Some Food Price Comparisons: US vs Philippines, and the dreaded Gray Soup!..

I moved about a year ago from Hawaii to Philippines. There were several reasons that I saw for making the move. My wife is a Filipina and being close to her family was definitely one of those reasons. However, another big pro for me was that things are much cheaper in Philippines and so I could stretch my pennies without worrying so much about finances and such.

Here is just a fun example of what I'm talking about.. I must add that I do luv Buko (coconut) and it doesn't get much fresher or better than this. (although I did have fresh

buko, cut straight from the tree, while visiting Bohol, another island in philippines) This one tastes even better cuz they add things to it. This costs 59 pesos, thats about $1.20 USD and would probably cost around $5 if bought in US, if you could even find such a thing..ok, another example of just everyday little things would be when we got some 'dirty' ice cream. It's really just homemade ice cream and not that it fell on the floor or something like that. :P

this was a whopping 30 pesos, or about 60 cents USD. I don't know exactly how much this would cost in the US, but last time I went to baskin robbins I paid $3.

here's a more substantial example.. a favorite meal of mine that I get from a small eatery at the same mall where my gym is, so I can just go there right after a workout. :) (I didn't even know about mussels, looks just like oysters to me, so I pass, but turns out they are my favorite seafood along with crab and lobster) the greens are called kang kong and is just a form of water spinach.

like I said, I never even saw food like this anywhere in US, but over here I pay 200 pesos for this and with can of coke. Total is $4 USD. I'll let you figure out what a similar meal would cost in the US, but I'm guessing it would be at least double this price.

This one is from today's lunch. I got to go back to the first hotel I stayed at when I came to Philippines back in 2003. I really like some of their food and havent found any better clam chowder here in Philippines. (I know I could prolly learn to make a better one, but I am no chef and that might never happen) so I had to get a bowl of chowder and some other dishes that sounded good.

The total for this came to 1500 pesos, which comes to $30 USD. Not the cheapest by any stretch, but for hotel food this is what I would consider fair indeed. :) We stopped over in Taiwan a few months ago, on the way to hawaii, and stayed in a hotel there for just 1 night. We ordered some food and paid about $20 USD for each entree. Btw, the chowder I got there was GRAY and I only could stomach 3 spoonfuls. My son had 1 spoonful and got sick a few hours later. :(

ok, thats all for now. Thanks for reading! Please upvote this post and follow me.. I follow u back! :)

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