What We Miss Most

While we can get most things here that we can at home, there are a few that we can't. Here's the silly, funny, and serious things that we miss the most.

• Mexican food. Even though the Philippines were originally a Spanish colony, there are almost  no Mexican restaurants or even ingredients in the supermarket. We've found one store that has salsa... at $7 a jar. (Some friends took us to a newly opened Chili's!! Best food since we've been here)
• Movie rentals. No blockbuster, no Redbox, or anything like it.
• Pandora, Amazon Prime video streaming, and a lot of other US based websites that aren't licensed in the Philippines.
• Lunch-meat/ deli meats. They have more variates of hot dogs than I though possible. And lots of spam. But there isn't sliced lunch-meat, like roast turkey, or honey ham, or roast beef.
• Public parks. There are a few parks in manila, but not many and not anywhere within an hours car ride of our apartment.
• Freedom to go where we want, when we want, without asking for a ride or for permission.
• Cooking together. The maid does all the cooking, and when she's gone she leaves casseroles or sandwich stuff. They don't have good ingredients for our kind of cooking anyways.
• Laundry & cleaning. Who new we'd get tired of having a maid? I really miss doing laundry, and cleaning, and taking care of my space.
• Taste. Seasoning, spices, flavorings, and salt are forbidden.  It is very sad for these two garlic-addicted, onion adding, cumin obsessed seasoning freaks.
• Fishing. Cliff is very sad that he can't go hunting or fishing here.
• Ramen. There's no ramen here. Seriously. 
• Baseball. The most widely played sport here is basketball, which Cliff hates. Also, we don't have tv, so Cliff has to content himself with checking the Cardinals scores on the internet.
• Going to Church without being on display. Being the missionary's grand kids puts us as Important People. It's very difficult to fade into the background or slip away unnoticed.
• Conversations entirely in English. 
• Stars, with all the lights and smog we usually can't see the stars, and only sometimes the moon. 
• Fresh air. Again, city air and smog prevents us from enjoying fresh air. I think our lungs will be black when we get back.
• Cross-ventilation. The two buildings we spend the most time in, the condo and the church, have terrible cross-ventilation. The windows are situated in such a way that we can't get a good breeze no matter what we try. It leaves the rooms hot and stuffy. :(
• Cheese. It has to be imported, usually from the U.S. (I don't understand this) and it's ridiculously expensive, like $5.50 for a 12 oz bag of shredded mozerella.
• Driving. We both miss both the act of driving and the freedom to go where we want whe we want.
•  Thrift stores. We miss our wonder-around-looking-at-silly-stuff-buying-funny-board-games dates at thrift stores
• Internet. There is no internet access in the country. None at all. We have to take a boat to Japan to update Facebook or do some research. Really.
• Mac & Cheese. Again, boxed mac and cheese (like Kraft) is imported from the states, so lots of $$$.
• Internal Map. It sounds silly, but Cliff wanted to get me flowers and had no idea where to go. We also have no sense of direction as far as where other cities or places are, it's hard to know where we're going. It all looks the same. 
• Dogs that aren't for supper. We both grew up with dogs and we miss having a furry friend around.
• Chocolate chip cookies-an 8oz bag of choc chips is like $8, and butter is quite pricey as well, so no cookies :(
• But seriously, mostly we miss our home church family, family and friends. We miss them all a lot. 

(Not all of the things listed in this post are entirely true... we had a little fun with it :)