Date: Wed, 21 Aug 2002 12:10:26 +0100 (BST)
From: =?iso-8859-1?q?Ivy Yap?= <yapivy at yahoo.com>
Subject: [WSFA] greetings from the Philippines
To: WSFA <wsfalist at keithlynch.net>
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at keithlynch.net>

Hello all!  I've been back in Manila for more than a
week, and am finally over the jet lag.  There have
been a lot of changes in the 4 years I've been away,
so I'm experiencing a little bit of reverse culture
shock.

Everybody now seems to have a cell phone.  People send
text messages constantly, and TV shows use texting to
conduct instant polls or to take phone-in questions.
I passed by a street vendor with a woven basket full
of Nokia faceplates, which was quite a surreal sight.

I went to get my Manila driver's license renewed on
Monday.  Like DMV offices everywhere, the lines were
horrendous.  Plus I forgot to comb my hair when they
took my picture :(  But I got my license on the spot
since they now have machines to produce the card right
after the picture has been taken.  From start to
finish it took approximately 1.5 hours, which includes
time spent waiting for the clerk to come back from the
flag ceremony, as well as waiting for the results of
the drug test.  The drug test requirement only started
this year, and there is some controversy about it,
especially since the fee for the test costs more than
the license!

When I left 4 years ago, there was only one Starbucks.
 Now there seem to be branches everywhere.  A grande
latte here costs 90 pesos, which is slightly less than
2 dollars.

E-mail and Internet use are now more widespread here.
Most people buy pre-paid cards to surf the web.  My
family uses Blast, which sells cards that give you 9
internet hours for 100 pesos (about 2 dollars).
Everybody in the family except me has an account with
an e-mail provider which provides its own dial-up
service so you don't need to use up your internet
hours just to check your e-mail.  I would have signed
up with them right away but they just raised their
prices.  However, they might be offering a special
discount for existing subscriber households, so I'm
waiting a while to see if that happens.

Contrary to some people's expectations, my parents had
not converted my room into their own personal
luv-nest.  I have managed to unpack, and now I have a
pile of old clothes that have been displaced from my
closet in order to make room for my new clothes.
Other personal belongings still need to be
re-arranged, but at least I now have my pictures and
other familiar things displayed to my satisfaction.
So it's finally starting to feel like my own room
again.

- Ivy, signing off from 12 hours in the future

=====
Ivy Yap
yapivy at yahoo.com