satts

Hi everyone,

I am a British Expat who has moved my wife and two young kids to the Philippines for the a year.

I lived in Abu Dhabi for 3 years and rather than going back to the UK, we wanted to continue the family adventure and come and live in Manila for a while.

I am writing this post to see if anyone can put us in contact with any expat clubs?

My wife is a qualified Personal Trainer and loves playing sport; I am a golfer who would really like to join any golf society in the area. The sport stuff aside, we are very sociable and would like to meet any other families living in Manila.

Can anyone point me in the right direction to any society, ways of meeting other people in the same situation as us. We don't want to spend time here isolated as a couple and any help would be seriously appreciated.

Thanks in advance,

Jason

chmaiden

I'm arriving next week and the family in a couple of months. I don't play golf but will be in the same situation

satts

Thanks for replying. Not sure if you know much about it here but we are learning by ourselves. We are now living in Mandaluyong.

We are struggling to find any schooling near to us with vacancy and even driving 5k takes about an hour, so we are still not sure what to do.

Where are you moving to? How many kids and ages? Are you moving here for work?

Jason

Gazza-d

You probably already realise this but the school accademic year is different to the UK. The school year will be finishing this coming March and restart in June. You should be looking to this coming June. Good quality English speaking schools are expensive and you will likely have to travel to one. A nightmare in Manila. It's very normal for Filipino children to lodge locally during the school week.

satts

Thanks for the information, and yeah, we know it's different school terms here but trying to get around and view a few, and see if there is any we particularly like.

We would like to find something close in Mandaluyong so it can make our lives easier and not spend like 5 hours in a cab each day. I am sure we will survive though! Lodging is not an option for us though, we want our kids home every day.

Gazza-d

We have done the opposite and are delaying moving to the Philippines until our son has finished his eduction. He is currently studying for the third year of his Engineering degree in the Technology University in Berlin, he will then study his final year back at Durham University.

satts

Our kids are 2 and 4 so a totally different position. Makes sense for you to wait where we were the opposite, if we didn't do this now we would never do it!!!

Gazza-d

Yes, son and wife came to the UK when he was 18 months old. Also main stream schooling doesn't start to age 6.