Food Cart Franchises:
I saw a Hundred and One ways to Sell Siomai/Siopao: Most of those offering franchises are for siomai stands. The prices range between 70k to 300k. For instance, a Hen Lin small stand was 300k.

Lechon and Inasal: Heck’s, Inasal, you name it! All were very busy with people inquiring. Too bad no one provided a sample.

Food Toppings: I saw A San Miguel Purefoods labeled franchise called Outbox. Sounds interesting. Next to it was a Smokey’s Hotdog stand franchise but no one was available to talk to me.

One of the best samples I tasted was the one from Scramble King, they provided a little cup of the ice dessert which I vividly remembered buying from a school vendor when I was 6 or 7 years old. It’s been years since I’ve seen or tasted scramble.

There was also another franchise selling Potato Chips in a stick (Twist Chipstix). It was freshly cut and twirled in a stick (see photo). They sold it for 50 pesos. I was not really interested in ordering it but instead I wanted to try their twister fries but it was not available. The potato chips was bland, and the barbecue powder didn’t help much. The potatoes were also not that crunchy. The sales staff were quite enthusiastic though.

Interesting food items.
There were several exhibitors that offered Coconut Sugar. They claimed it was best for diabetics as it had low Glycemic Index.

Tempting offers:
I bought a bag of Tower Yema candies, a chicharon from Marilao, Bulacan, dilis and pusit (3 for 100 offer) from another seller, and finally I bought Tin’s Ball of Ham from Belcris Foods for 300 pesos after sampling their ham.

Tower Yema Candies

are of course hard to resist so I bought one bag for 30 pesos.

Kitchen gadgets: I fancied the charcoal stoves displayed there. I saw 2 kinds: the Joy Charcoal Stove and the JY Firebricks (the oven)
Different kinds of knives for whatever uses you might think of.



For the other interesting food items, would it also make sense to sell them online? Would anyone be actually interested in them?

I literally ran away as fast as I can from those Pushy/Aggressive sales agents : Neo “Fireless” Stove? Water Purifiers for 50k ?! Citibank credit card vendors that were asking for my credit card number?!

I plan to call the ones I am interested in soon. But first I have to prepare my questions. For the franchise offerings I intend to ask them for basic figures, you know things like breakdown of expected costs, the the unit prices of their goods, delivery policies and what the expected daily sales will be, to see what kind of profit I will make. Things I will eventually need to make a sensible business plan. I also have to ask myself, since I am still working fulltime in IT (at MrC’s company), how much hours can I still give to this? Are the earnings from this worth the time and effort?

As of now we are looking for office spaces with sizes between 60 square meters to 100 square meters.  Based on my initial research and talks with brokers.  Here in Mandaluyong and Ortigas the typical rent would be somewhere between 25K to 45K but can even go up thousands more if nearer to the Ortigas Center or for newer buildings.   We have seen only 1 unit so far which is within walking distance from our place.   Tomorrow, we will be looking at several more.

Today, I also received a letter from my company showing I had received a hefty amount of raise for my monthly salary.  And to add to it, many interesting developments and projects are happening also at work.  Hmm.. This makes me all confused again.

MrC said that for the next few days he and his business partner will start working closely with the client on their office and in a few days they will find out for sure if they can lay out an agreement that will determine whether or not this trip will proceed or else MrC and I will have to regroup totally.

This week, our new plan has been slightly modified again. This time, we would be first taking a 4 week vacation to the Philippines sometime in end of May or June and go where we want to go and see where we really want to live and if we both like it there. I think we would like it there if we find a nice area we feel at home and where we will find talented Programmers that are willing to work for us. Afterwards, we will decide and make final plans to move our stuff and then I will resign finally. I have told my manager all about this and assured them I will give them time to find a replacement for me. But as of now, it’s all very fuzzy still. Suddenly, with spring coming, birds start to chirp and flowers bloom. The mood suddenly changes. Things become less dreary it seems, and my mood has been better. I have also befriended a fellow Filipina and I have spent an afternoon at her house singing karaoke. But although everything seems well now and I am very happy with the situation, at the back of my mind I want the Software Development business to still be realized and the Philippines is the only place that seems appropriate for us to do it right now. Not here, not the U.S. but in the Philippines. But what is it that makes me sad now, in spite of all this? It is the same feeling I had when I was about to leave the Philippines to accept a job offer in the States. I was having fun then, I hangout with great colleagues, and I was well paid and was a in a senior position. I was really sad about leaving this kind of life with a life that was uncertain. Right now, our life is relatively comfortable. We could afford to pay for cleaning and such so our life here is also quite comfy and a bit spoiled somehow. Weather is bad here but I like the cool breeze in the summer and spring. But yes weather sucks here big time outside of spring and summer. It’s the travel opportunities that I will miss somehow. I will miss meeting people of different cultures and backgrounds and seeing the eccentricities of each country I visit. I still want to see the whole of Europe. Believe me, it’s a bit too ambitious but I do still want to have the chance to visit these exotic villages in Europe and see exotic individuals in spite of the difficulties and culture shock that go along with it. I actually want it. However, the tradeoff to this is that I have to comply with the rules of my home country and this is where I have trouble dealing with. I’d like to realize my other dream as well – the business and not being pounded by bureaucracy and language barriers! Yes, I admit, I have a love-hate relationship with the Netherlands. I am both sad and happy about being here. I hope I can get over these uncertain feelings and finally be at peace with whatever decision we make.

Credits for above photo go to: Philippine Pictures

These are photos from the island where my mom’s family came from. One of my aunts told me that it is her dream to run a family beach resort in their hometown. Wouldn’t it be cool if we could develop some land along these beach line and run this resort ourselves?

Yesterday, when my husband told his writer friend about our idea of living in the Philippines he sounded so enthusiastic about it that he would even consider going there and help us run a business such as that. Who knows? A visit to this place is surely on top of our list!