From my experience here $100 a person for electric is actually pretty good. I'm rarely in my house and my last bill was 3800php thats mainly limited aircon + Swimming pool pump.

If I were you I would try and get the electric company to come around after you have been there for two weeks so you can get a more accurate idea about how big your electric bill is going to be. If you crank the Air Con out + leave all the lights on you are going to be in for a nasty surprise at bill time.

Sounds like the house is awesome best of luck!!

Looks like a pretty sweet house. Did I see a desk in the bathroom?? Alternate grind room maybe? lol

House looks awesome

[QUOTE=Joenaes;24980079]We didn't try the internet for playing yet. So far it seems kinda slow, but we will head to the mall today to buy the best one there is and use the current one as a backup. More news on speed/stableness soon.[QUOTE]

I stayed in Danao City (one hour north of Cebu City) for two and a half years. The mayor of DC owned the local cable/internet provider and would not allow other companies to come in with wired connections.

His Internet was slow and overburdened, so I went first with SmartBro wireless. When it was running well, it was fine, but I had some horrific experiences with customer service when it wasn't working.

Basically in the Philippines, expect almost NO customer service. These telecommunications companies are only interested in getting more customers. There are two major ones: Smart and Globe. As far as I can tell, people are constantly switching between these two companies.

After my Internet did not work for over one month and they did NOT send anyone out to "check" it, I switched to Globe wireless. For a while it was fine, but then I started having MAJOR problems with it and it took me SIX weeks to convince them I was having problems. The techs they sent out were fine, but in their own words, the central office did not believe them when they reported problems.

After talking to (yelling at) eight supervisors who all talked a good game but got little done, they finally sent a tech supervisor out with two other people. They finally determined the cause of the problem: The cell tower was overloaded with customers and they needed to upgrade their equipment.

OMG, is this not the SECOND thing you should check after making sure your central equipment has power???

...And this was the short version of my troubles.

Basically, expect little or no customer service from most businesses in the Philippines. The culture there is such that public confrontation is taboo and I have no doubt that the numerous supervisors I yelled at were never yelled at like that before in their lives.

Before I came back to the U.S., they had just made 4G Internet available and it is supposed to be excellent.

The wired connections from what I hear run fine during off-peak times, but can slow waaaaay down during peak times.

One company (Sun?) advertises 12Mb/sec connections, but realized speeds during peak hours are not nearly that fast and it is rather expensive.

Due to these Internet problems, it will be necessary for you to get two Internet services, because problems are frequent.

Another consideration is that the power goes out frequently. They have rolling blackouts in parts of the city once a month and frequent power station problems.

The area where I lived was getting hit with random blackouts at least once a week for a while, and I doubt it's gotten better. Their power infrastructure is horrible and won't be getting any better any time soon.

For these reasons, I switched from playing SNGs to cash games. I did decide one day to play some big sattilites one day. I played four and was easily going to cash in three, including a $4000+ prize where I was second chip leader with seven players left and needing only one more eliminated. There was one extremely short stack. Then the power went out...for "only" 25 or 30 minutes this time. It came back on just in time to see myself blinded out.

You guys only live a couple of minutes from me lol

Confirmed the neighborhood they live in is baller status, one of the best in Cebu (beat: I live slightly outside of it tho, same awesome view)

Were probably some of the very few young white people around here, maybe we should BBQ or something lol

Lessons learned the hard way eh, power can really suck out here.

Southeast Asian grinder's backup kit:

Notebook with long battery life charged and ready to go

One of those 3g usb internet cards, I actually keep 2 (Smart&Globe) because sometimes either one can be solid or iffy

A Generator if you can afford one, buying and installing them can be a pain in the ass tho. Renting out a place with one set up correctly is a big plus.

still looking?? im a 400 nl grinder going for elite ...also part own a staking site let me know if yall interested

I'm curious, what kind of VISA do you guys have?

^probably tourist visa's.

You just extend every 1 or 2 months for like 50-70$ and can keep doing this for a little over a yea without exiting the country. There are even legit travel agencies that you just pay an extra 500 peso's too (like 11$) and will do it all for you to avoid waiting in lines.

One of the big things the Philippines has on Thailand imo, Thailand's tourist visa situation sucks.

Well i think that 50-70$ for every two months is bit much... At least the tourist visa for Thailand is usually free and if you want to visit some other places too traveling isn't that bad problem. And if you gonna stay one year i quess taking some language lesson and getting one year visa isn't that bad either.

But i hate still hate both countries visa policy

oh man... I was just there dec jan and feb. I had such a good time. Played a lot of cash games at metrowalk in Manila. They seem to have a lot of action there. Good luck to you guys.

whats the situation?

1 spot is filled up and we are waiting for a reply of someone else. In 2 days that spot will come open again if he doesn't send anything back

What are the visa requirements for the philippines.

Im a UK citizen considering going there for a while. Is it like Thailand where you go border runs etc?

Found some information about this.

So I guess you can just show up in the country and keep extending your visa up untill 16 months? Correct me if im wrong please.

http://www.philippine-portal.com/vis...t-visa-9a.html

we might have a situation!

You get a free 29 days tourist visa at the border. After the 29 days you go to a immigration office and extend it for 38 days (P1500). Next time you extend it for 59 days (P1500) which you can do over and over.
No visa runs required like Thailand.

I'm not sure about the 16months limit but you will never end up staying in PH 16months non-stop anyway without a single trip to any country nearby. So if there's a limit, it will never come into play.

Thought it was 21 days on arrival at least for Americans... I renewed yesterday, arrive with passport, xerox copy of your stamp page and copy of your picture page. Pay about 3000 pesos for 1st extension... Done on Clark base Angeles... Know your address too, I took my hotel's card... Don't know about Manila or Cebu. Wish I could do what you guys are doing but I got my own version here in Pampanga. Have fun, some real cuties in that pic, ship em!

I could be very interested in the room. I am planning on being in Phils from next month for about 6 months at least. Have played PS and FT for a few years, mostly tourneys $69-$200. Poker is not my main focus in life, as have remote writing job, but enjoy it as income supplement. I am 35. Let me know if still available.

How is the house working out for you guys?

Did you manage to find stable internet or is it a problem sometimes?

OP, what countries are you guys from? And are there any resident babes living in-house?

Is it a requirement that your room mates have to be 'willing to party' and if so, why?

A few Questions--

(1)So how did you originally go about finding a place to lease in Cebu? How did you pick the area?

(2)How goes the internet poker? Problems?

(3)Any surprises?

no posts in 2 weeks? I think I'm moving to Philippines to continue my poker playing online..

I guess these guys have lost their internet connection??