Living Abroad – Makati City First Impressions

Street kid who insisted on posing for a shot.

Have arrived in Manila and staying in Makati City for a few days before starting my journey around the Philippines. Makati turns out to be a pretty nice place to begin my transition to living abroad. As a new expatriate living overseas, Makati was a pleasant introduction to my new life.

The transition to a country with a lower cost of living has been very noticeable in a number of things. For one, cigarettes now cost me less than $0.75 a pack (Marlboros). That’s about a 90% decrease from the states where the price had jumped up to over $7.50 a pack in my home state. I guess the Philippines is much kinder on sinners with their sin taxes.

So far there has been nothing that I’ve really missed from back in the states. Within walking distance from the hotel that I’m currently staying at are: McDonalds, Pizza Hut, Shakey’s Pizza, Domino’s Pizza, Starbucks, the Coffee Bean. Journeying to the mall, my choices expand to include California Pizza. Obviously, you can tell that I do enjoy my pizzas. Costs for most are at least 50% cheaper, with the exception of the coffee places which tend to be a bit pricey.

I’ve also come across a number of nice upscale restaurants serving Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Indian, Middle Eastern and Thai food. As for Italian, well this may seem odd, but if you want spaghetti or lasagna you just have to go over to McDonalds or Pizza Hut. A very nice meal can be had for about $10 USD.

A future Magic Johnson from the Phils, playing on the street.

My favorite so far has been the Thai massage places. No, not the ones that offer the “happy endings”. But legitimate massage places, where I can get an hour of massage for about $6 USD. Now that’s more than 90% cheaper than in my American hometown, where I used to drop $100 for a massage after a long airplane flight. I think this will be a weekly habit from now on rather than a rare treat like it was in the USA.

I’m not a real television fan these days, but it was nice to get HBO and the SciFi channel in Makati. The last few days have been pretty nice. In fact maybe a little too nice. It’s far too easy to eat out at nice restaurants every day, and I need to get back to a more normal diet.

Being walked by the dog.

Makati is a very interesting city and I’ll post more once I’m fully settled in. I am still living out of a suitcase and heading out for Cebu City shortly. Am able to do a lot more photography now in my retirement and hope to pick up a bit more on that hobby with some more detailed analysis of living abroad. Hope these pics of kids that I saw on the side streets of Makati gives you some impression of life here.

Will be doing some house hunting today. So far I am enjoying my decision to retire abroad very much. About the only thing that I’m really having to adjust to so far is staying in a large city and adapting to the traffic, crowds and pollution. But I’ll be looking for a more permanent place to stay outside of the city center where things will be a little bit more quiet.

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