Why I am moving from Europe to Asia.

this is probably a question we haven't answered but a question that gets asked to us a lot of times is why did we choose to live in the Philippines and to give birth to our new daughter [Music] [Music] here and also [Music] this [Music] a back from grocery shopping one of the things I get asked the most about when it comes to moving to Asia is what are the products like what are you eating how do you kind of transition from eating so much food that's present in your home country that are not present to where you're moving honestly for me this is not an issue at all ever since I lived in Hawaii I kind of got adapted to eating a little bit differently than what I used to do in Norway like in Norway we eat a lot of bread a lot of potato here in Asia you eating more rice and stuff like that but there is places there are really really good supermarkets all over Asia all the countries I've been to in Asia you're usually able to find exactly what you are used to eating at home as well so for example some of the pics that I got today is cold brew very excited about that also usually get these which is like just orange juice freshly squeezed I really enjoy that for my asai bowls I eat a smoothie Bowl every morning and for example being in a region picking out stuff like Norwegian Salamon that just makes my whole day so when it comes to offers it's definitely not an issue even though you're living in Asian and the wifey hello so what I do is like I buy everything in bulk and then and I um use a zip lock to separate it so that whenever we need to thaw something it's all separated we don't need to saw the entire thing very nice this is how you can afford to live even cheaper you know when you buy in bowl and then store it away that's why we have our membership at SNR here in the Philippines M but it's still quite pricey in SNR but they do have a lot of like products from the US and Western that's why we like it yeah our current setup is that we are when we're grocery stop shopping here in the Philippines we're visiting one local store and then we're also going to SNR which has a lot of Western Products [Music] yeah one of the things that I opted for when we were looking for a house was to also have a pantry and since we have a house now I'm kind of like stacking up on delicious wine just for when we have friends over example today we have dinner guests tomorrow we have dinner guests we also have Ava Grandma coming over who's going to stay here for I think a couple months so I just like to stack up on different things and the wine Selections in Manila is actually really really good the only thing I haven't been able to find is uh shab but I know it exists so if anybody knows where I can find sh Grande or Petit sh which is white wine I would really really appreciate it cuz I can't find it but for example here white wine from New Zealand cabon from Australia and also this one which I'm very excited about so little bit of stacking up for those friends that do like to drink like occasionally I do I like to enjoy myself a good red wine every once in a while so [Music] yeah it's lunch time here in the Philippines one of my favorite times don't eat out a lot but we try to every once in a while and currently I'm meeting up with AA and J do Korean barbecue so when you live in Asia you have so many more food options than that we have back in especially aslo I mean Oslo is becoming a destination for better culinary experiences but I left 10 years ago and back then the scene wasn't really that booming as it is now however here in Asia you kind of have all the options and you have more so of the Asian options and trust me Asians are really good at food like it's wild they take it so seriously someone asked me on Instagram I did a little poll what are people wondering about about when it comes to living in Asia and especially surrounding food options someone asked me how I deal with the variety of standard and hygiene and this is one of the I think hardest things to adapt to when you move to Asia is that you can go from like a hole in the wall to a food stand to a very nice restaurant in the same block so figuring that out takes a little bit of practice I've been very fortunate to move here with my wife it's been pretty easy for me but I also now kind of think I have like an indicator it's just something you learn over time how to deal with those things and once you learn it it just becomes second nature you kind of already know well as a European for my stomach fun fact I was actually hospitalized my first week here in the Philippines when I came here in 2019 but you learn it over time if there's one really good tip that I can give you if you're coming to a foreign country especially here in Asia is to look at is this a place that locals also eat if it is then usually the quality is really really good one of the benefits of living in the Philippines is that their English is really really good here everybody speaks English so like even in the menus there's also usually English for example when we travel in Japan that's not always the case so it depends on the country that you're for example wanting to visit or wanting to move to I find it very easy though to just point this is what I want usually there's no problems I also tend to ask for no spicy that's the thing you should learn when you're coming to uh Asia ask for no spicy unless you're a person that really loves [Music] spice [Music] all right guys we just got some really cool office supplies delivered to us from TT racing going to talk a lot about that in a minute so we're going to be unboxing some stuff today finally this is happening I mean we've had we lived here for how long have it 3 months yeah only like 3 months and I mean we've had the old tables that we had at our first apartment in Manila and it's like over time it's really affecting especially my back I'll show you this is our current office setup and we have two desks standing here but we have plastic chairs and I've been really feeling it in my back lately that's why I came to the conclusion like okay it's time to upgrade our office especially that we work here most of the time at home right we kind of work from all the time and I was starting to feel Le in my back so we're very excited about this uh new suppli that we have that we're going to be unboxing now and you guys are going to see how much better it is because right now we don't even have the ability to increase it and I have my my this is a total mess and I'm very excited to finally get some organization going on here yeah what do you think as the wife look at this it's a nice investment for us in for our health CU over time you get to have back problems if you have a bad table and bad chair yeah especially for me I am 6 months pregnant it's starting to get a little heavy so having the these plastic chairs really doesn't help my posture I always dreamed of having one of those electronic uh those are really nice right which which we got over there so let's get to work let's unbox it [Music] unbx [Music] wow okay okay okay let me try wow I would be new oh my God it's so comfortable for the back I swear to God okay wait wait wait oh my God for the get [Music] out no I want oh my God for the back I swear it's so good you hold it oh I you know [Laughter] wow no how [Music] comfortable [Music] oh my God I you want to be higher up yeah because I've been sitting for a while all right let me join you it's actually nice right you know when you're pregnant sometimes you hit the table M here I don't my stomach doesn't hit the table I'm going to join you it was very easy to install as you guys saw I think we spent I mean it always takes time but I think we spent about maybe 1 and 1/2 hour to install both of it with the chairs so that's kind of really nice the instructions that came along with it was very easy to follow so I think we did a pretty good job and I really love this this little detail that I can hang my headset on the side cuz this is honestly one of my biggest issues it always just ends up everywhere and I don't don't where to find it so here it always has a private spot which I really enjoy and it has presets which we're going to play with and try to understand how it works over here but this is the centim above ground it is so like if you have another one you can like coordinate and say oh I'm at 100 cm and then she can also bring hers down to fit the same level Goode shout out to TT Racing for partnering up with us with this and if you want to upgrade your office which you should you know protect your back as we're getting older then check out the link in the description have [Music] try [Music] didn't smell [Music] the they made that first what are you talking about we are actually talking about doing a road trip's like have you been to this place yeah m and I just heard that there are Monster gynes up there so I was I was kind of like picturing one of those cute gyy but is Monster version that made me kind of excited and I want to go okay you can you can I cannot said that in Japan one [Applause] [Music] time La sh happy birday [Music] [Applause] sh thank you guys guys I just woke up and there are new sound sounds in the house that I haven't heard in a while this makes me very excited we have some very important visitors who is this hello do we have visitors morning good Aloha what a ni gener you might get confused that she's my mom this is sometimes they say sometimes they say that uh you look like my mom actually said that when when we met you in Hawaii look like how are you Lola I slipped good oh we're happy to hear that yeah come and join us I will I'm just going to get some coffee so Auntie Jing and Lola they flew all the way from Hawaii the big island to the Philippines there's actually a direct flight from Honolulu to Manila I think it's 11 hours or something so hopefully one day we'll take that flight going the other way it's breakfast outside [Music] today hey one of the things obviously that you miss the most when you move to another country like far far away from home is family and friends I miss them a lot I really do that's why it matters so much when we actually get visitors and we have a large family we do appreciate that a lot when people come over and my mom and dad also wants to come visit us here now that we're having a baby so that's kind of part of it I think it's it takes a certain person to be able to leave everything to leave your home leave your friends family culture behind and trying to like set up another life somewhere else it's very healthy for you and it doesn't mean yet you can't return I think you have to go out there and create the life that you desire and want and I kind of imagine it like a giant forest imagine this all right go with me on this journey it's a giant forest and who knows what might be happening a little bit further away maybe they do a little things differently there so sometimes you have to step out of your comfort zone in your local forest and go see another tree and that's what it feels like for me to go here to Asia it's like whole another version of life that gets presented to you also when I lived in Hawaii for 2 and 1/2 years at 21 years old massive change of culture and mindset and how things are done feel like I'm getting a kind of a diverse experience to life here I lived in the United States I've experienced that Western mindset of growth and let's go get it it's really powerful also growing up in Europe in Norway in a country where individualism is stronger than collectivism in terms of family especially family orientated and you come here to Asia and it's just like wow this whole other thing so who knows I don't know that's my experience I love it over here currently at this stage of my life this is where I'm supposed to be and I'm very happy good morning this is very exciting because I discover that one of my favorite coffee brands in new Philippines have a subscription which you can order to your home so you always have fresh coffee let's bring this to the kitchen today we got Cy oh my God so excited for this yeah finally I was running out too all right guys I want to highlight this subscription for you and basically they have different subscriptions on their website the one we've chosen is the one where you can get both grounded and beans at the same time kind of like figuring out what you like I'm the type of guy that sometimes if I'm in a hurry I really like to have the ground it I just pour it in the machine but if I'm like M I really want to taste Taste of the coffee I'll opt for the beans so I'll chosen that for both espresso and regular Barista Arabica and then there's a little package here which I didn't know was going to come with it actually let's open it up and see what's inside wow okay nice thank you for your purchase of your homegrown products we start out to provide premium quality Philippine coffee and local products through our partnership with coffee communities and social Enterprises all our products are crafted with great attention to the detail we hope you enjoy your order that's what's so cool about those is that it's coffee from the Philippines they do so much cool stuff for um local farmers and really invest in their Technologies and and really help boost everything that the philin is about with coffee and they sent me this French Press also inside here is another Barista full beans I luckily have the grinder so we're going to do that now I'm going to show you how I make myself a coffee in the morning all right guys so the subscription I have is the coffee Glen where you get to try both Grounded Coffee and beans but they also offer something called the Philippine subscription where you get way more coffee types super awesome that one and they also have the iced Brew Coffee subscription sell from 3 6 to 12 months and same day delivery here in Manila so if you order before 3: p.m. you'll get it the same day now let's talk about a couple different Brewing techniques so as in a region we grew up with something like this like a a drip type then for example this is it's called a French press in France they like to to kind of like do a different technique and if you go to the coffee store or stuff like that they'll usually have the whole machine so I'm kind of in this space now where I'm figuring out exactly what I like but I tend to really like to ground my beans that's why I also wanted to try this subscription now first to see if I really like it all right so we pour some like here you go full beans this the full Coffee Bean and this is the part while I don't do it if I'm in a hurry because it takes some time we're going to grind them but the taste is so much [Applause] [Applause] better [Music] hi guys helping the Lola puming Lola yeah make sure she's moisturized oh this is how old people and bunties I said I cannot bend down so you have to put your leg up yeah same thing with me right I want this treatment too while you get you're getting more nice treatment I massage you huh all right it's garage sale day our favorite day of the week it's like I'm so happy we have this big car because we are really looking for Furnitures and some of the garage sales here in our village there's a lot of people moving in and out so that's why we tend to find really cool pieces and hopefully today we'll get [Music] lucky garage sale slowly KAS Mara is getting uh furnished now a little bit every Saturday so we found some gems today this very nice lamb this chair this is like a very cool portable wooden chair look at this yeah wow it's in the northern Philippines Highlands so I would call that a score and then some clothes and more glasses different glasses and Jin you also got something too didn't you this is what Auntie Jin got oh Lola sleeping toing out dreaming this is a nice Breezy yeah all right it's pamper day and I'm taking Lola and Auntie Jing for a little pamper session something that's a little bit common here in Asia is that if you're escorting if you're dating a woman or actually you're married to a Filipino or an naian woman it's kind of also expected of you to court her family it's not something that I do forcefully it's more like it's something that you see that people appreciate so much and that's something that is a little different than from where I grew up in Norway yeah you have a good relationship with your mother-in-law but it's really nothing more than that here in Asia it's kind of like a thing where you as a man take care of the family and it's something that just naturally happened to me as I've been living here for a couple of years and I do enjoy it I do enjoy it a lot so I think the women deserve some pamper today so we're taking out Mark Saloon this is our number one go-to hairdresser here in the south of Manila and this is lucky welcome to Mar Sal thank you for having us today we're excited to be here yes I'm so happy that you're here with your L yes and your auntie exactly Auntie G oh I brought Auntie to my favorite hair saloon here and my favorite hair stylist Miss D I'm here with lucky yeah teaching teaching um a how to like breastfeed be ready be ready about breastfeeding oh [ __ ] right apparently it's harder first few days when you look your breast fit it's oh my God oh my God it's like oh no if if the baby is not yours oh my God will throw it away because it hurts you know it hurts so much I'm becoming a dad and I'm listening to these things for the first time it's gonna be hard man every time wow look like Magnum PI you do look good well done Saturday night at Kasa Mara and today we're doing something that we've been wanting to do for so long we're having our friends over for our little pizza night so three couples tonight me and AA your and Chris and SE and Janina foreigners living in Manila in some way it's nice whenever you live abroad try to find a community of people you can kind of relate to because whenever you move to a new place it's going to be full of surprises full of those things that no one else can relate to except someone that is kind of in the same both from you so Chris speaks Norwegian he been living all over the world Seb is from France yum is from from Korea and then we have janina's actually Filipina but married to Seb which is French [Music] so so excited this is Jan by the way what are we doing today today we're having a pizza night and who's cooking I mean Seb is the [Music] expert y room is making their first pizza tonight let's go glutenfree glutenfree yeah yeah made with cauliflower oh my God delicious delicious delicious yeah what's that in koreano Paso hi Janina what's up how's it going want to check yeah t oh cool heating the toppings Seb is the master of this Grill he has he's adjusting the gas so that it perfectly will burn the pizza wow dude that looks so cool Jing what do you think oh they're cooking the meat first yeah good idea right yes oh guys this is the lamp we picked up today at the garage sale earlier and I think it turned out really nice in the backyard good vibe yeah like a good cozy Vibe we're creating a good environment for happy conversations here tonight tanan is I was asking I was asking okay so Tang take out the dooro yeah then make make sure you have enough floor all around otherwise it sticks so just yeah just go ahead don't be shy don't be shy don't care around flip it so there is a floor on your side yeah flip it already yeah yeah flip it already make it bigger okay okay so like and then and then you can take hold it up yeah yeah she [Music] knows [Music] woo it's Sunday I'm not supposed to work on Sundays because we decided that Sundays is a family day and now I'm like [ __ ] I didn't get to do anything yesterday so I asked my wife permission like hey I need to put in some time to make up for the L time yesterday cuz we just had so much fun went to the hairdresser had friends over it was just non-stop of activities but sometimes need those days too and I think being a that's part of what what it's like to be an entrepreneur is that you just have to kind of always balance your time but also having the ability to just take a Wednesday off if you're really new to is also the beauty of it so that's kind of why I I'm just used to that and I like it a lot but um I wanted to touch upon like what do it like to work from Asia you know like I have all my clients in Norway so for me it's kind of I run my marketing agency from here like wherever I am in the world I have a computer it took a lot of years to build it that way but it's something that just happened naturally for me as I studied marketing I always wanted to do and to be in an agency I just no no one wanted to hire me when I was looking like when I was 21 22 applying for jobs no one wanted to hire me so it became a natural track that you know well screw you guys I know how good I am I'm going to do this thing myself then kind of in a way so I took all the rejection as motivation to do it myself you know long term that will pay off if you keep showing up there is just a matter of time before you will succeed with it I really believe that so my day is normally here I wake up in Asia and I log on my computer and my clients in Europe they don't wake up until 3:00 p.m. so actually I enjoy that because it allows me a very slow morning to get into stuff get all my stuff done in a way since I'm depending on the sum salts this a Rin of solstice I'm 7 or 8 hours ahead of them in Oslo right now it's 7 and it's just great because it allows me to like get all the stuff out there for people to reply to me by the end of the day occasionally I have to do meetings but yeah it's just how it is you know a late night meeting here and there it's kind of like what you need to do it's kind of what you sign up for I enjoy it a lot and I enjoy the weather so much here in Asia warmer summer days you know as a Norwegian June July August is our summer months and that's when you're most happy usually you're like ah the sun is out everybody's smiling let's go out to have fun let's have a drink and then you just have like you know the other nine months of the year where you're just like complaining about the weather waiting for summer to happen well at least here in central or southeast Asia so Thailand in Indonesia or the Philippines which are very popular places for expats or D the nomads to reside you have like stable nice weather some would even argue that it might be too hot at times so the grass is screener on the other side you know what they say but for me personally I do enjoy tropical weather so I I I'm kind of like okay with going back to my home country for vacation to be a tourist in my own country and I always love my own country so much but it's just like I lived there for 21 years of my life and the world has so much to offer let's see what else is out there this is kind of my philosophy of life that I know exactly what it's like to be in a region because I spent more more probably at this point since I'm 30 I spent 2third of my life living in Norway so like why wouldn't I go and see something else in the world right this is my philosophy so I'm enjoying it I'm not saying it's for everyone but it's definitely really amazing to live here in Asia I Love Actually I do like your new look but that hair is going to have to grow on me she got her haircut yesterday and I'm like I don't know it's different too short for him it's very different it's a little short sorry I didn't do it for you I did it for me I know and that's fine CU it's so hot like even if my hair was short I still feel hot but now like it's nice that there's no hair in the way here I look good you look great this is one of the benefits of living in Asia you guys beautiful weather nice climate I think the climate is probably the biggest Factor you can have Lifestyles like this usually on the islands this is more normal we just found a very very nice Oasis here in Manila look at [Music] her how's your day yeah it's pretty well doing well H H the summer summer season it's almost here I can feel it the wind is starting to die down and the heat is starting to increase yeah it's definitely nicer to be in the pool now there's been a couple months where we don't have a heated pool so it's like it got a chili so we only get to really like use it during noon time mostly noon to like 3:00 p.m. because that's when the temperature of the water and the temperature right the weather temperature we actually have like summer winter here in the Philippines Asia as well but not like where I'm from obviously Norway but you know what I did I asked my followers on Instagram they had any specific questions relation to this video M about moving to Asia and I'm going to answer a couple of them so here I have them you see that questions let's go so the first one is she's basically wondering about uh what V I have to stay longer I can answer that yeah yeah why don't you do that okay so if you are married to a Filipina you you are entitled for a balik Bayan Visa meaning a foreigner can stay here for one year as long as you travel with your Filipino wife entering the Philippines and show an English version of your marriage certificate yes so that's why every time I travel I have to bring Ava as well so she gets to come along because if I that's why you brought me to Japan yeah no no no no no it's not but if I come in without AA even though we're married I only get one mon Visa but you can extend it so like you can go to the EUR of immigration here in the Philippines and just extend it so yeah there's ways it's much harder the other way for AA yeah that's why we were here in the Philippines let's look at this one how do you deal with the variable standard of hygiene so one of the first things that I learned when I moved to Asia was not to drink the water yeah I made sure to buy him Evan samit yeah what's the tablet I always drink that re no the for my stomach uh UR FL that I always I always bring that when we are traveling outside of um Manila like in big cities yeah just so I have it in case he gets um you know food poisoning or diarrhea and it can really happen like it happened to me in Thailand happen to me in Philipp happened in Indonesia so Mexico Mexico like it happens everywhere should be part of your travel uh Arsenal at this point there a question here what about the language barrier and the beautiful thing about living here in the Philippines is that in Asia at least in Southeast Asia it's one of the countries where you guys speak the best English it's very easy like the street signs are in English the menus are in English like it's just they do speak Tagalog as well which is their native tongue their native language but you know anybody can speak English and then you go to other places like for example Japan Korea Thailand it's not always the case Thailand is pretty good too that's one of the I would say language barrier isn't an issue in the Philippines in the Philippines as much as other places but in the beginning obviously if you're moving to a new country and you don't speak the language it's going to be challenging for you like there's times when you and your friends are like yeah because of course anywhere you go it'll be easier when you talk to your friends in your native tongue right yeah native language you'll get used to it but there is going to be like a six month period where life is kind of but I feel like we're really good at like when we talk to each other we speak in English whenever you're there yeah yeah you do but it depends on the on the groups of friends right this is probably a question we haven't answered but a question that gets asked to us a lot of times is why did we choose to live in the Philippines and to give birth to our new daughter here and I think Visa regulations is a big part of it yeah in the beginning yeah although I can still go and get um a residency a temporary residency Visa I have to stay in Norway for 3 months yeah at a time and the weather in Norway is almost always cold yeah or super cold yeah and another thing that is very important to us is our state of our mental health yeah which Philippines gives us you w up so happy with all this sun all the time yeah and then the people very important that I'm very close with my family and friends yeah um emotional support is more important for me than the Healthcare in Norway which we will get for free if we give birth there but we also calculated that the rent in Norway is equivalent and all of the expense that we're going to make is still equivalent if we move here in the Philippines actually once you add it all up it doesn't really get cheaper even though the healthcare is for free cheaper to rent here in the Philippines yeah and I don't have friends there in Norway I want my pregnant especially my first one because I don't know anything about pregnancy I don't know anything what happens to my body or to me and mental health when I uh you know get pregnant that's why we both chose that it's a no-brainer to stay here in the Philippines exactly and also like the nature of what we do YouTube and everything we we're really happy when we make videos here so we had to follow a bit of that intuition as well and I think the last the last point I want to make is that I think you and me have the ability that okay if we move to Norway so be it would make the best out of it but since we had the choice and we could live in the Philippines too why not just choose the Philippines and then life is a never it's always an evolving thing yeah God knows what we will do in the years to come right so now the smartest choice for us and I think it's not just the smartest choice but we both felt that our energy belongs here in the Philippines during this time yeah no exactly that's exactly right guys there's probably a million questions we could have answered but I feel like we did a pretty good job in this Vlog and I hope you guys enjoyed it if there's any other questions that you're curious about comment below and then you can spin off another version of the video and answer some of those questions as well but it's fun and thank you so much for watching bye-bye bye-bye [Music] baby

Channel: Martin Solhaugen

Views: 36,359

Keywords: vlogger, travel vlogger, avelovinit, travel guide, martin solhaugen, patrice averilla, couple vloggers, travel vlog, solhaugen vlog, tourism, living in asia, family vlog, honest youtubers, reality show, Europe to Asia, moving to Asia, moving to Thailand, moving to the Philippines, moving to Indonesia, Asia living, expat

Id: qdvJXwp8FD8

Length: 35min 52sec (2152 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 22 2024