That’s a pretty big mouthful, but basically what I’m talking about here is the church that’s designated as the command center for the Archbishops of Manila. To be precise, these esteemed gentlemen:
A few posts ago I showed some photos of the cathedral in in Antipolo. It’s pretty nice, but the Manila cathedral was designated as a Minor Basilica for a reason. It’s got great architecture and a LOT of history, as you can see from the picture above, which shows archibishops dating back to 1573. We went through it rather quickly, because it was as hot as an oven in there, but on a cool day we could go back and spend a few hours reading all of the information that’s put out on display. A quick history is that this church was originally established by the Spanish during the colonial period. It originally fell under the diocese of Mexico, but eventually gained its own authority and power structure. The building itself has, in part, survived multiple wars, a massive fire and an earthquake. It’s been rebuilt a few times.
The exterior and interior of the building are in pretty good shape. There was some quiet renovation work going on while we were there, but it didn’t detract from the overall experience. I’m not Catholic, but it was still inspiring to be in such a sacred place with over 400 years of history, so we took a few moments to offer up prayers before leaving to continue our self-guided tour of the Intramuros area.
This is a view of the cathedral from the main entrance towards the chancel. It’s a pretty big area.
If you walk to the front and then turn and look above the entrance, you’ll see the pipe organ. A plaque I read said that the first Catholic missionaries to the Philippines brought musical instruments with them, including a portable box organ which was probably destroyed in a major Manila fire in the 1500s. It didn’t say exactly when the pipe organ was put in place, but it said that for almost all of the cathedral’s history, there’s been a Master Chantre, some of which were specifically named as organists.
Just after taking this photo, a young guy walked in, embraced this cross and began to pray silently. I’ve noticed that Catholics place a lot of importance on symbols, images and things as objects or focal points of prayer. It seems bizarre to me, because there shouldn’t be an object between yourself and God. On the other hand, I suppose something that inspires (properly placed) devotion can’t be all that bad. Being in the cathedral was a strong reminder and incentive for me reflect as well.
This is the “La Pieta”. I didn’t read the plaque, so I don’t understand the symbolism behind the statue, but it’s well made.
This is an image of Our Lady of the Philippines located in the Manila Cathedral.
I’m looking forward to visiting this cathedral again. We were a bit short on time and just happened to see it while on our way to Fort Santiago so we rushed through. I may create an additional post about this cathedral in the future, since it’s such a wonderful and rich landmark in Manila.
Everything has to be done in small steps, in increments. When I got here to the Philippines I was throwing myself into the house renovations while trying to buy furniture, stock groceries and household items, find a job and figure out my visa all at once. It’s great to be motivated, but it’s burning us out too. We haven’t taken any time for ourselves recently, unless you count laying on the bed, exhausted, with our laptops in front of us. Hopefully we can work in some time for that, because we’re about to put the brakes on this headlong rush, hopefully by the end of this week.
The housework is coming along nicely. We’re getting the place cleaned up, we’re selling the scrap metal and we’re taking out the useless junk to my burn pit, which is actually more of a burn mound now. I need to find time to scoop all of that up and put it on the curb. It’s becoming very unsightly. There’s a lot of things I’d like to get done around here, but I’ve moderated my plans to fit time and budget constraints, for now. Gotta be realistic about this.
The biggest issues now are my visa and finding work. Thankfully, we just found a lucky break while downtown at the Bureau of Immigration. There’s an old law that says that I’m entitled to a one year free stay in the country by virtue of returning to the Philippines with my wife, who is a citizen. That will give me plenty of time to apply for the resident visa, which takes a load of stress off our shoulders. I’ll have to post about that process later, if it works out the way it should. Finding work shouldn’t be difficult. The laws here on hiring foreigners are nowhere near as strict as in Singapore, and with that one year pass and later a resident visa, the whole thing about my being a foreigner should become a non-issue.
Here are a few things that have been keeping me occupied for the last week or so.
We stopped to check out this huge hole in the ground. The construction is congesting traffic and giving the local shopkeepers a headache since some of them had to close down to make way for the work. Eventually this is going to be a multilevel car park that should free up a lot of road space in Antipolo’s town area.
When possible, we’ve been browsing the markets. You can find a lot of interesting (and weird) stuff in them. Occasionally you even come across a great deal on something that you’d pay double or triple for elsewhere. The stall in the picture above sells mostly religious stuff like creepy dolls and statues and tons of rosaries. Ya. Creepy. I know they’re supposed to be religious and inspirational, but most of them look like something that would scare the crap out of me if I caught sight of them in a darkened room.
Don’t ask me why, but there was a random steel bolt sticking out of the wall in our bedroom. I got a hacksaw and put in a lot of work to cut that thing short. Later, I’ll cover it over and then repaint the wall.
We also spent some time in the hospital with my father in law, who is now thankfully doing a lot better than he was when we rushed him up there. That was a stressful experience and I’m glad he’s home again.
One of the things that I like about living out here in Antipolo is the look and feel of the neighborhood we’re living in. It’s full of people all day long. I don’t know how, because you’d think everyone would go to work, but at any time of the day you can look outside and see kids and adults walking around or sitting down and talking. At night it’s so quiet you can hear the second-hand on a wall-clock ticking. That makes for some good sleep.
Here are some photos:
The neighborhood is down in a valley. The view as you’re going in or out is pretty nice.
Anyhow, day after tomorrow we’ll be heading to downtown Manila to Intramuros, the old Spanish administrative area from the colonial era. The main Bureau of Immigration office is there and we need to pay them a visit. Afterwards we’ll hopefully get to see the Manila Cathedral and some other landmarks in the vicinity.
Also, I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this here before, but I’m posting other, less personal, stuff about the Philippines on EverythingButBalot.com. Check it out if you have time.
A few days ago I posted an update talking about hauling useless crap out of my in-law’s house and burning it. Just to go into some details, that useless crap includes things like broken hangers, rotting wood, shredded electrical wire (that’s likely to burn the house down if used), random plastic caps and knobs and broken light switches, molded paper, completed crossword books, old newspapers, 3 year old grocery receipts, random pages of magazines, broken umbrellas, molded clothing that’s literally rotting, and other unpleasant ‘treasures’.
The trash pick-up here is only once a week, but with the amount of crap I’m hauling out, in addition to regular daily household wastes, I had to get creative. That’s why burning it is the best option. It also prevents animals and scraggly children from tearing open the bags to see what’s inside and leaving a pile of trash in front of your house that has to be bagged up again.
The lot next door is unoccupied, so it’s front ‘lawn’ makes a great place to build a fire. Here’s the fire pit as it stands now:
It’s a bit messy. I have to get out there with a rake and a shovel to dispose of the remains but I haven’t had time to yet.
It feels great to get rid of all of that crap. The house is gradually getting cleaner and livable. It’s a big place and it’s a waste if it stays the way it is, not to mention it’s unhealthy for everyone that lives here, so I’m staying motivated to get the job done.
Tomorrow I think I’ll finally finish cleaning out the back of the house. We bought a washing machine 11 days ago but haven’t been able to install it because there was too much scrap wood and metal in the way. It’s a good thing too, because I’m almost out of clean underwear.
My wife and I love to read so we were excited to check out the Antipolo library when we saw the sign near the town hall. We couldn’t figure out how to get into it at first because the whole lower level of the building is taken up by unrelated offices. We had to ask a guard for directions. There’s a narrow stairwell on the left side of the building that leads up to the entrance of the library.
We expected to have to pay a fee to enter, but instead we only had to sign in on their guestbook. We also had to put on home-made shoe coverings before we were allowed to walk around the library. I wasn’t too thrilled with that, since they’re reused without being washed. I’m not a big fan of getting toe fungus from strangers. Oddly enough, when we left, we were asked to deposit the shoe covers back at the entrance and then told to walk through the library to a separate exit without them. Kinda defeats the purpose doesn’t it?
I’m really impressed with the fact that Antipolo has a library at all, though I can’t say I’m all that impressed with the titles available. The place is small. It’s about the size of a small classroom and has 8 to 10 racks of books which are about 6 feet tall and 6 tables that each seat 4 people. The books that are available are all very old, some outdated to the point of being useless information, the medical books being the biggest example of that. Medical practices and knowledge change constantly and you can’t learn much that’s still relevant, or even correct, from a textbook that’s 20+ years old. The categories cover very basic topics that seem to focus on high school level education and the area for fiction and literature seemed really small.
There were two or three computer terminals available, but all of them were running what appeared to be a game that’s used to teach basic English and logic with a 5 year old audience in mind. I didn’t notice any signs for Internet access, but I didn’t get to check the terminals.
What the place excels at is providing a relatively cool, quiet place for groups of people to study and read. Peace and quiet is rare in Antipolo. If you happen to want to use the library, I suggest bringing along your own reading material and your own laptop with a mobile broadband USB modem.
Hopefully, better facilities will be available when we move to Manila proper but for a provincial area, this is more than I expected.
I’m not sure if this cathedral is actually the center of town, but it certainly feels like it for me. It’s where we usually get off the tricycle when riding into town from our neighborhood. We catch the FX to Manila nearby. The town hall is within sight of the front steps and the area is often host to a number of local celebrations and events like this ballroom style dancing that I saw and recorded a bit of in 2008:
The main cathedral is simple, by Catholic standards at least (compared to St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City), but it still manages to convey a majestic, reverent atmosphere that reminded me to remove my cap when I passed through the doors.
The pews inside are occupied by quite a few people at any given time of the day, but it’s especially jam packed on Saturday nights when mass is held.
These are some photos of the stained glass windows in the cathedral area.
And these are some of the statues of saints that are arrayed around the outer wall of the main chamber. In the first image, you can see a woman laying her hand on one of the statues and praying.
This is a very stylistic interpretation of Jesus carrying the cross, which people are laying hands on while offering prayers.
There are also areas where candles are lit. I don’t understand the exact significance of these candles, except that they’re meant as symbolic offerings. I suppose they’re used to ensure that the person’s prayers are heard?
This cathedral is known particularly as a place for travelers to pray for safe journey. I was told by my wife, who grew up in the area, that it’s common for people to make a ‘pilgrimage’ there before embarking on international trips to pray for safety.
The thing I found most peculiar about the cathedral is this sign:
If you look towards the bottom right you’ll notice that there are services for car blessings. My wife says that during this service the priest will sprinkle holy water on the car as a blessing against accidents. Call me cynical, but this immediately brought to mind a time when the Catholic church would sell a blessing or an indulgence for just about anything, if you could pay the right price, especially with the name and logo of a bank at the bottom of the sign.
Note: Most recently updated with new information on June 17, 2021. I very much hope that this proves to be a useful resource for anyone trying to get their pets out of Singapore and/or into the Philippines. Please keep in mind that a lot of the information is dated, but I’ve provided links to updated government websites where possible. Thankfully, a lot of the paperwork on the Philippines side can be done online through forms now, instead of having to contact actual people by email.
The process of importing cats from Singapore to the Philippines can seem like a lot of trouble, and it gave us a headache trying to figure out what is, and isn’t, necessary. The embassy website for the Philippines and the website for BAI (when it’s even up) even had some contradicting information. So, I’m writing this guide in the hopes that other people will benefit from my experience.
Picking an Airline
This is one of the most obvious things, but I thought it was worth mentioning because if you’re planning on taking pets from Singapore to the Philippines you only have two options: Singapore Airlines or Philippine Airlines. The budget carriers don’t allow pets at all.
With both Singapore Airlines and Philippine Airlines, pets are transported in the belly of the plane as cargo. Pets aren’t allowed in the cabin (in 2010, not sure about now). Don’t worry. My cats unfortunately went through hell prior to take-off, but they made it through just fine and are relaxing on my bed while I type this.
The real decision here comes down to how much money you want to spend. Both airlines will get you to the Philippines. Both airlines will carry your pets. Philippine Airlines is quite a bit cheaper, though.
Picking your Carrier
That’s not my cat at the top of the photo. He’s a cat that lived in our building on the 6th floor somewhere, but came downstairs during the day to lounge around and people-watch. He was checking out my cats, who were in the carriers, just prior to our boarding a taxi for the airport.
When you take your cats on a plane, an IATA certified carrier is required. We used the Ferplast Atlas Deluxe 20 Open Top to ensure that our cats had proper ventilation during the trip. Check out any of Pet Lover’s Centre’s many locations for a wide variety of carriers. Be sure to ask if the carrier is IATA approved before buying it though or you may be disappointed later.
Vaccinations
Before starting the export process, you’ll need to make sure your cats have been immunized. They don’t need to have been immunized more than once, so if they don’t have a booster shot that’s ok. When we imported our 3 cats to the Philippines, they had all received their first shots less than a month prior to the flight date. The shot you’ll have to get them is the standard 4-in-1 shot, which contains vaccines for feline rhinotracheitis, calici, panleukopenia, and chlamydia psittaci. There is no specific time frame for when, in relation to your flight, these shots have to be received by your cats. You just have to have them current.
One thing I would like to suggest is that before you head to your nearest vet, do some calling around. Prices vary quite a bit in Singapore for the same veterinary services. You can use the Singapore Veterinary Association site’s list of clinics as a good starting point to find a certified vet for your needs. We lived in the East area of Singapore and found Clinic for Pets to have the cheapest rate on vaccinations, and Mount Pleasant Animal Medical Centre (Bedok) Pte Ltd to have the best rate on the rabies vaccinations and Health Certificates. (More on that later in the post).
Philippines Pet Import Permit
Update (June 17, 2021):
Important update : pets being imported into the Philippines now require microchips. For more information, please see the Philippines Embassy in Singapore’s information page by clicking here: Bringing Pets to the Philippines
Update (March 12, 2019):
I’ve been made aware that requesting an import permit, or import clearance, from the BAI is now done through the BAI web portal (link updated 6/17/2021).
Detailed instructions on how to do this are found in the PDF below, which was created by BAI:
Within 60 days prior to your flight you’ll have to request, either in writing or by e-mail, an import permit from the Bureau of Animal Industry (BAI). The BAI website has been down recently for upgrading and the email address that is listed on the Singapore embassy website is incorrect. We were actually told (after a month of waiting) that the email address listed there is not used and won’t return an invalid email address message to your inbox. To actually get a message to BAI via email you have to use the following email address: quarantine_bai@yahoo.com [Commenter “Allem” alerted me to the fact that the previous email address is no longer valid, and recommended the following: baiquarantine@hotmail.com]. The point of contact at that email address is either Maynard Lagmay or Virgie Tesoro, both of which were very helpful in sending us our import permit.
The written request for the import permit is very informal. Just write a standard business letter requesting the permit. Include the following details about your pets:
The permit is usually mailed I think, but due to our circumstances (the incorrect email address) they helped us out by scanning and e-mailing the import permit to us. When you get it, it should look like this:
Republic of the Philippines Veterinary Quarantine Clearance to Import Dogs and Cats
The import permit will be valid for 60 days you don’t have to worry about making any payment until you land in the Philippines. As you can see from the example permit above, you’ll be charged 350 PHP on arrival if you have 2 cats or less, or 650 PHP if you have two cats or more.
Singapore Pet Export Permit
Update (June 17, 2021):
A checklist is now available from Singapore’s Animal & Veterinary Services, which can be found by clicking here: Preparing to Leave Singapore.
Detailed instructions from Singapore’s Animal & Veterinary Services on how to apply for the export permit:
Within 30 days prior to your flight, you’ll have to request an export permit from Singapore’s AVA (no longer exists as of 2019) AVS (Animal & Veterinary Services), which will cost you 50 SGD (in 2010 with multiple cats allowed on one permit).
This export permit is independent of the Veterinary Health Certificate and you request it (and should request it) prior to getting your Health Certificates done. Getting the export permit is as simple as filling out an online form, which you can get started on by clicking this link (link updated June 17, 2021).
Information below in this section is probably all outdated at this point:
Once the page loads, scroll down until you see this:
As indicated in the image above, pick the situation that applies to you. Both options will lead to the same form, but if you’re not a foreigner you’ll have to enter your SingPass to proceed. Getting a SingPass is as simple as going to the CPF Building in Tampines. It takes about 5 minutes and you’ll leave with the SingPass in your hand.
Either way, you’ll be presented with a disclaimer that you’ll have to agree to and then you can begin filling out the form. The form is simple but it can be confusing at times. The same form is used for all situations, as well as importing and exporting, so the key is to just fill out the sections that apply to you and your situation.
Here’s an example on the first page of the form:
On the first page, as an individual exporting personal pets, the bottom details don’t apply. Don’t enter anything into the fields at the bottom of the form will fail in the end. The best thing to remember is that just because it has a red asterisk, it doesn’t mean you have to fill it out if that box doesn’t apply to you.
In the end, you should be presented with a confirmation page (step 7) that looks something like this:
The following day, you can go back to that first page where the green links are and click on “Enquire on my Application’s Status Now”, or just click here. You’ll be required to give the Application Number from the Submission Page, which comes after the Confirmation Page above, so be sure to write that down. It’ll be a long number that starts with a letter, like this one:
In the following screen you’ll be able to see if your permit is processing, approved or denied. Once it’s approved, payment is simple. You follow the link at the beginning of this post to go back to the AVA page with the green links and this time click on “Pay for my New Licence now”, or just click here. The payment is handled by a third party, but the payment should credit instantly. It did for me! They accept NETS and MasterCard. I can’t remember if I saw a Visa logo or not.
After making your payment you’ll be directed to a page where you can download your Export permit for printing.
Health Certificates & Rabies Vaccination
When you’re 7 days out from your flight, you’ll have to take the final steps to ensure your cats are ready to go.
One thing you’ll have to consider is whether or not to get your pet a rabies vaccination. This is one of the points where I got a bit confused, because some sources I read said it was required, and others didn’t. I played it safe and got my cats their rabies vaccinations. Technically, I don’t think it’s required because rabies has been eradicated in Singapore. However, there are rabies in the Philippines and if I was going to put this much effort into bringing them with me, I didn’t want them to get sick and die after arriving safely. The rabies vaccinations cost me 48 SGD apiece.
To get our Health Certificate, we went to Mount Pleasant Animal Medical Centre in Bedok. The vet will inspect your cat to make sure they don’t have any weird bumps, open wounds, or signs of any infectious diseases. If they appear to be in good shape, she’ll authorize the counter clerk to print up a health certificate, which she’ll sign.
Before she does that, ask her to apply Frontline to your cats and have it annotated on the health certificate. One of the requirements for importing pets into the Philippines is proof that they’ve been treated for parasites. I actually forgot to have her administer dewormer and annotate that as well, but we had some on hand to administer to the cats when we landed at NAIA, in case they asked.
Your journey isn’t over quite yet!
Update (June 17, 2021): The Philippines Embassy in Singapore’s website now reads:
Obtain a Veterinary Health Certificate issued by a private veterinarian by bringing your pet to any AVA-licensed veterinarian for examination.
So, it seems that you no longer need a certificate issued by the AVS (new AVA), but just one issued by an AVS-licensed veterinarian. I would double-check with the Philippines Embassy or by contacting the BAI directly to be sure. Or, you could play it safe and just apply for the AVS Veterinary Certificate.
Importing pets to the Philippines from Singapore requires an AVA Veterinary Health Certificate, which is 23 dollars per certificate (with multiple cats allowed on one certificate). Once you have your regular health certificates, you need to scan them and then head back to the AVA’s site to request the AVA certificate (link updated June 17, 2021). Click that link, scroll down and you’ll see the following:
Filling out this form is similar to filling out the export request form. It also offers the same method of payment. There’s just one catch. You have to pick this one up in person. The AVA Veterinary Health Certificate comes with a special watermark that only certain printers can properly reproduce. An average printer will print the form, but it will have a watermark that says “copy copy copy” in a ring, instead of the proper image. The airline you choose and Customs in the Philippines will require the original.
At some point while filling out this form you’ll see a check box that you either select or de-select to indicate that you’ll pick it up in person.
When you’re ready to go pick up your form, head to the Tanjong Pagar MRT station (EW15 on the Green Line). Exit towards Maxwell Road and you’ll find yourself at an intersection with Maxwell Road crossing just in front of you. Cross the small street just to the left of the MRT exit and follow Maxwell Road. After about one block you’ll see the Ministry of National Development across the street, with a pedestrian crossing leading right to the front doors.
Go up to the second floor, hang a right at the information desk and you’ll walk right into the office. You should leave with a form that looks like this:
Note that the watermark says “copy”, since this is a scanned copy of the original. Pretty cool how it does that!
Presenting Your Paperwork To The Airline Travel Office
No later than two days prior to your flight, you’ll have to present your completed documents to the airline office for validation. I’m not sure if Singapore Airlines has the same stipulation, but this was required by Philippine Airlines. The documents I was required to show were the Import Permit, Export Permit and the AVA Veterinary Health Certificate. The guy also asked me the weight of the cats and the dimensions and the weight of the carriers I was using. Be sure to have that information on hand. I had to waste a lot of time looking up the carrier dimensions and weight on my iPhone because I wasn’t prepared.
After the guy looks over your documents he’ll fax them to the airline office in the airport. Once that’s done you’ll be good to go.
The Philippine Airlines office I went to is located at Parklane Shopping Mall, which is close to Dhoby Ghaut MRT station:
It’s not too hard to find. There’s a Singapore Arts school on the corner of Orchard and Selegie. You just turn up the road and then look for this facade:
The entrance is located between the DBS sign and the McDonald’s sign there on the left. When you enter the mall go down the first hallway on the right and it should be the 2nd or 3rd storefront on your right. They close at 5 PM.
Changi Airport
Once you’ve presented your documents to the airline office, you can kick back and relax. The next thing you have to do with your cats is get them ready for their trip on the day of the flight.
When you arrive at the airport and get in line to check-in, an attendant will likely usher you into the Business Class line for prompt handling of your cats. Since the documents are faxed in ahead of you, they’ll be watching for you. The clerk will weigh your cats and perform your usual check-in process, but before giving you your boarding pass you’ll have to go to the excess baggage counter to pay for your cats trip. The rate was 20.50 per kilo when we traveled on May 6th, 2010 and we paid 330 SGD total for three cats and carriers. Once you’ve paid the excess baggage fee you’ll receive your boarding pass and your cats will be wheeled away on a trolley. They won’t be placed on the conveyor belts.
After this, it’s a typical flight.
NAIA
When you get to NAIA, you’ll probably rush off the plane like we did to catch up to your cats. We got through immigration and customs pretty quickly, but they were already waiting for us at the baggage claim area. The paperwork process at NAIA is extremely painless. They even came out to the claim area to take our paperwork and payment from us. Our cats were never put in a quarantine area and they didn’t make us cart them over to the desk. Everyone seemed really amused to see them.
We paid our 650 PHP and then all 5 of us walked out into the bright Filipino sunshine to start the next chapter in our lives as residents of the Philippines!
Conclusion
Exporting your cat(s) from Singapore to the Philippines can be a long, complicated and very expensive process but it’s also very rewarding. I think we spent upwards of 1200 SGD (including vaccination fees). I encourage anyone who has pets to take them with you when you leave Singapore. Cats aren’t emotionless beasts that should be tossed out on the street after you’re done ‘using’ them. After two years of cat ownership I know that each one of my cats has a very different personality and that each one reacts differently to different situations. If we’re gone for a while, they show that they missed us when we come back. A cat will ‘feel’ it if you abandon it in the street, the same way any other member of the family would. Love them, protect them, and definitely take them with you and they’ll be your faithful companions for many years.
One of the running jokes about having things shipped by the military is that you’re bound to have something get broken. When I was a kid, we did a military move from Hahn AFB in Germany back to the US and the movers managed to lose a whole section of a German wall shrunk, as well as damage some other stuff.
This is an example of a German wall shrunk. How do you lose even a section of something so big?
I thought I’d left that behind along with my service to the Army, but I guess mistreatment of shipped goods is a universal problem. My HP F2120 All-In-One didn’t quite survive the trip. The glass on the scanner bed was shattered in one corner. It’s a shame too, because I was hoping to get started on scanning stuff and now I have to see about getting reimbursed. I have no idea how to start the process. I guess we’ll take the receipt and pictures of the broken device to an LBC office to find out what the procedure is.
This is what’s left of my HP F2120 All-in-One. Thanks a lot guys!
The real issue is that there’s a huge price difference in these types of things between Singapore and the Philippines. Even if we get a full reimbursement on the scanner, it wouldn’t cover the cost of the exact same scanner in Manila. There’s a mark-up. Singapore is one of the cheapest places in the world to buy electronics, so unless we get a one-for-one exchange where they give us money to cover the purchase cost of a new unit, we’re just SOL.
Can’t win ‘em all I guess.
Speaking of that, I’m still engaged in an e-mail battle with Philippine Airlines to get a reimbursement on the pet carrier that they damaged during the fiasco where one of my cats wound up running around on Changi’s tarmac and in the belly of the plane before take-off.
Tomorrow (or later today) I’m heading to the Bureau of Immigration in Manila. I have to get my Visa taken care of before I wind up being here illegally. Hopefully that all goes smoothly!
In the Philippines, most sizeable towns have a wet market, which is known locally as a palengke. When you want to go to the market, you can tell the driver of your transportation of choice that you simply want to go to the palengke and they’ll know what you’re talking about.
The wet market in Antipolo is pretty big. It actually has two floors, but the second floor is mostly dry goods and household items. The real wet market is on the lower level. It reminded me of the wet market in Chow Kit, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia except bigger. We saw plenty of sea food, from shrimp to huge fish, as well as pork, chicken, and veggies.
The prices at the wet market are usually the best you can find in town. We got a kilo of pork for what would be about 4 USD. I guess it’s because there’s very little mark-up for land rental and employee compensation. The sanitary conditions are a bit questionable by my American standards, but if all the people I saw in the market are any indication, no one dies eating food they bought there. Or at least, not any more than at any other place.
If you plan on living in the Philippines for any length of time and you’re interested in getting good deals on food, you should make it a point to visit the wet markets. I don’t know if there are any in Manila, but I assume there would be.
Here are some photos of the place so you can get a feel for what to expect if you ever visit a wet market in the Philippines:
(Note: I’m testing a new format for uploading a lot of pictures. Hopefully the watermark doesn’t show up huge on the blown-up image after clicking the thumbnail!)
One of the first things I noticed on my first trip to the Philippines was two goats tied to the side of a building in downtown Manila, near NAIA. It was so amusing that I took a photo of it through the cab window.
That was back in 2008, but things are still the same. There are goats everywhere in my wife’s neighborhood. They add character to the place. Well, character and goat turds in the road. They look like little black pellets and you have to keep an eye out for them while you’re walking around or you’ll accidentally track that shit into your house.
My brother-in-law has a cafe in the neighborhood across from a vacant lot. This lot typically overgrows with shrubbery and every so often it’s chopped down by some guys with machetes. The clean up crew is composed of one goat. One goat is all it takes. He ate that stuff pretty quickly.
While we’re eating at my brother-in-law’s cafe, the goat typically makes a lot of noise. It’s like he’s singing or having a conversation with someone. So, a few days ago I decided that I wanted to record him making all that noise to post on here. Unfortunately, he was feeling stubborn and wasn’t as vocal as usual, but he did talk back when I started making fun of him at the end of this video.
Today was one of those big bursts of cleaning activity that I mentioned in the last post. We just looked around and decided that we couldn’t stand it anymore, changed into work clothes and then got cracking on taking out the trash and cleaning up the dining room, kitchen, the side and back of the house.
I did the side and back of the house because it required quite a bit of lifting of heavy stuff. There was a huge amount of half rotten wood laying around, most of which looked like broken bits of carpentry and cabinetry. I did find one piece of wood that looked like a gnarled tree branch stripped of bark. I have no idea what that was doing back there. I also found a basket full of torn and shredded clothing that I took out. Everything else was scrap metal, paper boxes, Styrofoam lids, broken broom handles, bottles half full of God only knows what sort of liquids and little plastic bits from broken toys.
So, what to do with all this crap? Well, in this rural neighborhood burning shit is completely legal, so I unleashed my inner pyromaniac and built a massive bonfire out of all of this rubbish, with the exception of the scrap metal which I intend to sell and reinvest into renovations. I heaped on the regular household trash as well as random sticks and yard debris that was in the area. I even through a half-rotten wooden bench into the pile.
I lit it off with burning newspaper and the end result was a big ball of flame that reached at least 8 feet into the air and kept me about 5 feet away from the fire until it burned down quite a bit. Who knew plastic burned so well? The wood burned down into a nice bed of coals that left me with a great place to toss other rubbish as we found it for the remainder of the afternoon.
It turned into quite a spectacle and after about an hour, half of the neighbors on the street were out to watch, including kids who decided to add whatever they could find to the blaze. It was inspirational. Other people decided it was a good time to burn their yard waste as well.
Unfortunately, the idea of taking pictures slipped my mind during the excitement, so I’ll just have to post a picture of the aftermath tomorrow.
I did get a picture of a giant toad I found though. It was hiding under some half-rotten wood on the side of the house. Kinda scared the crap out of me too. I didn’t know what I was looking at for the first few seconds. The toad is about the size of my outstretched hand and would sit comfortably on your average dinner plate. The second photo has my thumb in it for a bit of comparison, but I kept my hand a good distance away. I didn’t know if it would try to bite me or spray poison or something. There are a lot of weird animals out here. I had already dodged two giant brown cane spiders while clearing the back of the house previous to this find.
I also took a picture of the huge box full of scrap metal I collected. That’s not all of it.
The box in the above picture is the same box from yesterday’s post, just so you have some basis for judging it’s size.
By the end of the day I was covered in dirt, ash and grime, but I was feeling pretty good about the progress we made. I wasn’t quite as happy about the black boogers I was blowing out of my nose though.
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