Did I really move, or was it more of a mathematical translation of location??

A friend from back in the UK who was toying with the idea of coming out to the Philippines for a visit contacted me recently, whilst I was more than happy for her to come and stay with us, it did occur to me that it is a long way to come. To help make the decision I made a comparison of Surrey, where she lives and Laguna, where I now live; I was quite surprised by the conclusions I came to:-

1. In Surrey there are Audi, BMW and Mercedes drivers who think they own the road and have no compunction in letting everybody know this, in Laguna we have mainly Toyota Fortuner (or its pickup alter ego the Hilux) and Mitsubishi Monterosport (also similarly the Stada pickup) drivers who think the same (we also have Audi, BMW and Mercedes drivers, but they are a rarer breed here, they still drive like they are entitled to flout the rules much like their British counterparts) there are some other vehicles too, I could mention the executive van style of vehicle whose drivers tend to bully their way around and of course we are forced to suffer "white van man" here too, are these a-holes everywhere?
2. In Surrey, they have “Chessington World of Adventures”, here we have “Enchanted Kingdom”.
3. Here we have Taal Lake and Tagatay, in the UK they have the South Downs National Park and the like.
4. There is a university here, Perpetual Help, which has a med school as well as the other faculties, back in Guildford, the University of Surrey.
5. There is a major road a short distance from our house, South Luzon EXpressway (SLEX), Haslemere has the A3.
6. Both Santa Rosa and Haslemere are close to the countries’ capital city in our case Manila is 60km away; Haslemere is about the same from London (although getting to London is easier as there is a regular rail connection, not so good here).
7. Although Guildford and Haslemere are close to two major airports, Heathrow and Gatwick as well as the smaller London City Airport, Santa Rosa only has Ninoy Aquino International (NAIA). I have complained a lot over the years about airports in the UK, but they are all a paradise in comparison to NAIA, which is in dire need of a serious makeover.
8. Both Santa Rosa and Guildford are centres of commerce with light industrial developments in the vicinity, taking advantage of the space to grow and the proximity to the road network, the capital and other transport links.
9. Haslemere has occasional flooding problems when it rains heavily, so does Santa Rosa.
10. Guildford has a cathedral but is not a city, Santa Rosa is a city without a cathedral.

In summary, what this means is that I haven't really moved at all, just swapped a temperate climate for a tropical one!!

In other news, it would seem that I am closer to getting back to work as the company I have been in discussions with now has a number of projects they would like me to help out on. It all comes down to the clients agreeing.

I applied for a tax number a few weeks back, the only purpose is so that I can pay tax on any earnings made if I do get back to work. There was some difficulty in getting registered, the web portal for the Bureau of Internal Revenue was, I thought, the easy way, but I was stymied by the way it works, I am still waiting for an email with a link to complete my registration and that is after some 6 weeks of waiting. Having asked Kat's accountant to assist me, I am now registered and have all the necessary paperwork. Bizarrely I am required to make a sworn affidavit for months when I am not working, since rather than make it an annual thing, tax is taken monthly and or quarterly here. What this means is that if I don't earn anything I have to pay PHP200 to say I haven't, bearing in mind a false declaration is illegal anyway, so what is the point???? 

That just about wraps it up for now, but more news to follow soon……