May 2010 – Page 3 – Bradley's Old Fashioned Weblog

PX Goods in the Philippines

May 5, 2010 Bradley FarlessLeave a comment

My wife and I were having a conversation a few weeks ago that just popped back into my head. She was telling me about how imported goods in the Philippines are sometimes called PX goods, but she doesn’t know why. I could be absolutely wrong, but I have a theory about that!

As you may or may not know I spent 8 years in the Army, and “PX” is an Army term. It’s short for “Post Exchange”. Almost every Army base has a post exchange on it, regardless of where it is in the world, with the exception being some in combat areas or when the post is just too small. Even some of the camps in Kuwait have a PX. The PX is like a big department store. You can buy clothes, kitchen stuff, electronics, DVDs, music, games, and sporting equipment there, among other things. A few even have sections for gardening.

So, how does this tie in with the term being used in the Philippines?

Well, there used to be a strong US military presence in the Philippines around the time of World War II, the Vietnam War, and even during the Cold War. The first place that comes to mind (that’s still standing, albeit no longer under US control) is Clark Air Base in Pampanga. It’s recently been given another name, but most Filipinos still know it by the old, American name. I found the following information on Wikipedia:

Clark Air Base was originally established as Fort Stotsenburg in Sapang Bato, Angeles City in 1903 under control of the U.S. Army.

That article goes on to say that Clark Air Base had a “base exchange”, which is the Air Force term for a post exchange, but I think that initially it had a post exchange, like all Army posts do, and that word stuck in the minds of the local population.

Regardless of where you are in the world, a PX carries the same variety of goods which are mostly things from the US. These goods would eventually make it into the local population by resale from troops trying to turn a buck on people wanting genuine American items. So, in the Philippines, these items would be seen as imported goods.

So, long story short, I think the term “PX goods” is used to describe imported items because PX goods from the US military PXs that used to be in the Philippines were all imported items from the US. Again, this is just a theory and it could be something else entirely, but this just fit so well with what I know!

Cat Export Preparations Update #7

May 5, 2010 Bradley FarlessLeave a comment

Monday night the AVA health certification was approved, so I immediately got online and made my payment. I didn’t want to run into any hang-ups with my card not working properly in some scanner at a government office. I didn’t have time to take chances.

I did have time to sleep in a bit though. Not intentionally of course, but I’ve been so exhausted from running around preparing for this move and from stress that I just slept for about 12 hours straight that night. When I finally got out of the house it was around 2 PM already. I went directly to Tanjong Pagar to pick up the certification.

I was expecting it to be pretty hard to find. I actually had my iPhone out with the Maps application running. It was kind of ridiculous though because there I was, walking down the street with my face glued to my phone, trying to figure out when I’d be close to the Ministry of National Development building. The thing wasn’t reading quite right because when I looked up, there it was right in front of me.

It’s a pretty massive building that’s hard to miss. I could’ve seen it from the MRT station if I wasn’t so busy trying to use my iPhone’s Maps.

The process of picking up the health certification was painless. I was in and out of the office in about 10 minutes.

It took a little more effort to find the Philippines Airlines office at Parklane Mall. You have to show them your documents at least two days before your flight so they can fax them to the terminal office and, presumably, have proper arrangements made on the aircraft.

I’d never been to, or even heard of, Parklane Mall before so I had looked it up on Google Maps before leaving the house and, once again, I was walking with my face glued to my iPhone screen. And… once again, I was standing there looking at that screen, trying to figure out where I was in relation to the mall when I looked up and was staring at the entrance. In my defense, the entrance to Parklane Mall is kind of hard to pick out from the rest of the storefronts in that area.

The entrance is between the DBS and McDonald’s signs in this picture. Hardly the average mall entrance in Singapore.

Anyhow, I wasn’t quite prepared for what all the agent wanted to know at the office there. He wanted to know the dimensions of the carrier, if it was IATA approved, its weight and the weight of my cats. He wanted to see the credit card I’d used and of course he wanted to see the documentation. He made copies of the export permit, import permit, and AVA health certification.

I wound up leaving their office at 5 minutes to 5 PM, which is when they close, so I made it, but barely.

If I could go back in time and reschedule this all, I would set it up so that my flight was on a Sunday. Having that weekend, a holiday weekend no less, in the middle of the 7 days leading up to our flight, cramped our available time for getting things done for the cats. Everything has to be done within a certain amount of time leading up to the flight. Some of the documents are only good for 7 or 10 days.

Anyway, I’m glad that stress is over. Now we just need to show up at the airport with them in the morning.

The next post you see on this blog will be published from the Philippines. Hopefully I’ll have a happy tale to tell about our cats’ first trip on an airplane. By then I’ll have all the information I need to complete my step-by-step guide on importing cats to the Philippines from Singapore as well. I’ll be publishing that on my ‘Philippines’ blog. You can find the link to it at the bottom of the sidebar. I got it going but haven’t posted much to it yet.

Take care, and see you on the other side!

The Soup Spoon @ Bugis Junction

May 5, 2010September 4, 2021 Bradley FarlessLeave a comment

My wife and I are constantly finding and trying new restaurants and I’m kinda sad that this one slipped our notice until just two days before I leave Singapore. The Soup Spoon has some GREAT food.

My wife ordered the Simon & Garfunkel Ragout (pronounced ‘ra-goo’). I had a little taste of it and it was delicious. I don’t know how close to original the ragout recipe is, but it was great on its own.

I had the Velvety Mushroom Stroganoff. Ever since I got to experience the mushroom soup at Say Cheeze in Tampines 1 I’m always on the lookout for a chance to try a new recipe. I never realized mushroom soup could be so good, because in the US plain ‘cream of’ soups aren’t that popular and the ones that come in the cans are really bland. The mushroom soup at The Soup Spoon is really excellent. It’s thick and the chunks of mushroom are big enough to sink your teeth into.

The soups could be a meal by themselves, especially with the bread roll that comes with it, but they had a set meal offer that we took advantage of.

My wife tried their Garden Green salad. She said it was nice.

I had the Chicken Tikka half-wrap. It was ok. I think I’d have enjoyed it more but it didn’t really go well with the soup I chose. The taste was tart and sour, which was an abrupt change after the smooth, mellow tastes of the soup. Oh, and the stuff on the side that you can see in the picture above? It tasted just a bit south of foul. I left that alone.

Overall, the meal was very satisfying and very filling and, surprisingly, very affordable at only 22 bucks for both of us.

I’m just sad that I’ll probably never eat at this place again. It would’ve been a regular stop for me if I’d known about it earlier.

Cat Export Preparations Update #6

May 2, 2010 Bradley Farless7 Comments

Things are going right on schedule. We had kind of a hang-up on Saturday with taking the cats to the vet because it was a public holiday. I didn’t even realize it! The vet was closed. Someone let me know on Friday night. Coincidentally, it was the person that recognized me from my blog at Teadot. She noticed the blog post and contacted me on Twitter. Apparently, we’d chatted a bit on Plurk before I stopped actively using the service. I guess social media paid off for me this weekend, because it saved me a wasted trip to a closed vet.

Thanks @_rasyidah!

It turned out to be a blessing in disguise. The vet we were going to take the cats to wanted 104 per cat for the rabies shot and health certificate, but when we called around we wound up finding a vet that would perform the same service, including an application of Frontline to meet the “treated for external parasites” requirement for import to the Philippines, for only 84 dollars per cat. That’s 60 bucks in savings. Plus, the clinic was closer so we saved on taxi fare too.

I’ll list the places we went in my “roll-up” post on how to import cats to the Philippines from Singapore later, on my Philippines blog.

We really had to get the cats to the vet over the weekend to fit our timeline. Immediately after returning home from the vet, I filled out the online form with AVA to have the certificates converted to AVA certified versions. That included scanning them and uploading them along with the application.

So, after this I still have to go pick up the certificates from the AVA, which will hopefully be available by tomorrow afternoon, and then take them to the Philippines Airlines office to present to the customer service officers there. They require that you show them the paperwork before they allow you to board their planes with pets. I suppose it’s a good policy, but it adds a bit more stress. The health certificates have to be obtained within 7 days of arrival at your destination and you have to show it to the PAL office no later than two days before the flight. It creates a sort of time-crunch that we’ll hopefully get over without issue.

As for the cats themselves, this trip was a little less traumatizing for them I think. On their last trip to the vet we were in a much noisier area, with a lot of traffic and then to cap things off we got caught in one of Singapore’s flash rainstorms that left us pretty drenched. They did panic a bit when a dog the size of Marmaduke came into the vet, but I don’t blame them. That thing kinda worried me too. I’m sure it outweighed me by about 30 pounds. It was HUGE.

So, that’s it for now!

Total damages so far: 1075 SGD

Total to go (approx.): 260 SGD