typo808

Fishy? Suspicious of him? Guy is an outright liar, nothing "fishy" about that! He's proven who he is, We KNOW he's a fraud! You guys are too nice! Lol!

Thanks guys n gals! We are so excited about this. And soooo nervous, too! Not sure if we will sleep a wink tonight but shall do our best to do so!!

Only in His name shall we see the future! God bless all!

Good luck!! We said a prayer for your success!! Our interview is tomorrow. I hope we follow your good news to come!!

Bottom line: there is nothing you can do if she tells you "I choose to be with him". She will have made her choice: to live a life of lies and pain.

We feel so sorry for her. Is there any way of getting her to realize that she is in love with a lie, therefore her love is not for the man who stands before her but the man she is imagining? The boy, I should say more accurately, that is in front of her is not who her heart loves. How to get her to see that truth? That she loves a lie and not him? I understand you cannot control how she feels and what she will do, but come on! Someone has to at least try to show her the truth. Whatever the reason, he is willing to abandon her. What if she becomes pregnant and he tries this again?? Go thru the pain of leaving him now before it gets much more serious. He is not good for anyone but Mom.

What does his mom have to say about this situation?

Rodalyn is just as upset about this as I am. Half of those words are hers.

Help your friend as much as your relationship with her allows you to. She will feel isolated, confused, extremely hurt and betrayed, all the natural feelings for a person in her situation. There are good men out there-in Hawaii, locals are born and raised to respect, honour and love. It's called Aloha.(Unfortunately that's disappearing with so many 1st generation-ers living here now)

It won't be easy, it may even be hard. Love is respect. There is none in her relationship. Help her to see that.

And I hope we know both sides to the story, too

Here it is. First, he wants.his.cake.and.eat it, too. He has no idea how.fortunate, and dare I say, LUCKY to.have a.young wife who loves him so. 47 and lives with his Mom?? He took advantage of her naivetee and made it look like.he's a.caring person by living and taking care of his mom. In reality, REALLY???? Red flags!! He's acting like a spoiled kid who doesn't consider others when HIS wants are on the line.

I'm so tired of reading about good Filipinas being treated like this.

Forget it. This one is.not.fighting.for. every person I have ever spoken to, men and women, who have left losers like that, 100% have said it is.the best.thing they have ever done for themselves. It will hurt like hell but worth the pain to.leave a loser like that.

Hank, what's in the "do not open" envelope? And when does it get opened?

Long awaited interview date is 48hrs away!! Pass or no pass, want to give thanks to all the help and advice we have received from VJ members! We feel very confident that Roda will pass the interview. She was feeling pretty stressed until a couple of weeks ago when she decided to spend more time perusing this forum and reading others' experiences. It's always stressful the first time doing anything. Having read your experiences she feels much more comfortable! She realizes just tell the truth, be confident and smile is the way to go.

Keep you posted on the outcome! Mahaloz again to all who contributed!!

There we have it. Rice is rice is rice. As long we are happy with what we have, makes no difference on the price. That is, until someone like Gordon Ramsay makes a visit!! Lol!!!

Ours is oct. 18, too. Sent you a message, Jade

The more expensive ones are iH, or induction heat. Heat is distributed across around the whole pot, not just a hot coil on the bottom. It promotes even cooking of the rice from all sides. It is also electronically monitored for temperature so the rice cooks at exactly the righty temp. You can cook from as little as a half cup to the max. IH rice cookers also have settings for porridge and others. On the keep warm setting, the temp is monitored and the lid electronically opened and closed to keep the right amount of moisture so you don't have dry, break-your-tooth pieces hiding in there. I have 3 cup rice cooker that can keep a cup of rice warm for 2 days with no dry rice.

Compared side by side and following Asian prep methods, there is no comparison between heater coil and IH rice cookers.

But then again,it helps to know what good rice is.

My fiancé is from Samar. Her family on both sides are some of the original "settlers" In her barangay. She has a huge family with relatives spread all over the Philippines. Well connected and with deep ties, there is no where we can go without family to visit or house us, it's great!! I am 4th generation local boy from Hawaii.

Mahaloz! Da 411 helps a lot!

FYI, I attended the interview with my wife in Manila. The VISA took 9 business days to be delivered to the MOA 2Go location. There were no holdups of any kind. It just took that long so be prepared,. I had to change our Hawaiian Airline tickets and was forced to pay 75 dollars for each ticket change and we were forced to fly first class, another 450 dollars each because all the coach seats were sold out for over a week. It was cheaper to pay the extra rather than staying in Manila for an extra week. One word of caution about Manila....IT SUCKS! Even my Filipina wife hated it. She is from Cebu and she could tell the difference being in Manila. She pointed out to me what a great big target I was. I* ahd not noticed but we were followed many times by shady characters. Almost every cab driver in town will try to give you a price and not run the meter. Do not let them do this. Make them turn on the meter. Every time a driver gave us a quote we insisted on a meter and guess what, the fare was less than 50% of the "special Price". My wife hated Manila so she never wants to go back there. She felt that everyone was out to cheat even her. Once they see that foreighnor you are a target, accompanied by a Filipina or not. Just watch your back at all times.

Aloha Ke Akua

Howzit! Bra, go beach, get one tan and dress down when you are there. I wear no jewelry (watch, chains, ring...nuttin) wear Boroboro shorts and tank top. Never been bothered, Not once has anyone spoken to me in English first. (Well, I do admit it helps I'm Asian) in other words, look poor. All my girls family thought I was a farmer or fisherman! Lol!!!

I have a SMART ofw SIM card. When my honey texts me phils to US (she has SMART), it's 1php. I use afreesms.com to text US to philis. It's free to any carrier in phillipines. The only drawback is the limited ability to send 2 texts every 2 minutes and a limit of 160 characters.

But just like the cgifederal web site, they track your IP. so I just use a different ISP (my phone and my home Internet) to increase the limit. Same way I could check back into cgifederal as often as I want. If I get locked out due to the "too many visits", I just switch ISPs. Simple.

I just did the HNL-TPE-MNL routing myself when I went down to pickup my sweetie. Hwn to/from TPE and China Air to/from MNL. The Hawaiian flights were pretty empty, China Air's seat seemed really narrow for some reason. Bags got checked all the way thru, but needed to get boarding passes and the China Air seat assignment in Taipei at the transient desk. I managed to get mileage upgrades for our trip back, the China Air Business class lounge was a little bit away from the gates, but was real nice! large, clean, and pretty good selection of food and drinks, plus wifi. Only strange thing happened at the departure gate on the way back to Hawaii, all the transient passengers were pulled aside for a secondary pat down, at the gate, just before boarding. I would think it would be better to do this as you enter the gate holding area, like they did it at Manila.

You flew to MNL to bring your sweetie back to da islands? We're you worried about potential problems and decided to escort her back?

I booked tix for my fiancee and I through Cheapo Air (great prices!) and we flew MNL to Taipei on China Air, TPE to HNL on Hawaiian, and then to OGG (Maui), also on Hawn. I got our miles on Hawaiian and was able to request seats for us at the windows for each segment of the trip. Only bummer was China Air only gave us one pass for the lounge so we didn't get to have our free beers and buffet on Hawaiian's use of the China Air privilege area. Only problem is if you need to change the dates it will be cost prohibitive!

I'm a gold member with Hawaiian. Does that mean the lounge will be available to us? The buffet sounds like a good interim meal

I miss the Airbus with USB charging, quiet plane, roomy, comfortable seats and non-stop service. Not bad food, too. All the drinks and snacks you want. Just ask in pidgin inglish and they give you more. Lol

Any recommendations from other travelers? Flying HNL To MNL.

I've had my fiancée waiting outside cebuana while I sent her money through Xoom. As soon as we received the text notification (about 2mins) she walked in and picked up the money. So far, so good! $4.99 fee

Although I do prefer to send her US dollars and have her exchange on the black market, ie the independent money exchangers. Always a better rate than the banks

Most countries have prefixes that define whether a phone is a landline or a cell phone.

America does not. There is absolutely no way to tell if a line is a landline or a cell phone, further Telcos are forbidden by law from doing anything that identifies whether a phone number is a landline or a cell phone.

If you prefer Juliet, I'll get a pot, put some dirt in it, and on the day that you go to visit the CFO I'll lay my cell phone on it--then I'll have a legit "land line" phone number on that day. (Steve)

Go figure! Lol

You deserve sooooooooo much more than this guy. You have been a devoted fiancée emotionally and financially. This is not a fair relationship: do you think it will get better in time?

Life is too short. You only have one chance at this thing called life. Pursue happiness, not this guy.

Given the current us government situation (although reports confirm the us embassy in Manila will not be shut down. State department is funded by fees, not partially subsidized by government like before) what are you opinions regarding increased difficulty getting approval and safety of being at a US Embassy overseas?

My fiance got hit with the Sputum test even though she has had her vaccinations and showed the paperwork. I told her to go back with 10,000php and ask the doctor to confirm if she really needs the sputum test. I know, wrong on so many levels but I would gladly pay it and some to bypass that 2 months waiting. Of course she is a better person than I and didn't go for it.

She has had a couple of medical exams done over the last year for new jobs and their x-ray's didn't show anything.

Sputum has to do with something seen in the X-rays of her lungs. Examples are bacteria in the air passages or fungi.

It all begins with the SK election. (Eskecherman? not sure of spelling) As a junior member of a barangay's political system, the election is based on how many votes you can buy. Teenagers introduced into the system are taught that as the first thing: buy as many votes as you can to get elected. Even the voters will promise a vote, get paid 500php to do so, then switch their vote to the 1000php paying party.... and so on and so on. I am involved with my fiances younger sister's attempt at being elected.

And we wonder why the country can't be fixed. Ay naku!!