He Came to the Philippines Before I Was Born @kevinsphilippineadventures

and I said I don't want to leave I wish I could stay longer is this really what I want to be doing am I happy everyone would come up to us and pinch our cheeks and they thought we

were weird looking I look so much like a person who doesn't speak Tagalog and that's the language that I speak by the way I do travel a lot I fly back and forth in United States hey YouTube Alex

here and in today's video we are meeting with my good friend Kevin Kevin is an American who is from the United States however Kevin actually spent a good chunk of of his childhood here in the Philippines as his

family was here engaging in a mission and so Kevin has this kind of third culture I do apologize for the background noise if I look a bit stressed out at times there was some construction noise in the background

hope you'll forgive that and enjoy this interview with Kevin so without further Ado let's get into it Kevin is a production sound engineer and he wanted to put the shout out if you are looking to hire somebody for

that purpose in the United States feel free to reach out to him we'll have his contact information as well as his YouTube channel linked below thank you so much today Kevin for joining us we have uh Kevin with

us here today he's from the United States but he actually has a long history here in the Philippines so Kevin if you could introduce yourself sure please uh my name is Kevin um I was like born in the

United States but came over here to the Philippines when I I was 6 years old uh my parents became missionaries here and brought our whole family here in the 1980s so it's been a long time uh Going Back

40 years uh I lived here a total of I think 10 or 11 years and then I I left and went back to uh the US for college and then uh over the course of the next decades I

came back and visited several times and it's always been a part of me it's it's kind of formed who I am as a person and so I visited several times and then finally in 2022 I decided that I

really wanted to come over here on a more regular basis and um I met my girlfriend Angie who I I love very much now and now we have an apartment here in Dumaguete so it's been let's see now

this will be going into the third year of being like consistently here in the Philippines and I call it being semi-retired because I'm still working so I'm trying my best to you know work both worlds where I keep

my job in the US and then I have my place here in the Philippines and then the goal is to someday retire here full-time uh whenever I can figure out how to pull that off it might be another

10 years from now you're doing what I think uh I call the Tim Ferris plan so a lot of people would say oh Kevin you're way too young to be retired how dare you um and Tim Ferris talks

about you shouldn't wait until you're 67 to retire because you can't guarantee your health at 67 uh we like to think it's going to be perfect but sometimes life goes in different direction than our plans you're getting to

enjoy time here activities here that may be out of reach at a different point um so I think it's it's really important to note that because uh you know like I said we hope for the best but things

aren't perfect um What attracted you to dumag I know you'd in previous conversations you'd mentioned having spent time in Manila what about dag has appealed to you sure yeah uh before I get to that answer I just wanted

to say one more thing about the timing of my travel back to the Phil Philippines there was a a span of about 10 years uh 8 years actually it was 2014 was my last visit and in 2014 I

was lucky to be hired by uh a company Christian uh charity organization called Samaritans purse and typhoon hyan or yulanda had just come through and devastated leate and other places around in that area and so we went in

as a media team and I was paid to be there they paid for my airline tickets and I came over and we spent 10 days in the Philippines and my visit before that was 2006 so 2006 to 14

what is that uh 8 years so it was a huge gap and it was that visit that kind of reawakened my love of the Philippines it was always there and I and I I hadn't forgotten it it was

just that I was reminded like how much I love this country and the people and the culture and how much I understand the culture and literally some of the language so 2014 we're in late we're in tan and

I was keeping a diary and a diary entry on my phone just casually and on the last day it was like well we got to go back today and I said I don't want to leave I wish I

could stay longer like I I just don't want to go back to the States I want to stay here longer so that seed in 2014 was planted and and it was always in the background and right around pandemic

time 2021 was when I really wanted to come back you know and I couldn't because of the pandemic because of the lockdown and so finally in 2022 I came through and there's one other thing that I want to

add before we get to to like my search for where I wanted to live and what island and stuff and that was something that happens to you when you can get in your 40s and that is they used

to talk about it called the it's called the midlife crisis and I remember hearing about this my whole life you know it was always like almost like a cliche you know the guy uh who's in his mid-40s has

an affair and uh runs off with the secretary and buys a sports car and and I just remember it was this thing you know and people made fun of it well I feel like it's actually a real thing

there's something that happens maybe to a man I'm I'm generalizing big time here but this is just for the point of the illustration is that I felt like I felt it and it was like this mid-40s thing where

you're like is this really what I want to be doing am I happy with my current situation with work my life my relationships everything or is there something else that I can try to um seek and and and

seek after and I can verify this because I've spoken to some of my friends uh specifically like I'm not going to name them I don't want to embarrass them but like a classmate and somebody who I grew up

with who was like he's like he's like yeah did I ever tell you about my my sailboat fantasy and I said no what are you talking about he goes man I just went through this phase where all I

wanted to do was just run off and and go on a sailboat and sail around the world and I was like oh interesting I was like so you had some of those same feelings that just manifested in a

different way and mine was Return to the Philippines Return To Your Roots return to where you remember being young and uh having adventures and and just the just the love of of the Philippines and and the people here

so that's what brought me back and to Circle back now to do meete in the summer of 22 I I really did a little bit of revisiting at first I looked up some old friends I traveled and I

started where where where I had lived I started in in the Manila area and I started in Batangas which is in lzone and I went to mindoro and I kind of sort of Island hopped a little bit and

I thought you know what I've never been to the bah I've never been to ble I've never seen the Chocolate Hills or the tarer or and so I started island hopping around and and and I couldn't go everywhere

obviously cuz there was only a few weeks but I I said one of the places that's getting a lot of Buzz is dumag and Negros because there's a lot of YouTubers talking about it so dumag was last on

my list and um I came here and checked it out and I rented a motorcycle I was staying in a couple hotels like a lot of guys do and I just met a lot of cool people and I

went to some nice restaurants and I checked out the diving and then I checked out some of the history here that happened with World War II and I found the the Kata Al Museum and Valencia and I was

like man this is so cool and it just was like sort of a nice little package for me of things that I loved and appreciated the provincial feeling the the not the skyscrapers of BGC but you know the

the the kind of streets and Roads that don't have traffic lights and stop lights and you can you know get on your motor bike and in maybe 15 20 minutes be at a dive Resort or in another 15

20 minutes go up the mountain and be at a beautiful waterfalls or something like that that really appealed to me and it reminded me of what the Philippines was like back in the'80s so dagate was the choice for

me and then I ended up dragging Angie here she was in quone City working and I said do you want to go to D meete and and and share a place there with me and she she said yes

of course and she loves it here now so we're very happy and it's a base it's a good uh uh base point for traveling in other places so um you know sometimes we do have to take a plane

to Manila and then from somewhere else but you can take a boat from here to different places like you know you know sore and uh uh just different Sibu and things like that so it is a good Central

Point in the visas to Branch out from Angie your girlfriend she's from lzone or she spent a good chunk of her life in lzone um she was born in Manila but she grew up in different places in the

Philippines got it got it okay because I think that's something that a lot of people may not think about is they think uh you know a lot of people are based turned dagate but they don't understand there's a

big chunk of people that come here who are from other parts of the Philippines that that you um you get this interesting cross-section of people where when I first landed here my host family uh the uh parents in

the host family were from Zamboanga and men now but they had lived in they lived in bad uh so they really had seen a lot you know I think sometimes there's a perception everybody in daget is from dumag

or from uh another place a lot of people here come from is like ban but no you get people from like all over the country because it's such a cool place to live sure absolutely and the schools drawn

the young people right you have all these colleges here lots of col it's a college town um you know business opportunities you said people from smaller cities coming to the big City it's growing all the time um and

I say that in a good way not like a you know they're not putting skyscrapers up yet but they're expanding the Boulevard and new businesses are opening up all the time yeah and there's people there are Filipinos who

come here and have summer homes wealthy Filipinos from the mainland will come and have a summer home and and that's that's pretty cool that they chose this area to do that the thing that I like about tagete is

even 6 months and of course I've only been here 6 months although I've had a previous visit to the Philippines it still maintains this sense of mystery for me there's always like I still have this sense I'm in

this like rainforest and there's interesting characters and like it just feels like such an adventure for me even 6 months in and I don't even ride a motorbike so I don't get out of the city much but um

even so you lived a lot of years in the Philippines does it still have that sense of adventure for you is that part of why you've branched out from where you lived in Lon sure yeah I mean you

know you're in a country where there's just like it's a it's a tropical rainforest um there's all kinds of mountains and waterfalls and stuff to explore there's beautiful diving in the ocean um I mean you're in a paradise

you know and when you look at other places in the world that maybe people like to live or visit like for example like Hawaii it's so expensive compared to places like the Philippines and you get a similar experience

for much less money because it's just not that expensive here as it is in those kinds of places um yeah Adventure I mean what what kind of fun you know it's subjective right it's to to each person what

is fun in adventurous to them but to me you know taking my girlfriend to Palawan and visiting the underground river and the the Cave the the caves there was fantastic I mean there you know there's not a lot

of places like that in the world it's a it's a world heritage site that's a cool adventure you know and you have to fly there to get there and you have to get a hotel and you have to

travel but it it was so worth it um um I feel like there's an endless amount of things to do in in the Philippines um just just on that on that kind of stuff can you speak a bit

about your experience on being third culture in Batangas I feel like I wanted to add one thing about you know the being uh uh with people you you talking about walking about back at midnight from from being out

um it just reminded me that there's a standard greeting that philipinos will say to each other when they see each other outside and it's not like hey what how's going it's sag galing which is oh where are you

coming from so already it's almost like a story it's like hey tell us your story they're invested in you as a person it's not like what's up or hey or you know like in in in the United States

it's very common to say hey how are you and you say oh I'm I'm great and they're not great you know it's just a standard but here in the Philippines it's like oh where are you coming from what

what have you been doing they're very invested and interested in you as a person and it's not just superficial it's actually real and I think that's really sweet um so yeah I just wanted to touch on that growing

up in uh Batangas uh I came to the Philippines when I was 6 years old little kid my sister was a year and a half younger than me so she's four about to turn five um we were in

a provincial area in in Batangas uh Lia Batangas actually and my parents put us in a school that was an English uh School in other words the teachers taught in English uh but we were the only uh uh

kids kids who were not Filipino in that school we were the only foreigners or foreign Nationals in that school and so we were almost like little aliens and everyone would come up to us and pinch our cheeks and

they thought we were weird looking and um the funny story about the language and the culture is that initially my sister and I did not want to learn uh Tagalog or or you know Filipino we were resisting it

because we spoke English and I remember my sister specifically being frustrated because she said I don't want to learn this dumb language is too hard oh uh that's right we were in school uh and so my sister and

I didn't want to learn the language but after a few months we soaked up the tagalo you know our minds were like little sponges and we couldn't help but learn it we also absorb the culture at that time

so it wasn't just words and language and and how to speak it was like how Filipinos act and and the way they treat each other and um the way they respect their Elders uh everything just just being Filipino

and that's different from your being a kid in your home country um and if I fast forward to the story about when I was back in high school there's like a cultural thing in the Philippines where if someone

offers you something like a free gift or just something small it's kind of traditional to say no first maybe even no two or three times before you say yes and so my funny story is I was in a

class I it was a computer lab and and I forgot to bring a little jump drive disc that I needed for the class and one of my classmates this is in America said I have an extra one do

you want one and I told him oh no no I I couldn't possibly and I was waiting for him to offer it again well the kid turned to me and said okay fine if you don't want it fine

and I was like like cuz I'm I'm Filipino in my thinking you know uh I'm I'm thinking he's going to offer it to me again but he didn't you know so that's an example of being one of the

examples of being a third culture kid is you your brain has been rewired to this other culture and and it's different when you go back to your home country so that was that was one of probably a couple

dozen examples of of what it was like you know growing up in the Philippines and being being a kid here and um yeah you talked a little bit about how some people they they become so accustomed to the

Philippines they want to spend more and more time here as an adult and I think that's that's kind of like I don't know maybe a bit contrary to what we talk about in the states like I grew up

in the South you have a lot of people that are part of various Christian denominations a lot of them go on missions and it seemed like the context presented to me was that it was such a hardship to

go on the mission oh I would never go back even though I love the people even though it was a enriching experience I could never uh go back and yet it's very different for you and that you love

the Philippines and you see it as Contin A continuing part of your story right I mean it's kind of hard unless you've traveled to that other country and experienced how different it is from yours it's really hard to

imagine what it's like but when you're a kid and you grow up here things like power outages or literally ketas of the government things like that happen and you sort of just take it in stride because you're a

kid bugs being in your house uh what else uh different tropical weird diseases that you might get you might get sick and that's not disease or an illness that you would normally get in your home country because you're

just not exposed to it um those kinds of things all happened to us when we were growing up and so for someone else to come to a country on a short-term trip be it for you know like a

a a a missions trip or business or whatever those can those things can be very shocking to them you know so they're in their house that they're staying at and there's a bunch of ants eating their stuff that

they just left out for one minute you know like what is going on you and then the power goes out or the water isn't available or whatever um I like to think that because I grew up here I'm

more naturally suited and totally more easygoing about that kind of stuff because I grew up with it yeah unless unless you had that experience it can be a little bit of a shock when you come over here because

you're just not you're just not used to that kind of environment temperature you know um well being in the South there are times when it's hotter and more humid in Savannah Georgia than it is where I am in

in dumag I've checked you know there's different people in different walks of life who uh have their have their uh opportunities to have an experience and engage a different culture and a different people and a different lifestyle so

you have people like me who came over when I was a little kid you might have people who are in their teens or early 20s who are here on missions trip or a visit with family and then you

have older guys who are in that midlife crisis mode maybe who are thinking there's got to be something else out there for me so uh every once in a while uh especially here in dumag we come across people

like that uh and so you you ran into a guy that may have been in that situation the other night at a restaurant here in town can you share a bit about that experience of being the sounding board

for this gentleman it's just really interesting meeting different people who and and finding out why they come here and their motivations and here in dag especially I mean if you're watching this video it's probably because you're interested in

dumag and you you're you're thinking to yourself you know maybe I should come check this place out so there was a a night that I was out uh with my girlfriend having dinner and we were listening to a

live band and there was an older gentleman sitting behind me and I say older because I felt like he was probably in his late 60s early 70s and you know at one point I got up actually to use

the the restroom and he kind of stopped me and he was like Hey man he's like can I ask you a question you know where are you from uh back in the back in the US I guess he

knew I was an American but anyway uh and I talked to him a little bit and and and told him where I was from and and I got the picture that he actually was was in the process of

deciding if he wanted to move here full-time or not I just got this this vibe that he was he was seeking something he was seeking answers and he was like how do you like it here you know and

why did you come here and and I just remember talking to him just maybe for like a minute or two and and at one point uh he said you know almost to himself he was like yeah you know

what I got a lot of motorcycles back in the States you know like he was thinking about like weighing his options like oh if I come to the Philippines I'm going have to get rid of a lot of

a lot of belongings a lot of stuff that's special to me and then he was almost like weighing whether or not he should let go of that stuff and just come here and and start his life over anyway

I got up to use the bathroom and when I came back he was gone and I remember thinking wow was that guy literally making a decision right then at that night in that moment whether or not he was

going to move here or not I think he would came out and he came out to check it out and he was trying to talk to people and and get their opinions and stuff and I think he was

trying to um make his decision right right there whether or not he was GNA do it and and I actually don't know what his decision was because he was gone when I came back but it was interesting it's

interesting seeing the psychological process like you know and and maybe people who are watching this video right now are in that moment maybe you're trying to say and do I want to come all the way to the Philippines

to do meete and experience this and of course I'm biased I'm going to say heck yeah come out here give it a try you know Alex is here you know living his life enjoy enjoying and and while you

figure out what you're going to do with your next steps um I've met a beautiful girlfriend here and I'm very happy here I'm going to keep going back and forth as long as I can until I can stay

here you know permanently and I I think that's something that a lot of people have told me about is like Alex you know you could get into contract based work there's no rule against that uh and a lot

of people I think if they had their ideal lifestyle they would go back and forth there's things I miss about the states don't talk about it as much I don't think it's as relevant but um and then when

I'm in the states there's a lot I miss about being in Philippines being in Southeast Asia so you really get the best of both worlds I think now of course I think longterm you're thinking you want to stay

here uh you know focus on being here but you're also making prudent decisions right trying to yeah yeah yeah when you still have a career uh I've been working in film and television for 13 years this will be

my 14th year that's really hard to stop that especially when I've been I feel like I've been achieving like moderate success you know like I'm happy with my growth in the business and I don't want to just stop

all that because it was a lot of effort to get it going and get it started and it's very competitive industry yeah it's competitive but it's also the kind of industry where if you stop and take a break

it's easy for for your you to lose your contacts and uh it's kind of like a business where everything is based on what you did last so if you say yeah I haven't worked in 5 years they go

huh you know who who are you you're starting over so it's Technology's changed and yeah a little bit not so much with sound but um it's more about the contacts and the people in the industry that you know

and then they know you and and you're reliable and whenever they call you you're there and if you suddenly disengage from that and unplug then it's kind of like hard to restart so um that would be something that

I'd have to seriously consider if I if I stop before retirement age um and also I I do enjoy the work like most of the projects I work on are really kind of cool and kind of fun so

your job sounds freaking cool man like I I you probably of all the people I've talked to and interviewed I think you probably had the coolest job and maybe just cuz I'm a YouTuber so I'm kind of a

nerd about you know producing content um well depending on whatever the focus of this video is you may or not want to get into got it movie making business but it's up to you I'm happy to talk about

anything cuz I love to blab so but I like I like what you you were going down a road of like culture and Philippines and yeah and that stuff are there things that you appreciate about the Philippines as

an adult that you maybe didn't notice when you were a kid here I remember thinking now as an adult like just comprehending traveling and distance and driving you know I when I was in high school my last year

of being here full-time I was a senior in high school and I finally was able to drive our family's car our vehicle and I got to drive around Metro Manila which is not easy uh but I when I

was growing up as a kid I I I didn't have a sense of the scale of traveling from you know even like Manila to Batangas I just knew it was like a long time in the car but I

wasn't thinking about how many kilometers or how many hours it was it's interesting coming back as an adult and realizing oh to go from point A to point B I have to do this and like just using Google

Maps and or whatever you know apps on your phone to to map and drive that's been kind of cool and kind of exciting I've I actually like renting cars here I don't own a car I have a motorcycle

but when I travel somewhere that's like on an island super far away like we go down to mow or something I always rent a car and then I drive around and I get a sense of the scale and

distance that I never had when I was a kid uh that's just like a kind of a practical example but what's another one um relationships like my parents before were always the ones who hired someone to fix something

well now it's me right so I'm their age or old older than oh older than their age um hiring someone to come weld bars on your windows why would I have ever done that a as a as a

kid in school my dad would always handle that so hiring someone to help us clean the apartment um a gardener whatever those kinds of things now I'm I'm managing things like that as a grown-up whereas I never had

to do that before as a kid someone always took care of that I mean and really like a lot of the the traveling around you know like when you're a kid you're in school you just get on a

bus and you go somewhere and and you go to a adults driving yeah someone else or or they've hired a you know drivers for the buses and we're all going on an outdoor education thing for one week and

you're going from here to the to to all lake or whatever you know whatever it is and all of that now is you got to handle it yourself and you got to pay for it yourself so now there's

the money piece too it's like how much does this cost and those are those are some of the differences of being you know a kid versus being an adult here certainly the Philippines is is more costly these days

than it was when you were growing up everywhere is but I I think that the difference being too that you notice wow okay so instead of uh my folks covering this expense or or it being or you getting

a bulk rate even right I mean if you go on a a group trip somewhere with your school like you're you're getting assum a student price like where the adult doesn't get the the price break right um something

that made me laugh have you ever pranked u a Filipino person because of course you speak to Galo have you ever pranked them because they're thinking oh this gentleman he's he's you know from the states and and he

may not speak have you ever done that before I feel like I do it a little bit often because I just I just look so like foreign or I look so like so I look so much like a

person who doesn't speak Tagalog and that's the language that I speak by the way Filipino or Tagalog I don't really speak the other dialects yeah but the Tagalog one is always a shock to them and so it's always

fun to kind of like surprise them especially if I can do it in special ways so going back to again High School times uh I had taken a summer job it was a summer work program through our school

and I was working at a music store actually it was called RJ guitars it's still around in in Metro Manila uh RJ guitars and the first day I reported for work I was walking in the door of the

store and the manager who was going to be my manager happened to be on the phone and she was saying in gallog oh he's coming in now oh wow he's really tall and he's kind of handsome and and

then I answered back in talog yeah and I speak talog too and she was so embarrassed I was just trying to tease her because you know she didn't know you know she just thought I was a high school

kid from another country who who didn't know the language you know just and then and then the other examples which are countless is just interacting with people on a regular basis I love to to tease them and joke

and I often embarrass Angie because I say something corny or cheesy but it's in Tagalog and they always get a laugh out of I get a laugh out of it um and most of the time it's been super

helpful because there's times when English even though English is very widely spoken here uh there's times when Filipinos struggle with their English and they get nervous about saying something or and so as soon as you kind of break

the ice and let them know that you speak some tagalo they kind of like are at ease and so I just do that out of convenience sometimes that I don't want to see them you know struggle and worry

about their English uh but here in in daget sometimes it's tough because there are times when uh Angie will tell me like they don't understand your tagalo I like oh man like I really wish that they all understood

Tagalog as fluently as I do but sometimes they don't sometimes their Tagalog is about the same or less than my level and my level's very simple like the kind of tagalo that kids speak to each other so it's

not very deep um so but most of the time it it it it works and it's been fun Kevin you recently have uh um talked about DN your commitment to DN you know you're a guy that you could

live anywhere in D meetti anywhere in the Philippines really but you chose zetti but more specifically you chose D what's the appeal of D to you over maybe say some of the other areas not that it's a competition

but you know we we each have our area that kind of fits our um our preferences what yeah why' you pick DWI right so dwin is this area about 30 minutes south Southwest of dumag and it's easy to

find you just go down the national highway and you kind of stick right to the coast you can see the ocean to your left when you're going down there and it's a it's a concentration of a lot of

the dive resorts and I learned to scuba dive in 2004 I got my certification back then and then I've been slowly working on additional certifications and then here in the Philippines I got my tech diving certificate which allows

me to go a little bit deeper and use mix uh gases and things like that um so dwin for me is like a diving Community first and foremost but also at those dive resorts are some really nice restaurants

so just peppered throughout the coastline there are tons of great little restaurants for you to explore uh oddly enough some of the best pizza I ever had in was down there um there's uh like a resort might have

like a world class Chef working at in their kitchen and you're just like wow what are you doing here but they're there so that was one of the things that just drew me down there to explore it initially

and then um I started looking at the building boom I call a building boom that's going on in that area and uh there's YouTubers that have been uh posting their progress of their builds and they they start up

on the hill and they go up the mountain in elevation of you know hundreds of meters and then from that vantage point you really have this beautiful view of the ocean and uh an island out there called Appo

Island which is a a a sanctuary Marine sanctuary and has wonderful snorkeling and scuba diving so I kind of fell in love with the idea of like what if I was able to build a house someday on this

mountain side overlooking the ocean it's something that I feel like I could never achieve in my home country because the idea of having Ocean View uh an ocean view lot or an overlooking lot is just so expensive because

as soon as you have that view the price just skyrockets uh but here in the Philippines insurance right and yeah I mean just the whole the whole idea of living near the ocean and having a view of the

ocean is just so prohibitively expensive uh in my opinion um I just felt like I could never achieve that in my home country but here I think it could be achievable so that was that was the other draw

for dawin was I said wow look at these beautiful views and they're also in other areas here in dag siulan has has Hills that go up so and and Valencia Valencia has cool climates and also some nice views

of the ocean but there was something special about dawin and then recently I mean really recently more and more developments have popped up in that area um they just built a new little shopping mall there there's um new

restaurants uh and cafes and and just cool attractions if you will popping up and down all the time and I feel like it's an area that I I could grow with in the next 5 to 10 years uh

there's supposed to be a new international airport that it's going in and nearby bakong which is you know just right next to dawin so maybe someday I'm imagining instead of flying into dumag in downtown at the Old World

War II Runway that you actually land in bakong at this new international airport and now your drive home is is is pretty decent pretty short cuz you're right there so uh that's that's part of the appeal if you

keep going up the mountain you you get into really nice cool climates there's like Mount talinis is up there where all the clean water comes from uh there's coffee shops you know places like basai coffee um they grow

coffee there and and make coffee it's just a really beautiful area so you have that mix of the ocean the diving and then the mountain with the views and and the and the and the waterfalls and all that

stuff just gorgeous there's a there's a specific thing I could mention cuz I'm not mentioning all these businesses and places of Attraction by name but there's a place called malasi which is not only just a restaurant but a

uh like a Event Center and they had concerts there and Angie and I went and saw a really famous Philippino band performed there and the who's who of the area came you know the mayor of dawin was there

and uh popular YouTubers and it it was really cool so right in that little area of daan you have like a really famous popular Filipino band that's pretty neat that to me is something that I feel like doesn't

get talked about enough is how much musical Talent there is here in the Philippines um everybody talks about the gorgeous nature everybody talks about the friendly people but some of the best singing I've ever heard in my life

has been here in the Philippines what are some of the concerts or maybe performances that come to your mind um could you talk a bit about what that was like and and uh you know is that something that

you you maybe see or hear about in dagate or surrounding areas a lot what is more important to Filipinos than their their music and love of music I mean it's ingrained in them the one of the most popular

activities here as you know is K O singing which is almost like a staple at any party if you're having drinks and food and it's whatever it is a birthday a uh a christening of a of a baby

um you name it there's going to be Koke there's going to be singing Because Filipinos love music and they love to sing and it just brings them Joy you can just see how much joy it brings them and

and you don't even have to be that good of a singer although it is a little bit of a cliche that every Filipino is this amazing singer uh uh you just sing your heart out and it doesn't matter

um yeah uh concerts I mean anytime you're in downtown dagate during some kind of festival or an important event or holidays inevitably you'll see a stage setup and a performer uh or local group local bands or or another

band or a group from another Island like Sibu or Manila will come in and entertain the crowd and it'll just be packed and uh they love it you know Filipinos love uh singing dancing entertainment one of the most

popular shows on television is a daytime variety show where it's all about singing and dancing and and humor being funny so it's it's here as well it's here in daget and it's in every major bar and restaurant they

typically on a Thursday or Friday or Saturday night you're going to hear live music being played or sometimes if they can't afford a whole band it it will just be one or two people singing to like a track

you know uh but they're still doing it and it and people love it and they sing along and they dance uh the malasi center had a concert stage set up and a very famous Filipino band called AIS came

and performed and uh it's fronted by three female vocalists and um they they came in into little dawin and they were here and and everybody everybody loved it so Kevin you've got an upcoming trip to Manila plan could

you share a bit about what's bringing you to Manila sure there's a reason why where I am in daget is actually not that far from an airport even though it's just a domestic airport and not an international one

and that's because I do travel a lot I fly back and forth from United States I I go to uh places like Manila and then from there I can get on a connecting flight to somewhere like Dava or

you know where what what have you Palawan or something and that's one of the reasons why I'm near the airport even though I'm here in dumag I want to be in a provincial rural area but I don't want

to be so far away that the airport is hours away like I've got a drive there so again you know before I even say why I'm going to Manila it's like I want to make sure that I have

I do have the best of both worlds where I am in a provincial area where I feel I can you know be close to Nature and a slower pace of life but I also want to be able to

hop on that plane and and go into town going to town going to the city when I need to um and this case uh it's uh to celebrate the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II uh

here we are it's 2025 80 years ago the Americans returned MacArthur promised that he would he would come back and and Liberate the Philippines from the Japanese and he did and so there's a conference that's happening and it's

it's in inos and it's called war in memory and it's a 80-year anniversary kind of remembrance of events that happen during that time and how you know the Philippines was rescued from from uh from from the Japanese so

I get to go up there uh we'll fly up we'll we'll spend the night a couple nights uh go to the conference it's a two-day conference and we'll fly back yeah and it's great and the flights are pretty

cheap and affordable and you know we we find a decent place to stay and that's not you know doesn't break the bank and and uh I know my way around Manila you know cuz just from being there so

many times it's a it's a fun trip and it's something that's easy to do and and I love love the being able to just hop on a flight and go I I think you know some guys are saying

I could never live in Manila but what you're saying is that even the guy or gal who chooses to live in dumag they can go up there for a weekend trip it's not out of question for you yeah

you're not isolated here and stuck here you know there are some places that you do want to be careful because what if you do feel trapped like let's say you lived on a smaller Island that didn't that you

would have to take a boat to go to a bigger island and then fly you're a little bit more isolated and not even getting into health concerns like let's say God forbid you had a health emergency how easy

is it for you to be transported to you know a bigger Hospital you know Manila or something so um I like that I like the convenience of being able to just get on a flight and go to Manila

and Manila has its own charm I I I again I'm I'm a little bit more history oriented like I love the historical aspect of of a City that goes back hundreds of years back when the Spanish were here

um it's just got so much culture and it's and and and the food and I mean the history the the the city itself it's just a wonderful place to visit again I I wouldn't live there by choice but

it's a great place to visit so I wanted to bring things home and uh give you a chance could you uh plug your social media if somebody wants to get in touch with you and then and then I'll

also give you the final word sure thank you Alex um I'm not that big on uh content creation I do it for fun I do have a YouTube channel that's called Kevin sound mixer if you wanted to check

it out you're welcome you're welcome too um I'm on Facebook uh Instagram um I work in film and television so I love to talk to people about that as well and I do have people who contact me and

ask me specifically about sound for film and TV because that's what I do um and yeah if you're interested in things like that World War II history um living in the Philippines feel free to hit me up I

I generally uh will get back to people and and say hello and I'm always down to to talk to someone so thank you for the opportunity to be on your channel and I wish you all the best as

you so much Kevin go on your journey you're so generous with your time with us today and with the audience and I know everybody will really appreciate your perspective you have such a nuanced uh experience in this Philippines

and uh yeah thank you so much everybody we'll see you soon byebye bye guys