It’s official. I’m now an actual Philippines Expat haha

I joined this sub a couple of years ago now, but I arrived in Manila a week ago and have finally settled in a bit. Jet lag and arriving at 4am has thrown my sleep schedule way out of whack and if a fan is not blasting me directly, I am just a waterfall of sweat haha

Been having a very uneven experience using my US credit cards online and on apps so far. Grab was smooth sailing with my Mastercard, but Smart and Lazada have proven difficult to use with my Visa. I finally did get to add some load on my new sim with my Visa card, but only after 3 days of trying. Lazada I am still stuck doing COD.

Getting verified to use Maya or GCash so far has been fruitless. I keep getting the typical error messages stating incorrect or incomplete information, but no clear direction on what to correct.

Other than that, it feels good to officially be here as an actual expat and “retired” whatever that actually means, but I picked up my papers that say I am a citizen of the Philippines (still a US citizen as well), applied for my National ID and registered with Comelec to vote.

My boy back home introduced me to his wife’s pretty hot younger sister over facebook. She’s super kool and now my first friend and tour guide here. Hopefully gonna hangout this weekend.

Overall not a bad first 7 days here, how was everyone else’s first week after arriving to their new life in PH?