, sandwiches, soups, main courses with noodles, or rice and beef, pork and chicken. I love their spicy sausages and Tom Yam Goong soup.

Today I went for the tuna sandwich with french fries, but don't eat the latter as I am too fat now. And a glass of ice-mocca, which is coffee with a bit of chocolate. Makes you fat as well, but love it.

I have been here several times already with a friend from my work, also a Dutch man, but living more than ten years already in Thailand. Actually, he brought me here the first time, after work and drunk a beer and had dinner. Since then, I am a regular guest.

In the other mall where I go regularly, called The Mall Ngam Wong Wan, they have also a bar and restaurant, but smaller and not so cosy. I have been there two times now, but many items of the menu are sold out, so I am not going there anymore.

The chain was established in 1993 and grown since then, now having more than 90 branches throughout Thailand and South East Asia. Since 2002 they have branches outside Thailand, in Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and other countries. Have a look at their web site.

LK

Biking in Bangkok

2009-05-31T12:27:00.018+02:00

Bangkok, May 31, 2009

A famous activity for many Dutch people coming to Thailand, usually via Bangkok, is to join a biking tour of the Dutch guy Co van Kesteren. I met Co when I did my second tour, which was four weeks ago. Indeed most of the people are Dutch, probably because biking is a typical Dutch habit. Everyone in The Netherlands has a bike, some have even two. Children of 3 to 4 years of age are already learning to ride the bike.

The first tour I did was the full day tour, which brings you by train to the outskirts of Bangkok, direction of the new airport, Suvarnabumi. It brings you really into the plantations and rice fields, along the many klongs (water ways) and between the fields, it seems the people living there, most are farmer, have not seen foreigners in their area before. After an excellent lunch, returning to Bangkok city by boat, a bit biking again and with the Sky train back to Bangkok center and crossing through China Town. You should be healthy to do this tour, it is from 7 am to 6 pm and keeps you really awake. I was so tired after this tour, could hardly walk.

The idea was to do this tour with my son, when he arrived in Bangkok, now 2 months ago. But he had other priorities that time, so I decided to go alone, as my daughter advised me to do a tour. She was so impressed when she did it last year November, she didn't stop talking about it.

Unexpectedly the web master joined us, as he wanted to make new photo's of the day tour for an update of their web site. So you can see me now on their web site, I am the old guy with the yellow striped T-shirt.

The second time was 4 weeks ago when a Dutch colleague was here for giving a one week training course in our Bangkok office. I invited him for the short tour, which was on a Saturday afternoon. This short tour was also a nice one, crossing again through China Town and the many markets, dry and wet, then crossing by boat the Chao Phraya river, biking along the river side for a while, visiting Wat Arun temple and then crossing the river again by one of the many bridges and visiting some other famous temples and places. Because it was at that time Songkran (Thai New Year) many festivities were going on at the temple places, which made the tour even more attractive.

The third time I did a tour was today. Now with my son, who stayed for a couple of days with me. This time he did have time to go biking and we decided to take the Sunday morning long tour from 7 am to 12 pm.

As I found out later, one of the guys who joined us, with his girlfriend, was a university mate of my son, even from the same Faculty and year.

Again a surprise, it was a kind of combination of the previous two tours I did. We first crossed China Town and its markets, which were very crowded because it was a Sunday, then crossed the river by boat and went around for a while. Next we took the typical Thai long tail boat with a big car engine and long propeller tube at the end. It seems that these boats have difficulty to make a short turn, so every time we had to make 90 degrees turn, the skipper had to slow down and make a carefully calculated turn.

Next we biked along some klongs, visited nice places, even have been to a floating market, feeding the holy fish in the holy water near the temple, we had a nice Thai lunch on a klong boat, and then biked around in an area with newly build houses, which we call in The Netherlands a Vinex area. Probably subsidised and organised by the government.

From there we took again the long tale boat back to Bangkok center. We even saw a large lizard resting on the klong water side. It was really a big one, never seen before in Bangkok, at least not this size of one meter long or so.

See my Google photo's including the lizard on my Google albums. Will add the album info later.

LK.

Who is LOLO?

2009-05-30T18:03:00.006+02:00

Bangkok May 30, 2009,

You may wonder who is LOLO. Well the answer is simple, I am Lolo.

Lolo is the word used in the Philippines for grandfather or "opa" in Dutch.

To be honest, I am not really a Lolo yet, as my children have no children, but in the Philippines when you are at my age, they call you Lolo, nevermind the number of grandchildren you have, even if zero. It is more related to your age than to your family status.

I like the word Lolo as it looks like LOL and that has to do with "laughing out loud" or "love on love". My definition is: "Live Our Life Ontime " so before you die.

Now I see your next question already:
"What the hell has the Philippines to do with it, because you are in Thailand, are you?"

Okay, I am right now in Thailand, but my Filipina wife is in Europe and our Filipino family relatives are in the Philippines, that's why my reference is now the Philippines.

Hope this gives you some background info on where I am coming from, my relations and what you can expect, given the family bonds and geographical relations.

LK

JJ market Bangkok

2009-05-30T11:46:00.003+02:00

Bangkok, May 30, 2009

My son is around in Thailand for 2 months, but lost his passport last Sunday, actually it was stolen including his money and bankcard, so he had to come to Bangkok to apply for a tempory passport from the Dutch embassy.

Via a Thai bank I sent some money to the owner of the guesthouse where he was at the time.

All the paperwork has been done and until his flight back to Europe he stays here with me in my Bangkok apartment.

So today I brought him to Chatu Chak market, the biggest market in the world, that is what some reports say, to buy some small presents for his mum and friends.

We went early because usually it's becoming very hot around noon, so we went 9 am. It's close to my apartment @ Ngam Wong Wan Rd, so only 15 minutes by taxi.

First thing we did was taking a Thai breakfast, spicy noodles and pork neck with water and ice cubes. Next walking around, I have been there so many times already, so it's getting boring, but for a new comer it's fun to see so may little shops with art, handicraft, cloth, shoes, food, and many many more things.

I gave him a thousand baht to buy things, well he only bought a T-shirt with an elephant on the chest for himself and later on a handicraft cat for his mum, and salt and pepper sets for his friends and sister.

By the way his sister, that is my daughter of course, went today from Dusseldorf to Rome for a long weekend. Accidentally they will arrive on the same day, next week Monday, on Dusseldorf airport with some hours difference, where they will be picked up by a relative.

We took a fresh cold drink in the market, orange and guava juice, and around 11 am he wanted to go back, as it was starting to be so hot already.

At all exits of the market you find plenty of taxis bringing home the tourists. So the first one had a speaker (Indian type of seller) who wanted to push us in a taxi for 400 baht. As I know the prices, I refused it and we walked to another one, just asked for starting the taxi meter and we went off. For 100 baht we were delivered at the apartment, where we decided to do some fitness (he) and swimming (me).

LK