About a year ago, I first published a post entitled Why I Left the Philippines.  It has had a lot of “reads” over the past year, and I updated and republished it a few months back.  A lot of people didn’t really read it, though, because I got calls and queries even from some relatives asking me what happened, and where I was going to live now, and whatever went wrong, etc.

Well I did “leave”, but only for a day.  My wife and I went to Macau to renew our Balikbayan privilege status.  Our only regret on that trip was, we should have stayed a bit longer.

Although my BB stamp is still good until the beginning of march of this year, we decided we’d take this year’s renewal trip a little earlier.  I just now got done printing out the boarding passes for our flight early tomorrow morning for a trip the MCO (Orlando).  My son, who lives in Colorado, will join us there for a week, and then we’ll spend two more weeks with my wife’s sister in Orlando, and back to the RP on 22/24 February.

New blog posts and answers to comments/email may be a bit slow during that time, but fear not, just be a little patient, I haven’t ‘dropped off” the edge of the earth and no, I am not leaving the Philippines for good … I realized just the other day how much this has really become “home” to me.

photo credit: Pylon757

It’s been more than three years since I was back in the USA, and quite frankly, now that I am less than 24 hours from leaving for the States I’m surprised just how little I miss it.  I thought I would be all excited … even went through a brief period of actual “homesickness’ a few weeks back, but that was just a fleeting feeling.

I’m going now, and I am going to enjoy my time with my son and the time with other family and shopping, but the thing I am looking forward to most is, getting on the airplane 22 February to come back to the Philippines.

My first impressions so far, based on getting tickets, getting a place to stay, etc., are that Wow! air fare is certainly cheap.  Our round trip tickets on Northwest/Delta from Manila to Orlando and return are cheaper than the best deals I used to make 6 or 7 years ago.  And the whole process is much so much easier.  Only a year or so back, you couldn’t even buy tickets off Northwest’s website for travel originating outside the US, and now I not only bought, I have even checked us in and printed out boarding passes and luggage tags.  How cool is that?

My next impression, making hotel reservations, checking on admission for tourist attractions and such is .. “holy sh*t, that’s what people are paying in the USA?”  Go on strike, people, there’s supposed to be a recession going on and that’s the kind of prices people are paying in Florida, no less?

I mean, I’m not talking about taking my wife to a first run Broadway show in New York and the staying at the Ritz or something like that.  Thank goodness I have lots of hundred-dollar bills I got out of the bank.  Mita asked me this morning what I was going to do with our left over money when we get back … I just hope we have some left over.

Anyway, that’s what is going on here at PhilFAQS … I’;

ll keep you updated from time to time, and if there is anyone in or near the Orlando area who wants to hook up in the next three weeks, give us a shout at 1-719-966-4285 or use the Contact page here, I’ll be checking email regularly.

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