For those of you in Pampanga

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Happyhorn52
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I believe the Friendship area has a mixture of gated and non-gated communities. I live in Villa Sol which was once gated but is not now. It's a secure area with people walking up and down New York Street at all hours of the night. There are a lot of older (Built 1990's) American Style Houses in the area. I pay 20,000p month for a large two bedroom apartment with large enough bedrooms for my King Size Furniture and with a Clothes Washer and Dryer connection, and covered parking for my SUV. I also have a master bath connected to my bedroom and a balcony so I can watch planes take off and land at Clark which is about 5km away and an easy drive. it's a 6 apartment unit with an on site caretaker so you could say we have security. 

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Happyhorn52
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My guess is that any housing inside the Clark Freeport and Special Economic Zone would be prohibitively expensive as there are few houses on the base and most will be grabbed up by people working for the Corporations inside the Zone. 

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TimL
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Sounding more and more like Angeles might be the ticket. What are the markets like there? Any places to shop for US foods, more specifically, beef, milk, hotdogs?  I know, I know, call me spoiled. Hahaha

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Happyhorn52
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S&R in Dau is a Costco type store with mostly American products. You can get US beef (Montana Brand) but it will cost you. You also have the large SM Hypermarket store inside the SM Mall with a mixture of US, European brands, as well a Filipino merchandise and smaller PureGold stores all over the place. There are a few Duty Free shops on Clark but they offer no real savings so I don't shop there. Costs for Western products are much higher than in the States because of the Duties the Philippines Government puts on the imported products. Bring toiletries as they are expensive here. Pampanga is the culinary capital of the Philippines so there are hundreds of good but not great restaurants here. European, Australian, Korean and American places all over town as well as hundreds of Filipino restaurants. Hard to find a good hamburger here because most places either use Australian or local beef and it just doesn't taste the same. Burger King has one of the best burgers in town and they just opened a new Chilies in SM Mall and there is a TGI Fridays in Marquee mall. You can get fresh California milk at S&R but expect to pay more than in the states. 

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TimL
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Thank you so much Happyhorn!!! You have been a huge help. It doesn't look like I will have any issues settling in there.

BK is one of my fav fast food spots for burgers anyway so that'll work. And if I can Montana beef from Dau, I'll be good. ;) Crazy that Duty Free shops don't save you much. I thought that was the whole point of the Freeport. hahaha...

Thank you again for all of your tips and pointers, I greatly appreciate it.

 

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Happyhorn52
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It's my understanding that PureGold owns S&R so I'm not surprised that the PureGold duty free isn't a lot cheaper than their other stores. 

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TimL
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That would certainly make sense then. 

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Happyhorn52
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TimL
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Excellent! That is super helpful. Everything in one place. Thank you!!!!!

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OnMyWay
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17 hours ago, Happyhorn52 said:

You can get US beef (Montana Brand)

I don't think the Montana Brand beef at S&R is from Montana or the U.S.  I might be wrong.  I looked at it today and it does not say it is from the U.S.  I had googled it earlier today before we left for S&R and found some comments.  For the most part they said the cuts were good but they could not understand how the hamburgers could be so bad.  I have only bought the burgers before and I have to agree that they are not good.  Gray in color and they did not taste good.  The steaks were fairly good looking at a decent price, so I might try one next time.

The high quality American beef is frozen and very expensive.  On the lower end, I bought a 12 pack of Richwood Meat (Merced, CA, USA) frozen 1/4 lb burgers for p679, which is $4.25 a lb.  It says on the back, Origin:  USA, Canada, Mexico, New Zealand, Australia!  I think I bought them before and they were ok.  I have recently been buying Raley's Harris Ranch beef patties at Royal in Subic, and they are more expensive at $6 a lb.  They are ok but not great.

Sorry, going a bit off topic!

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