Barrio Fiesta London 2005

[ginapeterb]

ok thats great Mrs frivolity, do you have a first name please ? thank you for the felicitations, Gina will be happy to meet you, I suggest we coordinate a Forum get together, I am trying to persuade Keith and Ping to come down and Rob and Elsa to come down, I would like to see all the couples who are on this Forum, including Paul Thomas our good freind whose lady is in the Philippines, Jasmin will be sadly missed !, Thanks Paul for your best wishes, we had a nice telephone chat this morning didnt we mate ? we will have to come up with a plan in how to recognize forum members, Paul and I discussed this on the phone this morning, maybe, we should wear something, or maybe we should all have each others mobile numbers, then we can call everyone, or one of us can do that, and suggest a point of meeting when we all arrive, then we can go and have a coffee or drink together, its about time, we all met up.

Mrs Frivolity seems up for this task, how about it ? would you like to coordinate this ? since you pointed us in the right direction, although we have all known abiout the Barrio Fiesta for some years, I havent been myself as no honey to go with, but My honey will be arriving sa UK on or around 12th/13th July, which will be in time to attend.

Paul told me this morning that he thinks the nearest tube is Hounslow Central, I will check this, but I think its on the Hammersmith and City Line, although I may stand corrected if I am wrong, as for coming in by car, i suspect we had all better try and get the tube to it, but I will check out the transport arrangements and parking, plus I would like a photo of all the forum members when we are there, that would be a nice idea, all the British-Filipino couples and future couples should be in it.

Let everyone give their thoughts, and where is Rob ?? busy on pleasure Island with Elsa no doubt, come on Rob get out of the sack will you.and do some posting, and leave those sheep alone, has anyone told Elsa about that yet ?

[ginapeterb]

[COLOR=red]ABS-CBN T.V. WILL BE AT BARRIO FESTIVAL


I have just noted from the Philippine Center's website that ABS-CBN T.V. are sending a t.v. crew to be at the Barrio Festival, and some of the well known show biz stars from the Philippines will be there, will that be Sherilyn Reyez or maybe Tin Tin Bersola-Babao, or Bernadette Sembrano, hehehe, I hope so, Ive always wanted to meet Tin Tin.

This will be great, as the event is being advertized on ABS-CBN in the Philippines, so hey we will be on the world map hehehe, Better let everyone know to get down for this event, we might end up on T.V. Channel 15 Cable.


Hehehehe great stuff

[ginapeterb]

heheheh Paul mentioned about Balut,

Well if they are selling the crunch duck foetus, with feathers, I am up for it, anyway, I fancied getting a bike, and roaming around Chelmford at night, shouting Balut ! Balut !, its around 70 pesos I think, I could do that job, gizza job, I can do that, if I cant find work in the Phils I will set up my own Balut business, and also monkey nuts and mangoes, hehehehe, but hey come on, Paul we have to try the Balut, are you up for it mate ?

Balut...Balut !!!!

[walesrob]

Originally posted by ginapeterb@Jun 15 2005, 05:58 PM

Let everyone give their thoughts, and where is Rob ?? busy on pleasure Island with Elsa no doubt, come on Rob get out of the sack will you.and do some posting, and leave those sheep alone, has anyone told Elsa about that yet ?

Quoted post

Baa ba baaa!! :P
We've been um, really busy for the last few days (something about year end accounts blah blah), but I'm back now.

I'll look around see what I can do, only problem is I gotta be home for Sunday morning as I'm doing my "other" job, but yeah it will be great to meet up with all you guys.

[smallfry]

Parking is no problem. Just drive right there. In previous years when the car park is full they allow you to use the park/playing field. So dont mess about with the tube etc. Of course, THIS year may be different.
I feel that Saturday is the best day, as I think that the stallholders are getting a bit tired by Sunday.
We will be coming up from Kent too.......but I don't know what day yet, as I havn't recieved my orders :huh:

[smallfry]

Hey I have had a great idea............

Why not do what all westerners do when in the Phils ? Either look at the floor, or pretent you have not seen the other western guy with his girl ! This is always a constant source of entertainment for us, especially when you can see the other guy NOT looking :lol:

Why is this ? Surely not everyone is embarrassed to be seen there ?

[ginapeterb]

Why not do what all westerners do when in the Phils ? Either look at the floor, or pretent you have not seen the other western guy with his girl ! This is always a constant source of entertainment for us, especially when you can see the other guy NOT looking :lol:

Yes thats true, i have noticed that myself, walking in malls, I have seen lots of Western Guys with their girls, I have tried to nod and say Hi, like "Hello mate Im from UK" with my eyes, the chances are though they are probably yanks and want respond, I notice with the Brits, they do respond, I sometimes wear an England shirt in town, and Brits will talk to me immedeatly as they feel comfortable, I bumped into a guy with his girl at the NSO, he came over to me straight away, as I had on England shorts, it depends on whether people feel able to make a conversation easily, Im not sure if Western guys tend to look down on the floor, although i do take your point, sometimes they dont want to stop and chat, so they look the other way, I find also, that my wife knows so many people in town, we are constantly stopping in SM to chat with her freinds, and most of the time they are not freinds, just long term acquaintances, or maybe High School freinds, or former colleagues, I must admit, I do not look down at the floor, nor do i seek toa void eye contact with other Western men with Filipina's but they do it to me, so you have made a very valid point.

Whether we should adopt your suggestion for meeting up at the Barrio Festival, I think we should not avoid each other and look down on the floor as geeeeeze there are going to be thousands of brits there so i dont think looking down at the grass is going to work, do you take my point ? and wearing England shirts, isnt going to make much difference, but thanks for thinking about it anyway, you made a very good and honest point about the way that Western guys seek to avoid having contact with others, its not that their ashamed to be with their Filipina, its just that they are not freindly I guess, but I put those ones to be mainly Americans, the Brits are freindly and will stop for a natter.

[peterdavid]

Originally posted by smallfry@Jun 17 2005, 09:55 PM
Hey I have had a great idea............

Why not do what all westerners do when in the Phils ? Either look at the floor, or pretent you have not seen the other western guy with his girl ! This is always a constant source of entertainment for us, especially when you can see the other guy NOT looking :lol:

Why is this ? Surely not everyone is embarrassed to be seen there ?

Quoted post

Smallfry, you are exactly right, lol. I noticed this happening a lot when I was there. The only times British guys felt comfortable talking was inside the Embassy, and that was usually to offload the sheer utter frustration most of them found when dealing with Embassy staff.

It did depend sometimes on where you were. A lot of our time was spent in the Greenbelt/Makati areas, where we were based, and in those areas, it didn't really happen as much. Not that people were really friendly, there were still very few conversations, but the reason (it felt to me) was more due to the fact that the people in this area were just busy going about their day, not that they were embarrassed, and were no more inclinced to stop and have a chat than the daily commuters on the London Underground are disposed to breaking out into spontaneous conversation.

But, when you went to the less "businessy" areas, such as Mega Mall (a personal non-favourite of mine), where you would occasionally see a british 'visitor' with his wife (you can always distinguish them from the expats, as they are the ones wandering around in shorts), they would, as you say, look downright embarrassed.

But, as a British/white guy with a filipina wife, the embarrassed avoidance of white GUYS is nothing compared to the scornful looks you get from English/white FEMALES in the Philippines. I think they sometimes assume that if there is a British/filipina relationship, it must mean she is a prostitute and he is a sex tourist. Most probably derived from their female jealousy - lets face it, it must be hard for your average dumpy and pasty-faced comparative giant of a woman when ending up in a country full of cute and pretty women - she instantly ends up at the back of the 'fit' queue and gets NO attention whatsoever.

In the end, I put the embarrassment of a lot of britishamerican guys there with a filipino gf/wife down to the fact they either (a ) were embarrassed about HOW they met or (b ) felt that everyone else was assuming they were some sordid sex tourist taking their latest concubine out to buy some gold, and felt unconfortable about it.

But you're right - for some reason, in the Philippines more than elsewhere, other "white" guys do, on the whole, seem to go out of their way to avoid eye contact with other white guys. When I first arrived, if I were passing another 'white' guy, I'd do the customary raising of the eyebrows or little smile of acknowledgement, and got nothing back, so in the end I stopped bothering. After a few years, I noticed a guy smiling at me who I had previously been ignoring, not because I was deliberately trying to avoid him, but because I had gotten so used to the normal non-contact between white guys, it didn't even cross my mind to acknowledge him. So maybe it's all just a vicious circle.

Of course, being very polite, once I realised, I did acknowledge him. Height of manners, me.