Hey YouTube, Alex here and in today's video I want to talk about what do I miss about the Philippines and it's been a few months since I've been over there.
I've had time to reflect on my experiences there and there's quite a bit that I miss about living in the Philippines and um you know these aren't going to be in particular order.
I just want to share some of the things that I'm reflecting on.
And I think the first thing that I miss a lot about the Philippines is just like the social scene.
Being able to just talk to people at random on the street, in the store, being able to joke around with people, being able to um connect with people really easily is great.
You know, in some cases in throughout the US, I feel like, especially in the high cost of living cities where a lot of the jobs are, people are kind of trying to size you up to figure out uh if they can use you like to get ahead in their career or something like that.
Where in the Philippines, life's more laidback and people are more easygoing and it's just easier to just like talk to people at random.
Um, you don't see that as much here.
It seems like people are more in a hurry.
People have a lot more going on.
And I notice at the grocery store, it's kind of crazy when I see it, but people will be like charging through the aisles with their uh grocery bag.
And I can understand if you're in a hospital, you work at a hospital, you're wearing scrubs, why you'd want to be in a hurry, right?
But we're talking at the grocery store where I talked to my buddy Tony.
If you're watching this, shout out to you, Tony.
who talks about like he finds it relaxing to go to the grocery store, but like there's this split of people who are in a super rush all the time and it's kind of awkward to be around.
I notice it in traffic too.
Um notice it just like whether it's my home state uh or in uh Colorado where I'm at now.
I know for sure I've seen in California where people are just in a super hurry all the time and in the Philippines that I know that laidback atmosphere can be a double-edged sword.
Sometimes we get frustrated if we're not able to check out quickly or find exactly what we want at the store, but you don't really feel lonely.
Like I anticipated, man, you know, leaving Dumageddi, I'm going to feel more lonely than I felt because here, every single day I go into town, I'm running into people I know that either recognize me from this channel or people who uh recognize me from collaborations I've done or friends that are pre-existing that I've already made.
And this is just really a lot of fun when you have this atmosphere to be social.
It reminds me of how the United States was when I was a kid when the economy was growing a lot faster and cost of living wasn't so high.
People weren't in such a rush.
So yeah, that's the number one thing I miss is just the social scene.
I also met expats from all over the world in Dumageddi.
I think a lot of people think, oh, it's just Americans, but I also met friends from Europe there, Australia, uh even from like Eastern Europe, all over the world.
And it's such an international dynamic feeling.
And you get that in the big cities in the US.
But I find the people that move to the big cities in the US, they're there to make a buck.
They're there to work.
They're not really there to make friends.
And they could even be kind of insular for their protection or safety.
They stick to one another.
And there's a little bit of that among some expats in Dumagedi.
I found most expats and especially Filipinos are open to new people joining them and hanging out and that was just a really great thing.
I've stayed in touch with a lot of the people uh that I, you know, I I got to know there and it's, you know, I've gotten a lot of encouragement from my last video I posted last night about, man, you got to, you know, put away savings, investments, and get back over here.
And it's um it's easy to take a lot of those things for granted.
And I found, you know, I was there for almost a year and it's easy to take for granted having a social scene.
And then I came back over here and there's not really much of a social life.
There's a little bit like if you have a really a niche community you're into or you've lived in the same small town your entire life, but for me, I've had to move around pursuing work and jobs.
And so my life in the US has been kind of scattered around where in the Philippines, I told this to Paul.
I had a conversation with him and Mike as well at one point.
You know that 8 months in Dumagedi, that's like the longest I've spent anywhere in a really long time.
And it was really nice to know, hey, at the end of every day, I'm coming back to this apartment blocks from the beach and I'm going to walk by these different businesses where my friends are working.
And just having that stability of not just like, oh, I'm in town for like a day or two and then I'm jetting back out to go back to work, but really like, hey, we can get together.
We can go to a coffee shop.
we can meet up at this restaurant.
We can uh get together and do different things.
It was just a really a really vibrant experience, really exciting experience.
It's something I miss a lot, something I look forward to next time I make it over to Southeast Asia.
I felt like the social scene is especially strong in uh the Philippines, but it's to lesser extent true throughout Southeast Asia.
Just more of a a work to live as opposed to live to work type of culture.
Now, at times I could be overwhelmed.
I'm more of an introvert.
So, there were days where I'm like, I don't feel like socializing today.
But I find that here it's kind of the opposite.
like man I wish I could socialize more.
I think that'll change with my new career.
I think my new career there will be more of a social component in it and I will be able to connect with more like-minded people.
But in that but in this transition time I have felt like man I I miss being able to not I wouldn't even reach out to people.
I would just go to certain spots in Dumagetti knowing I'm going to run into people I know there.
And here that's not the case.
Like I'm back in Denver.
I'm going back to a lot of the places that I used to frequent when I lived out here.
I'm not saying anybody I know.
Most of the people I knew from back then.
This was I moved to Denver about 10 years ago.
They've since moved away from Colorado, back to the east coast, onto the west coast.
Uh they are not here.
There's very few people from that era that are still here.
and it's uh you know they're working a lot, they're busy, they've got a lot going on.
So, it's like not that same kind of just a I'll show up at this place and I'll sit down with my friends and hang out for a while.
It's uh it's more like a I'll see you when I see I hope I I see you, but not really counting on it.
The next thing I miss about the Philippines is the lower cost of living.
And I'm not going to harp on this one too much cuz it's obvious.
Anybody that's been to the Philippines knows that generally services are cheaper.
A big one is that for those of us who don't like doing dishes, like I like to cook, I just don't like doing dishes.
You can go out to eat for a pretty reasonable price.
And so that was nice here.
You know, I went to Kudoba today.
It's 12 bucks.
Uh where in Dumagetti I could go out and have a nice meal for say, I don't know, five bucks.
Uh, and there are there are good, you know, there are nicer places that would run you more like 10 15 bucks ahead.
But, um, Kudoba, while it was delicious, I wouldn't call it like a high-end establishment for sure.
What else?
What else?
You know, being able to like hop in a a trike, get a around town for like 40 50 cents.
Being able to go to a coffee shop, get a coffee for like a couple bucks.
Going to get some like random electronic device.
I need cables, things like that.
Clothes.
Uh I was actually surprised at like the clothing selection in Dumagetti.
They have a lot of great clothing stores and just uh just that kind of I don't know if you call it zany but it's like here shopping is very structured.
It's made as efficient as it can possibly be.
You can buy a lot of things online so you really don't need to go out and go to the store.
You can do it somewhat but it's not really the same.
You're going to pay a premium and um stores I don't know.
The shopping experience is just not as fun as it is in the Philippines.
Where Philippines, you go to the clothing store, you don't know what they're going to have unless it's like a name brand like Adidas or Nike.
You go to like a regular non-branded or like local chain, there's no telling what they're going to have.
And you go to a restaurant and sometimes they have what they have and sometimes they don't have what they have.
And uh so there's all there's just this like eclectic kind of vibrancy there where you're like okay well I've got a small amount of money in my wallet that'll cover me.
I used to go out and do and I knew that 1,000 pesos to 2,000 pesos probably cover most of what I needed that day unless I was buying something specific like a pair of shoes uh or some clothes or something like that where here it's like I don't cash is more and more discouraged.
So it's like okay just swipe your card.
Well, that abstracting away the purchase makes you, oh, it's only $12 or it's only $30 or 50 bucks and you can really spend a lot of money very quickly here in ways that it's just harder in the Philippines in my personal experience, my opinion.
I know there's guys that spend a lot in the Philippines.
More power to you if you got it.
But I like that not only is it a cheaper country in general, you can still have a good time without uh spending a lot.
Going into the next thing, the third spaces, the presence of third spaces.
Here in the US, you don't have as many third spaces.
It used to be people would have work, they would have their home, and then they go to the shopping mall or church or maybe a gym or things like that.
I think those third spaces, unless you're in like a really nice city, like I'll be fair, Denver is a really nice city, San Francisco, LA, you just don't have those third spaces.
And I've noticed it when I've been like back in Tennessee, they just don't exist as much, if at all.
And so you're going you're like at home or you're at work and you kind of go back and forth between home and work and you don't have that spontaneity of like, oh hey, I'm going to just go to the mall.
Like if I go to the mall here, I'm in the US, anywhere in the US really, I'm not going to see anybody I know.
I'm not going to run into people much.
If you try to talk to people, they'll think you're some kind of scammer or you're trying to sell them something from like a mall kiosk or something like that where it's um it's very different in the Philippines where you going to Robinson's at Dumaged for example.
I could probably sit down at many different tables that have a free seat just start talking to people like they're not going to have a problem with it.
They might be a little bit shy but it's not going to be like, "Dude, who are you?
What are you doing?
Get out of here." So that a lot of people think when it comes to cost of living, it's just I can buy stuff cheap.
It's not really just that.
It's like people aren't so short on time and there's a bit more of like a mystery about what's going to happen.
When I would go out and do I could never predict what was going to happen that day.
It was always I was going to see something interesting, see something funny, hear people joking around.
I would see people dancing.
You know, they have these dancing gettogethers in public.
It was always so fun.
I've never seen that in the United States.
Maybe it's out there somewhere.
Maybe if you're living in like Manhattan or something like that, you see that some.
But that was something I loved about Dumagedi is and different kinds of dancing too.
You'd have young people doing hip-hop dance.
You'd have older folks doing like a more I don't know, how do not tango, but like more of a classic style of dance.
You could go to the boulevard and go people watching.
And that's cuz people have more of a work to live kind of atmosphere there.
Think people would also do things.
I think people there have to stick together more to get by because it's expensive, more expensive relative to wages.
And so you see people like going fishing together, right?
Uh you see people you see people just doing a lot more stuff in groups and it's I think some of that is just the the cost, right?
Like you might see two people or three people on a motorbike in Dumagetti cuz they're trying to cut down on their commute cost.
Uh you might see two or three people uh sharing a trike cuz if you pay like the trike driver is able to charge a lower rate if it's not just a personal ride.
Um, >> trying to think about what else like >> I think part of the challenge too with like the cost of living is people here are more kind of salesy and you know, >> it kind of affects like the trust where >> in the Philippines, if I approach somebody to start talking to them on the street, >> they don't assume it's going to be some kind of uh salesy type of conversation like they do here.
Here, if somebody approaches you on the street, I assume they're a scammer.
I assume they are trying to get money out of me because it's expensive to live and people value their time and they got to you.
Some people do pro-social things like get a job.
Other people try to uh finesse other people out of money, right?
And so in the Philippines, like knowing that that's not people's first assumption when you want to have a conversation or want to talk, especially in the smaller cities, I could see Manila being a little bit more stressful.
It's it's more of a big city vibe, a little bit more pressured.
Uh but especially in the smaller cities just thinking about like rent.
I mean my rent was 135 bucks a month in Dumagetti and that was for a studio apartment and I didn't have to have roommates.
Uh I've had some great roommates here in the States.
I've also had some really bad roommates here in the States.
But that was a great location, walking distance from a lot of the places that I enjoyed going to.
I could hop on a trike.
I could get to town.
And the last apartment I rented on my own here was a shoe box for like 1,100 1,200 a month.
And that was cheap in California, right?
Most people would assume I'm paying at least double that in California.
So, like knowing, okay, so that $1,100 I used to pay for rent in California, that's covering me for at least a month in Dumagetti.
And um yeah, that was that that was Sorry guys, I got distracted because I I had some folks walking by.
I'm trying to do this in just one take.
But what else do I miss about the Philippines?
H I think you know with part of that cost of living too is I could think a little bit more clearly at times uh in doaged because I didn't have so much pressure like here it's like how am I going to make the How am I going to make the rent?
Okay, I got to do this chore.
Got to do that chore.
You feel this kind of pressure to constantly be doing uh different things?
And [Music] there uh because cost is less, I felt like I could kind of plan things out a little more.
Ironically, because a lot of people think, oh, you can't plan as well in the Philippines because it's so spontaneous.
But as far as for my future, I took a lot of time to research different career paths that I could do when I came back to the States and here because costs are high and I don't really have family to lean on here.
Can't really plan ahead nearly as well.
In my personal opinion, it's like I'm either working or doing chores or sleeping.
Like that's mostly it.
That's mostly my life here in the States.
You get some holidays periodically where you have off for Christmas, but a lot of times I'm just sleeping in on those holidays like, "Oh yeah, I get to rest." So, it's uh there's a lot I miss about the Philippines and a lot of things I didn't realize I would miss until a few months in things kind of set in more like, "Oh, I can't just talk to random people on the street.
They're going to think I'm crazy or a scammer.
Oh, I can't just go to the coffee shop and and look around for a friendly face.
It's like no, people are going to look at me like, "What are you looking at, dude?" Um, it's uh, you know, America's got a lot of positives.
There's a lot of things to like about the United States.
A lot of us foreigners that want to live overseas or have lived overseas or are currently living overseas or making plans to live overseas were coming from these countries with historically strong economies where we could save and invest a lot and have the money we needed to uh live like you know passive income through rental properties or through dividend stocks or through businesses.
But there's a lot that's great about the Philippines, about Southeast Asia.
And anyway, I'm going to go ahead and wrap it up.
I appreciate you guys watching.
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Comment if you have travel plans coming up.
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And we'll talk to you um in the near future.
Bye, everybody.
