This post is a little late. For some reason, I just haven't felt like blogging. I have a lot to write about but just not motivated to do so. I'm going to try to get back in the swing of things.
We took a trip November 1-4 to Cebu. This City is about an hour's flight away. It's south of Manila in the Visayas Region. Manila is divided into three regions: Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao. We live in Luzon. Mindanao is where a lot of terrorist regimes thrive and do their damage. Actually, it's only a small part of Mindanao. Anyway, we went to Cebu. This was a holiday weekend. November 1st is All Saints Day and November 2nd is All Souls Day. So, Dwayne had those days off from work. As I may have stated before, about 85% of Filipinos are Catholic. There is no separation of church and state here so a lot of religious days are considered national holidays.
In Cebu, we stayed at the Plantation Bay Resort. A few pictures:
On November 1st, we took a tour of Cebu. We visited Allegre, a guitar factory. It was kind of interesting to hear about the process of making guitars. They use different types of wood to get different sounds and they have to age the wood to get richer tones. The guy in the picture convinced us to but a cocolele, a ukulele made out of coconuts. We thought it would be cool to have. It even came with instructions written in Japanese. A couple of pics:
Our next stop was to see Magellan's Cross. Ferdinand Magellan 'discovered' the Philippines and planted a cross here. This is how Catholicism was introduced to this area. The actual cross is encased inside the wooden cross. They had to cover it because the Filipinos would scrape some of the wood off, grind it, and mix it in their drinks for good luck. Again, a few pics:
Next stop was the Basilica del Santo Nino. This church was built in 1735. The original was constructed in 1566 but destroyed by fire. This church houses the image of the Santo Nino, or baby Jesus. This image is over 400 years old and is encased in glass. The parishioners must knock on the glass 3 times before making their request known. Because we visited on All Saints Day, there were more people there than usual. They stood in a line outside the church waiting to pray to the Santo Nino. The people believe that if they pray to this image, the prayer will be answered. There were also a lot of historic paintings and other sculptures of Jesus and saints in and just outside this church. For some reason, Dwayne didn't take a picture of the Santo Nino but he got some other shots there. An interesting thing to see is the parishioners wave when they walk in the church. We asked Tony, the tour guide, what that was about. They wave to the saints when they walk in and leave just as we wave hello and goodbye to one another. Pictures follow:
The next stop was to the Taoist Temple in a neighborhood called
There were people worshiping in this temple but you're not allowed to take pictures inside. To get to the temple we had to climb 9 sets of stairs that each had 9 steps for a total of 81 steps. That can be very tiring when you're holding a little one. The last picture is one that Dwayne took of us after he climbed even more steps to look at other temples. There were several temples there, each dedicated to a different god. Here are a few pictures:
We also went to see a huge sculpture in Cebu. It tells the history of the country. Dwayne got it on video because pictures wouldn't have done any justice. It was nice though. Then, we went to a place to buy souvenirs. It was a bit expensive so I just bought a fan and Dwayne bought a t-shirt for his coworker who set up this trip.
Since this post is a little long, I'll post about the trip later. Yes, I realize the date on the pictures is 10/31. For some reason, the date is off. Let me know if you like having a post with pictures and maybe I'll continue it that way (when I feel like it).
Until later,
We took a trip November 1-4 to Cebu. This City is about an hour's flight away. It's south of Manila in the Visayas Region. Manila is divided into three regions: Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao. We live in Luzon. Mindanao is where a lot of terrorist regimes thrive and do their damage. Actually, it's only a small part of Mindanao. Anyway, we went to Cebu. This was a holiday weekend. November 1st is All Saints Day and November 2nd is All Souls Day. So, Dwayne had those days off from work. As I may have stated before, about 85% of Filipinos are Catholic. There is no separation of church and state here so a lot of religious days are considered national holidays.
In Cebu, we stayed at the Plantation Bay Resort. A few pictures:
On November 1st, we took a tour of Cebu. We visited Allegre, a guitar factory. It was kind of interesting to hear about the process of making guitars. They use different types of wood to get different sounds and they have to age the wood to get richer tones. The guy in the picture convinced us to but a cocolele, a ukulele made out of coconuts. We thought it would be cool to have. It even came with instructions written in Japanese. A couple of pics:
Our next stop was to see Magellan's Cross. Ferdinand Magellan 'discovered' the Philippines and planted a cross here. This is how Catholicism was introduced to this area. The actual cross is encased inside the wooden cross. They had to cover it because the Filipinos would scrape some of the wood off, grind it, and mix it in their drinks for good luck. Again, a few pics:
Next stop was the Basilica del Santo Nino. This church was built in 1735. The original was constructed in 1566 but destroyed by fire. This church houses the image of the Santo Nino, or baby Jesus. This image is over 400 years old and is encased in glass. The parishioners must knock on the glass 3 times before making their request known. Because we visited on All Saints Day, there were more people there than usual. They stood in a line outside the church waiting to pray to the Santo Nino. The people believe that if they pray to this image, the prayer will be answered. There were also a lot of historic paintings and other sculptures of Jesus and saints in and just outside this church. For some reason, Dwayne didn't take a picture of the Santo Nino but he got some other shots there. An interesting thing to see is the parishioners wave when they walk in the church. We asked Tony, the tour guide, what that was about. They wave to the saints when they walk in and leave just as we wave hello and goodbye to one another. Pictures follow:
The next stop was to the Taoist Temple in a neighborhood called
There were people worshiping in this temple but you're not allowed to take pictures inside. To get to the temple we had to climb 9 sets of stairs that each had 9 steps for a total of 81 steps. That can be very tiring when you're holding a little one. The last picture is one that Dwayne took of us after he climbed even more steps to look at other temples. There were several temples there, each dedicated to a different god. Here are a few pictures:
We also went to see a huge sculpture in Cebu. It tells the history of the country. Dwayne got it on video because pictures wouldn't have done any justice. It was nice though. Then, we went to a place to buy souvenirs. It was a bit expensive so I just bought a fan and Dwayne bought a t-shirt for his coworker who set up this trip.Since this post is a little long, I'll post about the trip later. Yes, I realize the date on the pictures is 10/31. For some reason, the date is off. Let me know if you like having a post with pictures and maybe I'll continue it that way (when I feel like it).
Until later,
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