KEY Thread What brought you here?

What originally brought you to the Philippines? And then what made you decide to go with Dumaguete?
Myself:

Spoiler: Why I came to the Philippines

I got married to a FilAm that I went to high school with in the US (I was young, dumb and full of......). After about a week I realized that I had made a mistake after I caught her messing around with another guy. Drama-drama, bla bla, I filed for divorce. She didn't want that for some reason and instead decided to run off to the Philippines to move in with her parents who were living in Zambales so I couldn't get the divorce....out of spite I guess?

That just p*ssed me off even more than I already was about the cheating (and the trailer trash she did it with) and I wasn't going to let her win so I decided to make a trip to the Philippines (which I couldn't have even pointed out on a map at the time). After about 6 months of saving up enough money (I was only 21 at the time and worked in factories) I bought a ticket to Manila and quit my job. Note: I was going to do this anyway because I was going to join the military.

I did absolutely no research about the country before I went. So I walked out of the Manila departure doors and got a taxi to Olongapo for 3k pesos (this was before the highway from AC to Olongapo was complete and the trip took around 3-4 hours so the price wasn't all that bad). I got hungry and told the driver to stop somewhere so I could get something to eat......and he stopped at the McDonald's at the end of Fields Avenue in Angeles. Never in my life had I had to fight off women just to get a quarter-pounder at McDonalds. So after I got finished my burger I went out and told the taxi driver that he had taken me far enough and thanked him profusely for stopping at that McDonalds. Needless to say, I didn't make it to Olongapo that trip and I didn't get divorced either.....that took another 7-8 years or so.

Spoiler: Why I moved to Dumaguete

Fast forward about 6 years and I'm still married to the c*nt but now living in the Philippines while contracting in Afghanistan.....living with, and supporting, her . (Don't ask......but part of it had to do with military benefits and tax returns ). I come back from a deployment, screw her, and then a couple days later my d*ck springs a leak with some nasty stuff coming out. She blames me, I know that's bullsh*t and had enough of it.....again. After a long fight I finally told her to go f*ck herself (or her bf if she preferred), wished her good luck in paying the rent without me, got online, looked at a map of the Philippines, hastily pick an island and city I had never heard of (hastily because she was still screaming at me and denying she didn't cheat.....which then changed to her begging me not to go, profusely apologizing and trying to pull me away from the computer once she saw what I was doing on the computer) and then bought a ticket to Dumaguete for the next day. I packed my crap, went to the hospital in Olongapo to get treated for of the crap she gave me, got on a bus to Manila and then flew to Dumaguete the next day. When I got to Dumaguete I was astounded with how many expats were in the city. (I originally had no intentions of staying here, I was just going there to get away from the wife and had planned on later moving to Cebu.)

This was not the end of the wife though, We stayed married and she eventually moved down to Dumaguete with me . (I like money a lot and I got a whole lot of extra cash on my tax returns for filing married. That's the excuse I tell myself anyways. ) I did divorce her a year or so later after I caught her cheating again in Dumaguete with a Filipino that was going to Silliman. (If my xwife wasn't such a c*nt to the helper all the time I doubt the helper would have ever called me up in Afghanistan to rat her out....and then assist a private investigator with collecting evidence. )

TL:DR - My answers to the poll were "For a vacation" and "Other" (to have my FilAm x-wife sign divorce papers after I caught her cheating the 1st time and she tried to avoid it in the US by running off to the Philippines). I moved to Dumaguete (that I had randomly picked from a map before buying the ticket from Manila) to get away from her after I caught her cheating for the 2nd time.

 

Origionally came for a two week vacation and stayed at talisay in Cebu,decided Cebu was a dump so headed down to argao and started chatting to a guy who owned a pension house in dumaguete so thought why not go and see,didn't even know it was on another island!
Went home two weeks later and put house on the market and sold the business and was back here in July 2011.
Had looked around plenty of other countries over previous years and Spain would have been my first choice but at the time was still too expensive.