Larry C

A friend of mine is thinking about marrying a Filipina from Tacloban. He plans on having a Prenuptial Agreement written here in the USA, which they will both agree to, sign and have notarized before the wedding date. She will move to the USA and live with him here after the marriage.

Her English is very good, just a little less than fluent.

I was just wondering if it would be wise to have a second copy of the Agreement written in her native language (waray???) or is an English-only Agreement considered adequate for contracts in the P.I.?

I'd never seen that before but on my latest trip, my hotels in Manila and Mactan Island, Cebu each had only a bottom sheet and a blanket....no top sheet. And the blanket was itchy!

I've never encountered this in my previous visits to the Philippines. But during this trip I stayed in two different hotels (one in Manila and one on Mactan Island, Cebu) which only had a bottom sheet over the mattress and no top sheet between that and the somewhat scratchy blanket. I had the audacity to ask for an additional sheet and after looking at me like I was crazy, they brought me another one. I was just wondering if this is common practice.

And along this same line, another hotel I stayed at in Cebu had both sheets, but the bottom sheet was two feet too short. My feet rested on the mattress pad, not on the bottom sheet! Is this common, too?

Or would the trip involve one jeepney from Downtown Cebu/Colon to Pier 3, then a 15p ferry to Mactan Island, then yet another jeepney to Lapu-Lapu?

I was just wondering how common the practice is. It seems to vary from country to country.

I have an 8 hour layover at Incheon Airport on my trip from Manila to LAX. My plane arrives around 6 AM on a Thursday. It will probably take me an hour to clear Immigration, another hour for the train to get me to downtown Seoul Station, and I need to allow 4 hours for the trip back and check-in for my next flight.

So, is there any "must-see" attractions near Seoul Station that will only take a couple of hours?

My semi-smart LG 840G Tracfone has WiFi capability, and I can access my Yahoo mail if I'm at home, using my own router. But if I use a router in a public place such as a McDonald's, a bus station or a food court, every time I try to sign in I get an alert saying for my account safety my account has been temporarily blocked, and I should log in from a desktop, laptop or smart phone. This is frustrating because if I had access to any of those devices at the time I sure as Hell wouldn't be trying to read my Yahoo Mail on this little cell phone's tiny display.

Is there a way to change my settings so I can access my email even when using WiFi other than the one in my home?

I'll be staying in downtown Cebu (Colon St. area) for 2 weeks in January. I'd like to find a place that does laundry by the kilo and can get it back to me in 3 days or less. Angeles City has several of thses places which charge 30-40p per kilo, with 2 kilo minimum, and have it ready the day after dropoff. I couldn't find similar places in Cebu last time I was there.

A Filipina friend of mine's mother in a remote village in Mindanao is 80 years old and has never signed up for the P.I. version of Medicare or Medicaid free medical care. And, I learned she doesn't have an OSCA ID which is required for getting the Senior fare for airlines, ferries, etc.

Have any of you helped an elderly person sign up for their benefits in the P.I.? Where did you do it, and what was required?

I need to send some important documents in a large envelope from Pampanga to Mindanao. Have any of you ever heard of LBC envelopes or even packages disappearing along their way, like regular mail from the USA to Philippines frequently does?

Are all domestic LBC shipments (large AND small, like envelopes) in the P.I. tracked by barcode like Priority Mail in the USA? I would think that would make them less vulnerable to theft by sticky-fingered employees of LBC.

Can someone tell me approximately how long it would take a letter mailed mailed from Angeles City to arrive in Butuan, Mindanao via standard Philippine post?

Also, how many Pesos would the stamp cost for a long (buiness) envelope?

I'm aware that letters which are mailed from the USA to the P.I. are often opened by dishonest Philippine postal service employees, in hopes of finding money inside, and the letters then destroyed to cover up the crime. The letter I'll be mailing from A.C. will look like any other domestic letter, and will NOT have money inside, just a document.

I'm interested in seeing the Asik-Asik falls in Mindanao in January 2015. One web site says to get there, take the Bachelor bus from Davao to Midsayap, then "The following day, early in the morning, take a “double tire” jeep going to Alamada. From Alamada, hire a habal-habal to the waterfalls."

I'm very familiar with jeepneys, and I know sometimes people over there call them jeeps instead of jeepneys. (To an American, there's a world of difference between a jeepney and a jeep)

In this case, would the "double tire jeep" going to Alamada be just an ordinary 8 to 50 peso shared jeepney, or is it a smaller, more expensive private, for-hire jeep? And what's the significance of the "double tire" name? Both small jeeps and larger jeepneys seem to all have FOUR tires. I'm totally confused as to what "double tire" means.

I take it a habal habal is a trike taxi without the usual sidecar?