Time's up! (for now)

Since my time in Manila is coming to an end and my last post and the return of the blog was received with great interest (obviously) here we go again!

When I left Europe end of october my plan was to check out Manila until NYE and then move my shit to Bangkok most likely. It's mid march now and I'm still grinding Manila - so what happend?!
Actually it's quite easy, I really really like it here. If you like asian cities and you know where to live within Manila I don't think there are many better places when it comes to lifestyle (at least when it comes to my lifestyle). 3gyms, 3pools, countless restaurants and coffee shops - all within 5minute reach. Supermodern and nice, yet pricey flats, decent service, alot of green areas and parks and a variety of bars and nightclubs at your doorstep. This sums up where I'm currently residing in Bonifacio Global City. Manila so far isn't very famous around expats and the backpackers avoid it like the plague (thankfully) but if you are fairly flexible in choosing your residence I can only recommend you to check it out here for a month and see how you like it!
Weather is pretty seasonal which means that it was very rainy end of last year and got alot better with the start of this year. Temperatures are always same same though around 30degrees so unless you plan to spend alot of time in casinos there isn't any need to bring a longsleeve or a jacket.

For the most part i stayed in Manila BGC during the last 5 months with 2 short holidays visiting the islands:
I went with a group of spaniards to Boracay for NYE which was good but the weather was the nutworst I have seen here in all 5 months and if you are on an island and it's raining pretty much 24/7 it's just not optimal. Also mass tourism is getting the best of it so if you want a nice and clean beach experience there are probably better options than Boracay (my boy Duterte even thinks of shutting it down for a while to recover) but if you wanna go on a one week bender Boracay will be your place for sure ;)

good place, average weather

breaky at the pool

some light posing before departure

with the spanish maricons

wakey wakey eggs and bakey

our modest villa in Boracay

more posing

NYE dinner in my finest clothes

reunion with another Tim from Germany

NYE outfit no2

My 2nd holiday took me to El Nido or better said a small private island in front of El Nido called "Pangalusian Island" at the end of january. Was expensive as fuck and overall definitely very good but probably noteworthy that for the price I paid for those couple of days you would get a little more bang for your buck in a similar place in Thailand. Definitely would go again though! Nature is still intact here and given the high pricetag there won't be too many people you have to share the island with.
Had a pretty nice treehouse villa here and after spending two incredibly relaxing days on this island I went to another resort in El Nido Town. Already a huge difference because you go from nice and quiet to full on backpacking united. Arguably El Nido itself is still in much better condition than Boracay for instance but probably will go down the same road in future if they don't change some stuff. Was fairly interesting though to see small private eco-friendly island vs. main island where nobody gives a fuck...

bfast with a view

Poolview 

Pangalusian Island Resort Reception

sunsetaments

Terrace/balcony of the villa

villa part 2

Laguna hopping

cheeky bathroom selfie

(almost) private beach

poolboy

Only 2 short holidays in 5 months isn't too crazy but my aim was to travel alot before going back to Europe for summer so I didn't wanna overdo it.
In general Philippines have a near infinite amount of islands and alot of those are up and coming but not as overran by tourists already like Boracay or El Nido town so I recommend you to check them out but to some research beforehand to find something nice.

Gonna celebrate my 30th bday on the 27th of march and going on a 6 weeks travel tour around Asia which I will probably call the #fuckbackpacking tour. You can expect that hashtag to be trending at a certain point in future if my calculations are correct!
Schedule will look like this:
27.3-10.4: Bali
10.4-12.4: Kuala Lumpur
12.4-17.4: Bangkok for Songkran
17.4-18.4: KL part 2
18.4-22.4: Sihanoukville
22.4-23.4: Siem Reap for Ankor Wat
24.4-02.5: Seoul
02.5.-07.5: Shanghai
--- back to Vienna from Shanghai

If you are in one of the places I'm going to I'm always keen to meet up, have a coffee, night out or whatever so just let me know! I also might update abit more frequently especially from the places I haven't been before so maybe we get some traction on the good ol blog again!

Besides all this I worked quite abit over the last couple of months and things are going fairly well. My main pillars at the moment are still poker & crypto. I don't really grind much myself anymore but am more on the affiliating side of things (alot less swingy) and in regards to crypto I'm trying to get more and more involved with good ICOs. If you wanna have an invite to my announcement group just drop me a message.
Looking at Bitcoin & co. overall I already said that I expect it to go down to 8k or maybe even 5k when other people still talked about the moon and lambos. My stance on this hasn't changed, I expect 5k before we attempting any new highs. Take note that this is personal opinion and not financial advice!

Bitcoin - what I see

!!!!!11!!!!

Why do I think we need 5k and we will go this direction? There was a massive breakout mid october 17 through 5k and this area was never tested again. Trading instruments almost always come back to those points and "test" them. After all I have seen from cryptos so far they behave in a similar way to traditional instruments (like stocks or indices) even though alot more exaggerated.
Also noteworthy that when Bitcoin is doing bad all other coins doing bad in general as well so if my 5k prediction is somewhat correct it would be advisable to be very cautious in regards to buying any other coin until BTC hits that 5k.

Plans for the rest of the year?
I'm quite sure now that my time in Vienna will come to an end very soon. Those 6 months in Asia were pretty much a test run for me to see if I want to move my shit back here and I can affirm that I want to! Probably will get rid of my flat as soon as I'm back in Vienna and then spend 3-4months in Malta where i just have better weather and more action compared to being located in Vienna. End of the year I most likely will return to Manila, get a nice flat and make this my main residence spending 70% of the year here and the rest in Europe during euro summer or possibly even somewhere else in Asia to not get too bored of being in one place all the time. If I go ahead with this plan I probably have to get rid of the car as well because it doesn't make too much sense keeping it for 3-4months/year but maybe I find a workaround for this, we'll see. (doing stuff which makes sense isn't always one of my strongsuits...) Over the next years I also consider getting involved in realestate and building my own Airbnb empire but this is probably a story for another day...

As usual, at the end of a post some more pictures. No graph today but I can assure you I'm doing ok. And if a bloke like me is doing ok you can/could do to! Just have to put in some work and run good when it counts ;)

peaze!

PS: I'm always looking for highly motivated and reliable pokerplayers to stake for very soft NL & PLO games. Stakes will be mainly NL/PLO50 & NL/PLO100!

1tabling in Valkyrie 

2nd condo pool

some casual drinks in ShangriLa Makati

misbehaving at the Cove Opening with Steve Aoki 

bfast at my favorite spot

having a look at the other side of Manila, check out Smokeytours 

pool no3 all to myself

my favorite day with alot of noise! 

dinner with same gaming friends

view over Makati at night 

no pain no gain

interesting toilet in the sky 

China here i come

Tim+Tim= Tim²