Hey, I am Raminta, lover of literature, new lands, dogs, and ice-cream. I moved to the Philippines from Lithuania together with my boyfriend Robertas and Paiko, our Australian Shepherd dog, back in June of 2019. We pretty much just packed our bags and left our jobs in search of adventure. For Robertas, it was an extremely attractive job offer; Meanwhile, I was tempted by the promise of beautiful beaches, surfing, island hopping. But maybe more than anything else, it was the chance at a completely different lifestyle and even a totally different career that hooked me. It was easy for me to leave my home country of Lithuania because I love Asia, and I was with the person I love the most. Of course, things don’t always turn out exactly the way we want them to… Robertas got what he wanted – a new job far removed from the horrors of big corporations. In contrast, I got a huge bucket of reality thrown in my face: job-hunting is hard, weather is really hot, and I would have to spend more time staring at the concrete jungle that is the country’s capital than the blue ocean coasts and palm trees I had dreamt of. Somehow, though, between sweating it out on the streets of Manila, making sure both Robertas and Paiko are always taken care of and trying to puzzle out why Filipinos do the odd (at least to me!) things they do, I still have free time to write. For the most part, my blog is about everyday life here – very casual and mundane to our Filipino friends. To me, on the other hand, it’s all still new and exciting but, at times, also already very trying.