No such thing as coincidences....
today was a very tiring, but fruitful, educational, and fun day for us!!! i picked up noel and tom at 10:00 am from their hotel, The Pen, for a tour of the metropolis. since it was a bit late already and because of tom's occupation and preoccupation of being an art appreciator, appraiser, and consultant, noel and i decided to take him to manila's intramuros and have a tour of the very old San Agustin Church.
i've been to this church many times.... mainly to attend weddings.... but i've never taken a tour of the church. noel, on the other hand, is not a catholic.... so i suppose he's also not taken the tour before. and tom, who's here in Manila for the first time, surely hasn't taken it either! so, in other words, this was the first time for all of us.
and what a first time!!! first of all, i never realized how big the church, and its grounds, are.... much less, how extensive their collection of religious (mainly catholic and Spanish and Post-Spanish) artifacts are! i was so awestruck.... i couldn't feel prouder of our heritage as a people. i took so many pictures (in spite of the fact that everywhere there were signs of "No flash" photography please. i figured, my cell phone takes photos without flash.... so maybe i wasn't disobeying the rules!!! after all, i just wanted to document this event!!!)
i didn't even know, until now, that Miguel Lopez de Legazpi, the founder of the City of Manila, is entombed in the church!!! (i've posted here some photos for your viewing pleasure.... the others are in my flickr account.)
the tour was so extensive, i guess if you really look at each exhibit and read each note accompanying them, it'll take more than a day to finish.... in our case, we were there only for an hour and a half because the exhibit is closed during lunch time (12:00 noon to 1:00 pm).
from the San Agustin Church, we crossed the street to Casa Manila (Manila House) and had lunch at their restaurant amid the surroundings of an authentic Manila old house.
from intramuros, we met up with jon back in Makati.... at the Glorietta where we did some shopping. we would've ended our day right there in Glorietta, but since Tom had to go back to the Louis Vuitton store at Greenbelt for something, jon and i went with them.
and whaddya know? right beside the LV store is the Ayala Museum!!! since i've not been to the Ayala Museum since it (and Greenbelt Mall) was renovated, we decided to go in and toured the entire building (again being the last ones leaving it as they close!!!). we started on the 4th floor with their current exhibit of "Icons and Symbols in Philippine Religious Art".....it's actually more of what we had in the morning in Intramuros.... in fact, the place where the artifacts were displayed is described as "Extramuros"!!!
from the 4th floor, we went through each floor and looked at their temporary as well as permanent exhibits..... including Amorsolos (i've never seen so much Amorsolos gathered in one place at one time!!!), Juan Lunas, Zobels, etc., a Philippine History exhibit in dioramas, a film showing of the People's revolution in 1986, etc!!! (no photos here because of their very strict "no picture-taking" policy.... there were a lot of security cameras around!!!).
the funny thing was.... the whole day, we were discussing about coincidences. with our limited time to tour Tom around... do you think our tour of both places was a coincidence??? i think NOT!!! (our day didn't end there.... if you know me, no day is complete without taking care of my nutritional needs.... and so, read on.... to the next entry!!!
i've been to this church many times.... mainly to attend weddings.... but i've never taken a tour of the church. noel, on the other hand, is not a catholic.... so i suppose he's also not taken the tour before. and tom, who's here in Manila for the first time, surely hasn't taken it either! so, in other words, this was the first time for all of us.
and what a first time!!! first of all, i never realized how big the church, and its grounds, are.... much less, how extensive their collection of religious (mainly catholic and Spanish and Post-Spanish) artifacts are! i was so awestruck.... i couldn't feel prouder of our heritage as a people. i took so many pictures (in spite of the fact that everywhere there were signs of "No flash" photography please. i figured, my cell phone takes photos without flash.... so maybe i wasn't disobeying the rules!!! after all, i just wanted to document this event!!!)
i didn't even know, until now, that Miguel Lopez de Legazpi, the founder of the City of Manila, is entombed in the church!!! (i've posted here some photos for your viewing pleasure.... the others are in my flickr account.)
the tour was so extensive, i guess if you really look at each exhibit and read each note accompanying them, it'll take more than a day to finish.... in our case, we were there only for an hour and a half because the exhibit is closed during lunch time (12:00 noon to 1:00 pm).
from the San Agustin Church, we crossed the street to Casa Manila (Manila House) and had lunch at their restaurant amid the surroundings of an authentic Manila old house.
from intramuros, we met up with jon back in Makati.... at the Glorietta where we did some shopping. we would've ended our day right there in Glorietta, but since Tom had to go back to the Louis Vuitton store at Greenbelt for something, jon and i went with them.
and whaddya know? right beside the LV store is the Ayala Museum!!! since i've not been to the Ayala Museum since it (and Greenbelt Mall) was renovated, we decided to go in and toured the entire building (again being the last ones leaving it as they close!!!). we started on the 4th floor with their current exhibit of "Icons and Symbols in Philippine Religious Art".....it's actually more of what we had in the morning in Intramuros.... in fact, the place where the artifacts were displayed is described as "Extramuros"!!!
from the 4th floor, we went through each floor and looked at their temporary as well as permanent exhibits..... including Amorsolos (i've never seen so much Amorsolos gathered in one place at one time!!!), Juan Lunas, Zobels, etc., a Philippine History exhibit in dioramas, a film showing of the People's revolution in 1986, etc!!! (no photos here because of their very strict "no picture-taking" policy.... there were a lot of security cameras around!!!).
the funny thing was.... the whole day, we were discussing about coincidences. with our limited time to tour Tom around... do you think our tour of both places was a coincidence??? i think NOT!!! (our day didn't end there.... if you know me, no day is complete without taking care of my nutritional needs.... and so, read on.... to the next entry!!!
Labels: Chinese Dim Sum, I'm grateful for...., Mi Vida loca, Threads of Wisdom?
posted by Joseph Forest a.k.a. Joselito L. at
11:00 PM
2 Comments:
wow~ beautiful pics of the church grounds~ looks like a big place~ it's funny how people don't tour their own areas until we take a visitor from abroad on a tour~
veru true, mabelle! most times we take for granted what is easily available to us and long for those that are far or unreachable.
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