they're all friendly everybody's friendly if you're in a wheelchair get some dumbbells a disabled person may think well they'll see me they won't bother me it's just the opposite it's not Chicago people couldn't figure out how to get
through an intersection with traffic lights we're near the equator and things can get hot that's just life there's a lot of problems there now and inflation looks like it's going to be serious I had a bad accident I
was unconscious for almost a half hour hey YouTube Alex here and in today's interview I want to introduce you to my friend William drink water and will is an American expat who's been living here in the Philippines for
many years will is a veteran of the US Military and wants you all to know that his disability is non-service connected he actually developed his disability from a skydiving accident will has lived all over the United States and
spent a considerable amount of time in other parts of the world before coming to live here in the Philippines I hope you enjoy this video without further Ado let's get into it hi Will can you introduce yourself please
uh sure my name is Bill drinkwater I've been here in the Philippines for8 years and I've spent four of those eight years in dumag Getti I am disabled and so I'm kind of aware of uh what happens with
disabled people here so I have a few uh bits of information that might be helpful what are the most common disabilities here I don't know I don't see many people on crutches and I only see even fewer in
a wheelchair but there are some um I suspect that the most common disability might be one of those invisible ones I think a lot of people have PTSD and may not even know it either from childhood trauma or
from military combat I think that's very common so uh but that's a different different type of disability I can't talk much about that because uh I don't know how to deal with that except to go to people who
are counselors and psychologists and such and people can do that here so so if they have that problem also there's a strong expat Community that's very supportive so U uh they can always talk to other expats and and
uh you can still have a good life here you just have to be patient very patient in the Philippines and don't ever lose your temper that's all and that's other than that you'll get along fine here what are
the common misconceptions that expats with disabilities face that's a good question I'll go down to the attitude section the first thing that a person should do if they're physically disabled and they come here is deemphasize your disability don't
make it the center of your life everyone you meet everyone you talk to you want to talk about your disability then that's not a good idea because people really aren't interested and you always can scare people because they
realize wait a minute I could become disabled someday you know and it puts it the idea in their head and they don't they don't like that so um it's better just not to talk about it ignore it act
normal and you'll get along just fine with people a lot better um also very important is don't feel sorry for yourself because life is a series of ups and downs for everybody everybody goes through hell a few times
in life and so you don't know the other person you're talking to you you don't really know their background in their life they've had hard times too you know a lot of guys who come here now from the
US have been through like three marriages and three divorces and all kinds of trauma you know and so uh you have to be compassionate with other people and don't be overly compassionate with yourself you know um when you
meet people who are not disabled let's say you go to an xat bar an xat sports bar and you want to have a beer you have a bottle of water whatever you meet someone you talk to them um
you have to initiate the conversation very often they are not going to because they don't know what to say they don't know what to say to a disabled person and many people believe that if a person is physically
disabled they're also automatically mentally disabled and and so they don't want to talk to you unless you talk to them first and it's easy it's easy with xats because there are two questions you walk up to someone you
never met them before you know they're an expat and you say where are you from and then the second question is how long have you been in the Philippines and then you take it from there and you sit
down at a table and you sh shoot the breeze you talk for a half hour an hour 2 hours and it's great you have these great conversations but you have to initiate it yourself and let them know that
you're okay mentally that you are a normal person except for the fact that maybe you have an arm missing or you on crutches or something um with a wheelchair it's more difficult of course because of the mobility it's
harder to get around but uh it's the same thing with that you you talk to people be let them know you're normal let them know you're you're okay and uh so that's a that's a good way to do
it now let's see I've got some more things here um service animals if you have a service animal don't worry bring it with you you can easily bring a service animal on an airline to the Philippines or almost
anywhere in the world nowadays also your pet if you have a dog or a cat you can bring it all you have to do is sign some get some official paperwork from a veterinarian stating they've had a Raby
shot and a couple other things and you can bring your don't leave your pet behind visit really important service animals of course then people have these animals that are psychological uh companions for them that they need and then
other people just have an ordinary pet a dog or a cat you can bring them you can bring them all and that's really really important it's not real expensive and it's well worth it and the other thing of
course after you're living here for a while you say wait a minute I'd like to have a little dog well you can have a little dog you know you have to talk to your landlord to make sure it's
okay and then you can have a dog or a cat or whatever you know and and if you do get a pet which will give you a lot of Solace especially if you're homebound part of the time if
you don't have good Mobility you're disabled your home you have your dog or your cat you know you can play with them you can love them and and it makes it less honorous to stay at home you say
ah I spent a lot of time in my apartment or something well you got a pet the pet loves it longer you stay there the more the pet loves you you know so that's really important puts a lot
of love in your life and and uh a lot of good feelings it lowers your blood pressure to Pat an animal that's proven so it's really good also a very important thing is to stay humble you know remember
we're all human beings and we're all basically equal we have different experiences you know you may go out in the mountains in the Philippines and meet a guy who has a second grade education but he's going to know
how to grow rice he's going to have a lot of skills that you don't have he's another human being he should be treated as an equal if you look down upon people especially on Filipinos you're not going to
have a pleasant time here you know you just have to have to be nice to everyone and and Filipinos love they love expats you know that most of them really do and and they're very friendly and it's a
very friendly society and and so there's no sense ruining that by thinking that you're Superior to them or something because no one is superior to anyone else and you don't know what they've been through you know they've had
hard times too so we're all the same really there are some Beggars here a disabled person may think well they'll see me they won't bother me it's just the opposite they'll come after you they'll see you as vulnerable
and they'll they'll want to get some change from you well that's up to you whatever you want to do um I have evolved to the point where when I go somewhere if there are any Beggars around they I'm
like a magnet they come right to me that's because I usually don't have a Filipino with me if you have a Filipino with you she Wards them off and protects you from everything but they come to me my
criteria is if they're in the same shape I'm in or worse then I'll give I'll give them 100 pesos you know I'll be generous with them but if it's a 30-year-old guy who comes running up to me and
sticks his hand out and you know demands money I don't owe him anything you know he's in better shape than I am I have no reason to to do anything so um that's my criteria everyone should have their
own criteria I used to give money to you know change to every all the Beggars but you can't do that because the next time you go to that location there's more if a 30-year-old guy comes running up to
me he's in great shape and he demands money I don't owe him anything you know I worked hard for my money but someone's like me I'm happy to help him very generous if we're looking at Health the first
thing I would recommend and not many people think of this uh the sunlight is very very bright here because it's coming right almost straight down from the from the Sun we're almost on the equator uh you got to
have good sunglasses you really do especially from from a northern climate your eyes aren't adjusted to it but don't buy cheap sunglasses okay make sure the sunglasses you buy are UVA and UVB protected that means ultraviolet light is
prevented from getting through the sunglasses into your eyes because what happens is when you put cheap sunglasses on the pupils of your eyes open up wider because it's dark you know they open up a little wider and then
the sunlight comes in and goes right into your eyes and it'll do more damage it'll do more damage than not wearing cheap sunglasses so you get a good pair of sunglasses uh cheap pairs about 90p maybe uh an
expensive pair is maybe 400 pesos and up that's about $8 and up so anywhere from a dollar to you know um it's a really good idea to protect your eyes also a good thing if your eyesight isn't really
good in the distance you know normal when you're walking around For Heaven's Sake get get prescription sunglasses you know or you can also get the kind that that uh darken in the sunlight course they have all that they
have everything here just like everywhere else so but it's important to have good sunglasses and you can say oh this one is polarized this is a good one well you need the UVA and UVB protection don't worry about
the polarization you can get that or not but that's not as important so um another thing is Phil Health we have Phil Health here this is a system that whenever you are an inpatient in the hospital it'll pay
part of your bill it's kind of a mystery how much they pay but they do pay some um I had a colonoscopy a month ago it the hospital charged 16,000 pesos which is what um $320 about they paid
half of it they paid $8,000 that's pretty good um it costs an xad about what is it 16,000 a year something like that uh but I think it's worth it and I've collected many times on it from all
kinds of things I've had lots of Adventures here and got got banged up a few times and uh so I think it's well worth it uh other health insurance as an exped is very expensive if you're 70 or
older forget it you won't be able to get insurance it's just not available so um there are international plans that are available by the way the Phil Health you can't get it unless you are on the srrv Visa
which is a special re uh resident retiree Visa it's a permanent uh residents here or if you're on the husband Visa or something married to a Filipina so uh as a tourist you can't get that you used to
be able to but said no it doesn't make any sense so that's a restriction you should know about um if you come here to live don't forget to do some exercise your health is going to improve here there's
no doubt about it people get younger the first couple of years they here that they their body actually gets younger because they're under less stress a beautiful climate and it's a very healthy Place exercise a little bit there's
different kinds of exercise uh an easy one and a great one a really really good one is to take a walk in the morning 15 minutes a half hour an hour whatever you want just go for a walk
and come back early in the morning when the sun's coming up uh there's some kind of health benefits from the early sunlight and the frequencies I don't know about that it's all on YouTube but the important thing is
you get some exercise first thing in the morning and you feel good what about gyms there's all kinds of gyms here lots of gyms it costs an average of about $2 to $30 a month for a gym membership
you start going there for a while you'll see all the young guys in there lifting heavy weights and stuff well if you're older you don't have to lift heavy weights do whatever you can you know and just relax
and you'll be surprised even these young guys along with the older other expats you'll meet there they're all friendly everybody's friendly the Philippines love groups they love organizations they love their their extended family and if you're going to
a gym you become part of that coort Co cohort uh that group of people and uh everyone will be friendly and everyone's just trying to be healthier here and the difference is they're lifting you know they're doing dumbbells
that weigh 50 lb you're doing dumbbells that weigh 10 lb doesn't make any difference you still get muscle gains with less weight you just have to do more repetitions and uh the health issue is so critically important as
you get older as your body weakens nothing is quite as efficient as it used to be you can start realizing that you need more protein per day than you used to eat it's very important because you'll lose muscle
sarcopenia it's called when when you start losing muscle as you age it starts maybe in your 40s you lose a little bit every year Well you get in your 70s you're losing 12 or 14% a year and so
what happens is you get skinny arms you know and you get skinny legs and that's the sign that you're weakening you know from uh the sarcopenia it's it's really nothing to worry about in early age but if you
exercise as a lifestyle all the way through your life you will never lose that if you start losing it and say in your 70s just go to a gym and start working out and you can regain that muscle
and you you will not be affected by this sarcopenia this aging process that takes away melts away your muscles and you'll you'll keep your sense of balance and you'll keep uh your body much stronger it's really good if
you're in a wheelchair get some dumbbells you know they sell dumbbells here uh I have two sets of dumbbells I'll admit it the first one is 3 lb the second one is 10 lb I can't I can't use
more than 10 lb dumbbells because I have an injured back I've had five back operations so I can't do it because of my spine but I use the tens you know I warm up with the threes I use
the tens you know I'll do 150 repetitions because I've done it for a while but it's really good and you breathe deeply and it gets your lungs going and and you you get plenty of oxygen it's really good
for you so don't forget the exercising portion you know you may say I'm going to retire I'm just going to lay around take it easy well you can if you want to but uh if you exercise you'll feel
great you'll feel optimistic uh exercise eliminates depression you can go to a doctor they got all kinds of medicines for depression they're really not that good for you and they're fake they just cover the symptoms somewhat and a
lot of these medicines will make you dizzy too that's no good going through life dizzy hell I had a friend who was riding a bikee recently he fainted he was riding down the highway on his bike and he
just fainted and I said I said to him did you survive the accident he yeah it was okay he said but you know I dumped the bike and he was skting along the pavement so some of these medicines
you know heart the heart medicines are terrible for blood pressure um they they slow your heart down so guess what your brain doesn't get enough oxygen so you're dizzy all day I mean I'm not a medical doctor don't
take my medical advice but uh there are ways to naturally reduce your blood pressure and I do that and it's mostly through exercise um another big thing here of course for a disabled expad or any expat is nutrition
um you can get all kinds of healthy foods here and you can uh if you don't want to cook you don't want to learn how to cook you can hire someone to be a hous helper it doesn't cost
much they'll cook your meals for you you get the Fresh Foods at the public market you get your vegetables your meat and your fish if you go to the supermarket you should remember that about 70% or more of
the foods in the supermarket are processed they have all kinds of chemicals in them they're not good for you if you live a diet that comes out of a supermarket like most people in America do you may end
up with a problem with your liver you may have a non-alcoholic fatty liver I discovered two years ago I had one there's no medicine for it but there is a cure and the Cure is to go on a
great diet something something like the Mediterranean diet which means a lot of fruits and vegetables and you get healthy mine is completely cured now completely cured nutrition is so at least maybe you'd want to take a multivitamin once
a day okay you can get whatever you want here I take Centrum Silver Advance everyone knows that's a pretty good vitamin I guess but but anyway I chose that one and you choose whatever you want but it's good
to have a multivitamin because there are lots of little things Boron mangines all these strange things you need a little tiny bit of that stuff in your body and you might not be getting it from the food you're
eating so it uh a multivitamin fills in those little gaps where you have a little bit of a deficiency and you'll feel better for It Believe Me overall you'll feel better uh so that's a really good idea really
important for a a disabled person in particular and you might want to take a little more protein per day if you're losing muscle from your arms for example that's a sign you're not getting enough protein so you have
to take extra protein chicken pork beef fish whatever you can do for protein some avocados have a lot of protein uh extra virgin olive oil has a lot of stuff I don't think it has protein but it has
a lot of good stuff for you a lot of healthy fats yeah very healthy fats that's good cook with let me see here get here we are okay uh another important thing is have good hearing make sure you
can hear okay uh because this is a very noisy culture and if you can hear fine when you're talking to someone in a room somewhere that's great but then you go out in public and you can't understand anything
people are saying what we do as old people something that I discovered is we automatically teach ourselves lip reading so when our hearing goes bad the lip breing improves okay and I discovered that when when the pandemic hit
and everybody put on a mask when they put on the mask I couldn't hear worth a damn you know I said oh man I can't hear now you know take your mask off so I can hear cuz I
have to and I realized it I was doing lip reading I never knew that and so people do that automatically to compensate and if you're looking at someone and their mouth is moving that helps you to hear there's
no doubt about it it I I'd never read that anywhere but it's true so you don't have to learn lip reading you should get a hearing aid of some kind and be careful because not all of the hearing
aid companies are honest and you can get a bad deal on that uh I I know about that okay um this is about health then I'll introduce this now this is what I did recently I think it's a
good idea it's an emergency card okay has my name where I'm from I think this is important it's an idea I thought up recently and everyone I've talked to about it thinks it's a good idea here we are
it's an emergency medical card it has my name the country I'm from my birth date how many years old I am cuz nobody likes to figure it out and blood type my Visa type and number which is the
srrv um it has my height and my weight and any medical problems that I have and then below that it has my address and my phone number number of the phone that I'd have in my pocket so on
the back it has my house helper's name it says she's lives at the same address as me and has her phone number and the next edition of this will have the police phone number fire department hospitals and ambulances
and the card will also be smaller next time so all I did was I typed this information on the front out and a few spaces down I typed the information for the back I put that on a thumb
drive I took it to a printer and all of the printers here will print what you want but they also have plastic lamination so they take the information they put it in a machine between two pieces of plastic
and they melt them together and you get this really sturdy card you put it in and the next Edition also will be smaller than this and you put this card in your pocket and if you fall down on
the sidewalk you're unconscious nobody knows what's wrong with you they will find this in your pocket they'll get your basic medical information at the hospital if say a Filipina is with you say a girlfriend or a wife they're
not going to know all of this information especially in a medical emergency you know they won't they'll say what's his blood type oh my God I don't know what's wrong with him you know that sort of thing so
this is a good idea I think so I've shown this to some people they all like it they're all going to do it so if you're over here you put this in your pocket they will see it in
the hospital and and they'll save this could save your life so this is another form of insurance an insurance policy doesn't cost you hardly anything one other thing that I made is pretty good in the Philippines according to
the government you're not eligible to get your uh PWD discount on food and everything else you do because you're not a citizen well therefore you you don't have any kind of information that says you're disabled you don't have
the ID card you don't have anything on your phone and so if you want to if you're on a vehicle like I am on motorcycle uh you can you can have a hanger they don't have vehicle hangers here
when I'm from the state of Maine in the US they had car hangers a handicapped or PWD person with a disability car hanger in the state I came from is much longer about this is only about 2/3 the
size of it but it's a good idea it has the basic logo so you know PWD then it has a motorcycle because not only do they not have car hangers I don't know anywhere that has hangers for disabled
people on a motorcycle so I made this and maybe the most important part of it is what makes it really legal and would really the authorities would really like it at the bottom it has my name and it
says for exclusive use bu because if if someone if you have one of these hangers no one else is supposed to use it no one's going to borrow my motorcycle and use this because it's illegal they're not disabled
so the same thing I made these from images on the internet I put it on a thumb drive took it in they printed two copies of it they put the copies back to back and then they laminated it
then they punched a hole and I put a rubber band in there and I can hang this on the bike and it has always worked no one is never complained dozens of store guards the armed guards that protect
the big stores and things I go right into the disabled section Park they never complain they look at it they go yeah that's great and so if you're coming over here you can do other things uh I met
another disabled uh vet and he offered me the big stickers which have the same blue and white person in a wheelchair and he said he I'll give you some stickers you can put them on your bike and I
said well I don't don't really need them but he had left some of those at one of the sports bars and he said anyone who's disabled give it to them if they have a a bike or a car
or something they can put it on there and that's a good idea so you're not authorized to get anything from the government but you can make it yourself and so then you won't be hassled cuz otherwise you never
know the mo Robinson's Mall in uh dag Getti has a something new and that new thing is a small parking space space for seniors and disabled people uh to park their motorcycles it only holds about 8 or 10
bikes but it's a good idea it's up near the front near one of the front doors otherwise you have to park in the back in amongst the hundreds hundreds and hundreds of vehicles and you have to use the
back stairs or they have a ramp with the back stairs unfortunately the ramp is too steep for me and probably for most people so I have to use the stairs and that's kind of risky going up and down
the stairs if you have a lot of groceries and things of course when I come out with groceries somebody helps me either Filipino or one of the guards it's so nice to here people are always helpful and so
they came up with this idea of putting the smaller parking space up front it's a good idea so I can park up there so that's uh that's one more thing to consider and see what the next item is
um oh here we are there are no street gangs in the Philippines it's important to know because SIU City for example on the next Island over uh it's not Chicago you know there are no street gangs you don't
have to worry about going out at night and having a dozen guys on the street corner jump you or something it just doesn't happen so that's good whenever that starts to happen the police just make sure it doesn't
happen okay I'll just do a couple more things uh yeah there are broken sidewalks here don't count on them if you're you're in a wheelchair when you rent an apartment here you go in the the bathroom and there
won't be any grab bars almost guaranteed unless I've lived there uh so what I always say to the landlord when I get a new apartment I say uh is it okay if uh I need some grab bars is
it okay if I buy the grab bars and you can have your people install them the way you want them installed and they always say yes because it's you know it's a it's money in their pocket you know
it's good it's a good thing and sometimes they'll say well you going to leave these when you leave are you going to take them with you and pull them out of the no no no no no leave them
leave them okay so that works and grab bars are very important uh I sit in a chair when I take a shower I have to stand up the natural urge to reach and grab the faucet if you do
that it might come out of the wall I say that from experience I had one come out of the wall in an evening and the water was blasting all over and it was a you know typical nightmare so
if you have something to grab to pull yourself up it's much better actually even if you're not disabled it's a good idea to have grab bars in the bathroom because most of them have tile floors and tile walls
so they're hard as a rock and if you fall down you can break an arm or leg or anything so uh grab bars are a good idea now we get into the category of Transportation there are no traffic
lights here there are no stop signs it's not true there's one stop sign in in dumag Getti just one but in most of the Philippines are no stop signs uh when I lived in the small city of ban
100 km from here they suddenly installed traffic lights nobody knew what they were nobody understood they had all kinds of accidents for about 2 months people couldn't figure out how to get through an intersection with traffic lights um
finally it it calmed down but it took quite a while so I thought that was kind of humorous in a way that the traffic lights really threw the people off cuz they they never seen them um there are
no police chases here obviously that's good because that's because the traffic is so crazy and congested and uh they just couldn't do it we have the tricycles you've all seen them on the Internet three-wheel vehicles with a motorcycle
on one side and a cab for passengers um every major city in the Philippines has a different design for those uh in dumag Getti for me it's hard to get up in them because they have a high step
you have to step on this high High Step and then grab some something up above and pull yourself up with your upper body and then flip around and get in the seat for me that's a little bit difficult
so I don't ride the tricycles very often um the Jeep knees well they're a small van with a open small back doorway and so it's very difficult for disabled people to get in there but there's a law about
that if you're disabled you walk up and get in the cab you ride in the passenger side of the cab That's the Law if the driver has his wife in there then then I guess you can't take that
particular one riding let's see what else we have here you can choose to ride a motorcycle or a scooter if you want to if you buy a car you're going to have unbelievable difficulty trying to find a parking
space and so if you want to ride a bike you can do that but you have to be careful this traffic system is different here it's a different way of thinking about traffic and basically you have to be
on your your your best behavior all the time you have to be aware of everything going on all the way around you seriously because you will have cars motorcycles dogs people coming at you from all directions and the
big surprise is something called counterflow it's not legal you're going down the highway and all of a sudden someone's coming at you right in your your head on in your lane and you have to deal with that sort
of thing and it's it happens fairly frequently so U it's different xat say it takes about a year to get used to the traffic here uh it took me a year and a half actually if you're comfortable riding
motorcycles and you can shift gears in them without thinking about it you can ride a motorcycle here if you have to think about Shifting the motorcycle you're going to have an accident because that will distract you from the
traffic and you have to be aware of everything instantly in the traffic um so this the scooter is what Honda sometimes calls an automatic motorcycle same thing as a motorcycle same size same CCS everything but they only have
stop go a horn and a turn signal okay your feet don't do anything you don't have to worry about you don't have to think and they work beautifully and that's the way to go if you come here on
vacation and you're determined to drive on the streets then rent a scooter you know I don't recommend renting a bike but it's safe I talked to a guy recently another expad in his mid-70s he said I've been riding
a bike here for 2 years I've never had an accident and then he said and I've never driven over 40 km an hour so there you are and I don't know what that is 25 M hour or something
but that's that's good in the city you'd never have to drive over 40 km an hour because of that that includes some of the new electric vehicles that are on the market here it's some little four-wheeled electrics they
are other three-wheel Vehicles there are lots of them the the uh venerable tuck tuck from India it's been on the market for about 70 years they' perfected those there are dealerships here for those PUO has another one just
like it one front wheel and the one wheel in the front two in the back those things are reliable they're great they have power they're about 175 CC's for the motorcycles and the scooters you only need 125 to
150 you never need more than that to get around even on these smaller bikes like that uh when I had a 125 I drove all the way around this island periphery of this island took two weeks it was
great no problem at all riding the bike so okay let's see what else we have here ah one more topic okay climate the rainy season it rains a lot actually if you're apartment floods and you're evacuated to somewhere
like a gymnasium there'll be hundreds of people it's really fun I had to do that in ban and I met all kinds of local people and it was an adventure you know I would have stayed home otherwise for
the day so I ended up going and and so some of these things aren't too serious that was a typhoon that hit us it did a lot of damage in the city it flooded the city but for me
it was an adventure I guess I have a positive attitude the rain is okay you can survive it don't worry the heat the heat is a different consideration the heat is not only hot but it's high humidity and
I came from the state of Maine with snow and ice and all that stuff 30 below zero in the winter Fahrenheit it's okay I adapted to the heat didn't take too long and most of your time anyway as
an expat you're going to be in an air conditioned apartment or you're going to be in the mall that's air conditioned or some other building where it's air conditioned if you're out riding a bike in the heat that's
air conditioning the faster you ride the bike the faster the air blows on you and cools you off so uh the heat you can deal with the heat some sometimes there's an extremely hot day and on those days
you can tell not only from the heat but because Filipinos all around you everybody all the Filipinos will be complaining about the Heat and the expats won't be and I think that's because they feel happy to be here
they're lucky to be here so they don't complain so much but on the really hot days you hear people complaining but you spend a really hot day and then the next day it's a little bit hot a little
bit hot the next day by then you're wiped out you're exhausted you you really field completely depleted and what you've done is you have sweated and you have peed out your um electrolytes they're water soluble electrolytes you need
to replace those there's two ways to do that one way is to go to the hospital and get an IV because if you are taken to the hospital for dehydration you get an IV with the salts in it
or the other way which is actually I think a lot better you go to any pharmacy and you get some of these oral rehydration packets this one has five uh salts sodium potassium chloride citrate and glucose okay take
this fine powder you put in a glass of water and you drink it or you take half of it and drink it whatever you want that this it says on the back this is as good as an IV
and it doesn't cost you as much these are about 10 or 15 uh pesos so it's 30 cents 40 cents for one of these you can buy as many as you want it's no problem it's not you don't
need a prescription or anything this is a great idea that most expats don't know about the other thing you can do of course is you can go to the a store and you can get a Gatorade or you
can get uh they have one here from Japan it's called pokari sweet they pronounce it sweet but it's spelled SW eat so I don't drink that stuff but anyway the you know the the U the Gatorade has food
coloring and some of it has sugar and different things in it you get this stuff you don't get all that bad stuff you just get the good stuff and it's a lot cheaper oh yeah what is a bottle
of Gatorade 65p or something it's it adds up that's uh 130 something3 cents and these things are very inexpensive and they're great and they have some that are flavored these are unflavored you get the flavored one then you're
getting the food coloring again and you don't really need it or they say oh it's got a well you get the the flavoring too which is usually artificial and some more chemicals so just get the unflavored ones and
this you take this stuff and an hour later you'll feel like you're a new person so because getting dehydrated is not good we're near the equator and things can get hot okay um you want to uh let's see
let's see here okay do you want to stop there I've got some other categories good yeah excellent will so yeah let's hear more about uh okay socializing uh you're over here you don't want to stay in your apartment
alone and all that get out and meet people so here are some hints for that over here one is clean yourself up and have a good appearance okay because everyone here does you see these beautiful young ladies they
have beautiful clothing on how do they do that because they work and they earn very little money they don't have enough money to buy good clothing well there's a system called ukai ukai and that is Surplus clothing from
the West comes in they bail it like bales of hay they ship it in but it's not all used clothing some of it is brand new so they picked out the brand new stuff and they get it for
almost nothing uh one of my girlfriends bought a beautiful kind of a sweater thing from Nike with a zipper in the front it was beautiful I bet it was $40 in the US she paid the equivalent of0 50
cents us for that brand new it's beautiful so that's why the young women are beautifully dressed in the city because they can afford to because it cost them almost nothing for clothing but you also should be neat if
you have a bike keep it clean you know have your bike washed or wash it yourself and just have a good and the other thing of course if you're an old man please make sure that you trim your
nose hairs and your ear hairs because otherwise it's very noticeable and people will see it and and you might as well be neat you know keep a neat haircut all that don't get a haircut at the mall it'll
cost you 3 or 400 pesos for 70 pesos you can get one on the street in the many many barber shops where can you socialize okay there's a category of socialization called expat bars they're often called xat sports
bars and they always have big screen TV on the walls and different sports from around the world and things and you can go in and watch these and you can have a beer or have a bottle of water
or whatever you want um most everybody is drinking beer but if you drink a bottle of water like I do nobody ever says anything nobody ever says anything so don't worry about it if you don't drink you can
go to the bars and still enjoy yourself have a conversation watch the sports they have some foods um In These Bars and and it's it's really it's pretty good so I I recommend some of those there's a few
of them around uh restaurants in a place like dumag there's all kinds of restaurants and they're not as expensive as they would be in the US or somewhere else and some of them are really really good and really
nice and if you have a girlfriend or a wife you can take her there and she'll have a nice meal you know you can enjoy it so it's good there are four or there were five Mexican restaurants here
I think there are four now as an idea of ethnic restaurants and there's a what is there there's a an Irish restaurant now there's all kinds of different there Italian restaurants there's different ethnicities here lot Japanese restaurants um
Korean restaurants lots of things so you have a choice of lots of different kinds of restaurants uh if you want to cook your own food you can have friends come over you can get whatever you want for Good
Foods because there's a store here that sells imported foods you can buy your steaks out of the US or from Europe you can buy all of the imported foods that you're missing your favorite kind of peanut butter or
your favorite biscuits from the UK or something they have all that stuff there so you're not going to be homesick and missing on the foods you can you can buy almost any kind of food here if you can't
you can always get a recipe off the internet and make it and if you have to do a few substitutions you can still have a choice of foods here don't worry uh if you like Philippine foods you can
have some uh the Philippine adobo I really like that that's really good the food is plentiful it's not expensive and you have wide wide ranging choice and the smaller the the places where you live The Village or city
the less choices you will have do you feel that the foods here are less inflammatory than the foods that you would have access to back in the US no it's the same because because they all use the U
vegetable seed oils and those are inflammatory and when you cook your own food you can use uh extra virgin olive oil or you can use avocado oil if you can find it I haven't been able to find it
but it's too expensive you wouldn't want to do that the the extra virgin is bad enough the price but yeah I I think all of the fried foods and stuff here it's inflammatory but uh you have to do
some research on the internet do a little homework and find out how you can avoid inflammatory foods and there's lots of advice for that uh on the internet uh another way of socializing a great way to socialize if
you're religious you can go to church the Catholic church is the biggest one here but there are lots of other kinds of churches what's the name of that one the uh Unitarian Universalist churches here too and that will
accept anyone in their services even if they're an unbeliever so you know you can always go to church and meet people um it's uh it's a good opportunity you will meet people who are real who are nice and
they be very extremely friendly because in the church services here generally speaking not many expats go in my experience at least so they're happy to see expats they like them they like to be friendly to people anyway here
so you can meet a lot of people that way and uh if you enjoy that church you can keep going become a member of the the church and uh you'll have lots of friends there are lots of organizations
here the brotherhoods are here for example the Masons the Lions Club the rotary is everywhere here you can become it's if people if you know people well enough you might be able to become an auxiliary policeman extra policeman
if they need it I have a uh one friend who's an expat who who did that and there's lots of other clubs uh there are motorcycle rider clubs okay these are not gangs they're organizations where guys like to
ride their bikes some of them are specific to one brand and others are just generic and you can join and then they go on little rides around maybe you go 30 or 40 kilomet no not 30 or 40
miles in a day you know 20 kilometers and make a little trip for the day and see some tourist site or something and you might have you know 10 or 20 people doing that another one is bicycle clubs
there are a lot of bicycles here and the kind of people who join the bicycle clubs have these U carbon fiber framed bikes there are bicycle shops here that sell the top-of-the-line bikes and uh so you can join
one of them I had a friend who joined one and uh he rode 39 km in one day on a round trip with a bunch of these guys and he was at the time 73 years old he did
pretty well lots of different clubs there are lots of Charities here because there's lots of poor people and a lot of X fats will join a charity uh in some cases they actually create one they like to get
into Charities that help to feed the children in the schools in particular or help to clothe children to give them some clothing uh or maybe to throw a big party or something for them spaghetti feed or something and
and feed the kids and that's good because a lot of the kids don't get real good nutrition so it's it's good to have them get that and it's good it's good always to be a good expad and just
try to be courteous to people and do whatever you can so that people will like xats and what I do in that vein is I always stop at the crosswalks and let people cross and they're always happy about
that so you can you can do things like that which helps out there we go ah Facebook if you're coming here you should have a Facebook page okay I don't care if you don't like Facebook you create a
page you don't have to put a picture on it you don't even have to use your own name but what you will have if you have Facebook you will have access to Facebook groups Facebook groups are critical here
there are Facebook groups for dumag Getti for dumag Getti news for American veterans in dumag American veterans in the Philippines what other groups oh the restaurant review groups you go to a restaurant you come back you do a
review whether you like it or not and and be about that you don't don't get vicious and brutal because there are laws here cyber liability and you don't want to really do any harm but you can say well
I didn't care so much for the meal something like that but those are very helpful because when you want to find a good restaurant you go to one of those those groups and my God they've got restaurants listed
you've never heard of so you can find a restaurant easily that way or you can ask questions and about anything in these groups uh any question you have you know where can I find a um a good frying
pan or something a really good one or where can you know where can you find anything anything you want I consider those critical really important so if you don't already have a Facebook page create one and take advantage
of it and uh use it at least for the groups if nothing else uh meeting people if you walk up to someone in the Philippines uh say another expat they don't know what to say because you're disabled they
they just don't know what to say how do they what do they say they don't walk around talking to disabled people normally so what you do is you have to initiate the conversation and if you do that then
they will see that oh yeah this guy's okay he's he's physically disabled he's not a mental case you know he's not he's not a demented you know a Dementia or anything so that just lets them know you're normal
you're okay and then they want to talk to you so then you can talk to them but you're going to find that when you walk up to someone face to face you're going to have to start the conversation
one guy I walked up to you know the the old dog guy I'd never met Paul but I walked into a one of the bars one night and he was there and I walked up and he was right
in front of me and he looked at me he didn't know what to say so then he said can I get anything for you and I said yeah get me some more videos I said I love your videos
you know but he didn't know what to say and that's that's typical I mean what do you say to a person you know what's wrong with you usually you don't say that but people will ask after a while
and particular particularly Filipinos they they don't hide anything they'll say oh what happened to you you know and then you tell them but then you don't you don't hang on it you know you say okay that's that change
the subject and uh so that's a that's a good idea what else do we have here damn thing won't stay up um I don't have much else I can tell you that people from the US most of them
have a vitamin D deficiency you can look this up on the internet and that's and vitamin D is very important it turns out it's not really a vitamin it's a hormone but you can talk to your doctor and
it's a good idea if you supplement vitamin D if you're an American because they estimate that anywhere from 40 to 70% of Americans are short on vitamin D because especially in the winter time you just don't get the
bright sunlight which helps you your body to create some of it for you and you don't get enough in the foods sometimes so uh that's something to look into do some research and then one other medical thing that's
really important for Americans particular is uh omega-3 oil there are a lot of foods that have omega 6 and it imbalances your body you needed the omega3 omega-3 in the proper proportions so you can talk to your doctor
about that lots and lot maybe 70% of Americans are estimated to be short on vitamin D uh on uh omega3 so you want to really seriously look into that and that'll help you to be more to be healthier
and there are other lots of other supplements and you can buy them here or you can order them you can order things from local uh Philippine based companies such as shopy and laaya or you can just go to
Amazon amazon.com. pH you can order stuff from Amazon they ship it in and if it's under certain dollar amount then there's no Customs fee or anything so a lot of my friends order stuff from Amazon so you're not
going to be lost if you come over here you're in an island nation in the middle of the ocean but you can get anything you want anything you need that's important and that's that's about it that's about all
I have except for some questions uh any final words well yes um if you're contemplating coming to the Philippines and you're disabled there are plenty of doctors here plenty of places you can go if you want the top
level of medical care you can go to Manila uh I had my fifth back operation here it was in bolad which is in the north of this island it's a city the city there and it it turned out
perfect it was four years ago I haven't had any pain since um I don't know if I should or not but I'll tell you the doctor's name it was at the Pablo Tor hospital and he's a fantastic neurosurgeon
this guy is really really skilled he's great his name is Mario madesh Mario madesh Dr Mario madesh fantastic surgeon so don't be afraid of anything uh if you need certain medicines once in a while you can't obtain them
here well you can order them from somewhere else and if you're really smart you won't order them from the US you will order them from overseas you get a prescription then you order them from Mexico or from India
India is really inexpensive because they don't license them they have a law where they just ignore all the world licensing because the Indians can't afford expensive medicines so the the country allows them to manufacture these medicines you will
save a ton of money if you do that and so uh uh it's it's good here and you don't have to fear medical problems uh we're all going to die so you say gee I might have a heart
attack yeah well we're all going to die what difference does it make you know when the Grim Reaper is following you around uh you know that's just life that's another part of life so don't be afraid if you
want to go overseas go overseas come to the Philippines Thailand Vietnam is good or go somewhere else you know wherever you want to go in the Americas there's a lot of good countries Central America South America even Mexico
Mexico is a great country you know it's great food great people beautiful place wonderful great culture uh you know America's got a couple years of History you know 250 years these other countries they have a thousand years of
of history and culture so you know go you see all the museums you go to the restaurants it's great so I would encourage people if you're thinking about about leaving America because there's a lot of problems there now
and inflation looks like it's going to be serious then you can go live somewhere else on less money so congratulations if you have enough gumption to get up and go it's not easy it's more difficult if you want
to ride a bike I ride a bike the reason I do is because it's my freedom and I I'm all for freedom I have my crutches on the bike if you're in a wheelchair you can buy a light
weight foldable wheelchair that you could just have a couple of pieces of twine or something and tie it on your bike and you could ride around and just transfer to the wheelchair and you could go around yourself you
would have your freedom you know and and uh I think freedom is the ultimate thing so congratulations to anyone who thinks seriously about leaving um if you're extended family discourages you just ignore them because they probably never been
anywhere and so outside the country so uh just uh dare to Dare to Live dare to do things dare to go and have Adventures if nothing else you will have adventures and um but remember what Mark Twain said
when you travel you carry your baggage with you so you can go to another country and then you can start working on forgetting your past if you had things you want to forget about you know that's um and
start living a new life life develop more patience relax take your time and you'll have a better life and so it's worth it to have enough guts to get up and go it's up to you your choice and
they said well yeah you can but you can't do that they said you're 125 years too late I said I'm going gold mining I don't care you know people say you can't do that then I do it whatever
it is whenever people tell me that I change my life and I concentrate on doing whatever they say I can't do it's just the way it is everyone shouldn't be like that but some people oops uh what the
hell is that oh it's locked yeah this is oh it's kind of dirty I should have washed it our head it washed and this is the Honda click Honda click 150 125 is the standard for the industry you
want a really good bike that'll last forever it'll go plenty fast enough fantastic The Click 125 it's I don't know how much it is now I think 77,000 maybe more than that $100,000 is $2,000 so it's less than
$2,000 isn't it yeah yeah it is so you're able to Jet around town on this no problem at all absolutely no problem I'm used to the traffic actually I drive a little faster than the average and I do
pass on the right and the left all the time it's illegal to pass on the right everyone does it so they can't stop them uh I never ever get on the bike without a helmet on and you want
safety here's safety I'll show you this is safety okay okay you always Buckle it under your chin always you see people here riding around all the time with a helmet with the these things just hanging out there because
the first thing that happens in a motorcycle accident is the driver and the helmet are separated it's the first thing that happens and that means you're going to smash your head into the pavement I had a bad accident
I was unconscious for almost a half hour here I had a helmet on without the helmet I wouldn't have lived to it
