Time flies when you're having fun

Hello friends,

Time flies when you're having fun is the title of my second blog and indeed its true.
Its been already more then 3 weeks since my first blog and its about time for an update.
I ended my last blog with telling you about some of the issues I had/have with conducting interviews, the host organization (the University of San Carlos) and the happy news that my colleague Karin and I were moving into our new home away from home.


First of all I will tell you a little bit about the progress I have made with regard to my research here in Cebu. In the last couple of weeks the focus has been on conducting interviews for my empirical research. I managed to get in contact and conduct interviews with several governmental departments (Department of Industry and Trade & National Economic Development Authority), semi-governmental organizations (Cebu Educational Development Foundation for Information Technology & Cebu Investment Promotion Center) and the local newspaper (Sun Star newspaper Network). It has been really a great feeling to finally gather data. However, the companies are still giving me a hard time, with confidentiality being their key-word in denying me access. Nonetheless I have good hope that at the end of my stay here in Cebu, I will have enough data to write a substantial thesis about the impact of the economic crisis.
On the 9th of march we moved into our new condo. A few day before that I found 'Pete's Condo Ville' on a website and we went straight to the condo ville to ask if there was any free space. The manager from the condo ville was happy to inform us that there were several condo's still open for renting. We decided to sign a 2 months contract and so far it has been great. The condo is close to the University, close to the main road out of Talamban (the barangay in which the condo is situated) which goes directly to the shopping mall Ayala and we even have a swimming pool! The swimming pool is particularly good with Cebu's weather always hovering around 30 to 35 degrees Celsius.

What has been lacking in the last couple of weeks is that we have not seen much outside Cebu. It would be a shame to not take the opportunity to see some of the other beautiful islands around Cebu. Therefore we are planning to make a trip to Bohol next week and other islands like Siargao later on, probably in May. Bohol is only 2 hours away by ferry and it has some amazing creatures (for example the Tarsius which can only be found on Bohol I believe) and sitings (the chocolate hills, also something that can only be found on Bohol). I am really excited to go to Bohol, it seems like a really unique island.


Last week + today (the 4th of march) has been totally about 'holy week', in other words easter. People tend to go and visit family in this 'holy week' and obviously go to church multiple times to celebrate the live and death of Jesus Christ. The Philippines, being a catholic country, functioned only for 10% in the last days, almost everybody is free and all shops and malls were closed down on Thursday and Friday. Strangely enough they were opened again on Saturday and today (sunday) everything is open as well, even though easter is not really over yet.

The upcoming weeks will be a 50-50 mix of work and pleasure hopefully. Both Karin and I will have to see how the gathering of data will go in the upcoming weeks but we just gotta go and see some of the beautiful nature the Philippines has to offer. Another thing on the agenda is finally getting my PADI (open water diving license) and maybe even the advanced PADI if I got the time/money. I really love snorkeling and diving, so far what I have seen of the underwater world is just amazing and the PADI will give me the opportunity to go even further into that world!

Once we get back from Bohol I will update this blog again.
Thanks again for showing interest in my blog.

Take care and have fun!