Berjaya Manila Hotel

Needless to say_ summer 2011 in Ph. has ended. Last week, rains started to occur daily and seemingly here to stay for the next 9 months. Yet, my family is a little still in denial, cos this week as the last leg of vacation, we still have scheduled out of town trips and one of these is a beach trip. So brave to beach in a rainy first week of June!!

How about a staycation ( just so I could use the word myself , which is flooding over blogs now a days:))), here's one of my in-towns this summer.




Berjaya Manila Hotel is in the middle of the bustling Makati Avenue. Oh don't look out to search which building it is among those. I swear you can't find it, cos I was inside the hotel, on the 21st floor when I took this photo, haha.
You know how Makati Avenue is lined- up by quirky tall and slim hotels. Berjaya, Manila is one them, but I think it's one of the newer ones if not the newest by the time of my visit this summer.
I've seen better versions of this hotel in Singapore and Malaysia branches. I think this one here in Manila is the smallest one and modest indeed compared to its sisters.

A friend who is based abroad came home to visit Manila this summer and her first choice to stay at was Berjaya Manila Hotel. It was simply because once in her lifetime, she was an employee of this company which has series of hotels and resorts around the globe. Ofcourse, she did score a great deal of discounts and yes I was invited to stay with her.

Nothing to rave about the room of the hotel. Everything there_ was generic. I've seen the same bed, floor and the rest of it in other hotels around. But the freshness and neatness of a brand new hotel was very imminent and made me forgot it's not a mainstream hotel.

Internet connection was greatest. It's not the usual low signal wi-fied , but has LAN!

The indoor pool at the 5th floor was a simple dipping pool but because there was no single soul other than the three of us ( me and my 2 girls) using the facility. .




. . we got to enjoy the sunny-less pool freely. It was by the way in the midst of the hottest summer and the roof preventing us from burning our skin was totally great.




My daughters had a good time chilling at the small jacuzzi beside the pool.

There was no dining outlet at the poolside, but you could call their in-house restaurant located at the ground floor to bring you food at the pool area.




Going back to the room, we did take a glimpse of the lobby and realized why the bareness of crowd that day.




It was a Maunday Thursday. A biblical film clip was showing at the lobby but no audience was around. My country is prominently Catholic religious, during Holy Week, people here are either in the church or in this modern time, in the beaches which we got a lot to be proud of. Exactly, why I choose to staycation instead of taking a tedious out of town trip and squeezing in the uberly crowded beach scenes at that time of the year. The following day, it was Good Friday, we checked out and spent the whole day in the church observing the holy day.




Rainy season is up. Staycation in a hotel nearby is I guess a practical choice to unwind this season of rain and typhoon.

Visita Iglesia 2011

We are now in the middle of Lent Season/ Holy Week. The peak would be on Holy Friday which traditionally Catholic church commemorates Jesus' death by special masses, way of the cross, processions and many do their "visita iglesia" on the eve of this day. Churches welcome churchgoers and basically open their doors til' dawn before Black Saturday. I, however, personally haven't done a single visita iglesia in my not-so-religious life which in our lay man term means church hopping.
I do, however, always make sure to visit first the town church everytime I get to land in a new place. I flipped over my archives and realized I had only posted less than 5 church blogs against the countless number of church I've visited . This is because taking photos is not a respectable thing to do inside a church. Thus prevented me to feature the beautiful churches around our predominantly Catholic country.
For quite sometime (about 1/2 year), recent photos I took of San Agustin Church and Manila Cathedral have been sitting on my files. As mentioned, I'm not comfortable taking photos inside a holy church, so the following images are mostly church facades but grandiose just the same.

So for Ascertain Bliss' visita iglesia 2011 let's take a glance of San Agustin Church. I'm sure many of us have attended a wedding held in this famous historical church in one time or another. Known as the oldest church still standing in the Philippines, built in the late 15th century, this church is found inside the equally historic Intramuros, Manila.

I know you think what I thought. . the facade doesn't look any old. With the bright paint and all, but history recalls how many times this church had been damaged by earthquakes, looted by different forces, destroyed by fire and war and had undergone rebuilding countless times.

There was a wedding ceremony being held when we dropped by at San Agustin. We dared not to go further inside cos obviously in our jeans and shorts that we were not part of the entourage/guests.




For those who haven't been inside this grand church, I borrow a photo and above is how fab the inside is. Now you know why this is a favorite wedding church of the Filipinos.

On the side note, the church contains the tomb of Spanish conquerors like Miguel Lopez de Legazpi (sounds history book familiar, right?), he is the founder of city of Manila. Their bones are buried in a communal vault near the main altar. One of the lay persons whose remains are housed within this church is our history book famous painter_ Juan Luna.








I actually have a big thing for old intricate church doors so here I grabbed a photo of San Agustin main door. I have lots of photos of this door I took many years ago and some lately. But they are lost now in my crowded files.

Now we hop to Manila Cathedral which is located walking distance to San Agustin church inside Intramuros Manila.




Another wedding church favorite, this church is like the queen of Catholic churches in the country in terms of grandeur and popularity.

Again, there was a wedding ceremony going on that prevented us to go inside.I did , however, attended in the past , wedding ceremony masses here of my relatives and friends, even been part of the entourage more than once.




Borrowed this image from the church website, for those who haven't been inside.

I told you I have a thing for old intricate doors. .




This church got intensely intricate carved wood doors, so grand!!!








When it comes to architecture, I'd say Manila Cathedral comes a winner.




Ooops... I know. . .I'm running away from the spiritual essence of visita iglesia. I just want really to introduce to you the churches then it's up to you now. I'm not even sure if these two grand churches are open for visita iglesia. Atleast, we all had a glimpse of them even only virtually spiritual.

Hey, if you want to continue visita iglesia ala Ascertain Bliss, I got more church post here :

The Dome of the Apostles
The Luminous Sanctuary
The Church of Lucban
The Penafrancia Basilica Minore

God Bless us all.

Holy Friday 2010

In Catholic churches in the Philippines, one of the highlights of Holy Week/ Lent Season is the processions of images/statues of the saints.









A Holy Friday tradition, for many years now, I usually find my way to the town of Bacoor to observe the day with my family. Here, the procession is quite long. With three big churches lining up the roads on a Holy Friday.













Privately owned carted images of saints are being donned with intricately designed gowns and carts are beautifully accessorized with expensive fresh flowers and brighten up by lights.



Most of them, if not all, are family heritage. Antiques and originally owned by the elders of the clan, passed to the present generation.


























Faith, tradition and pride are three strong emotions that push the owners of these amazing images to outdo each other and present their holy possessions at their bests during procession.

















In essence, Holy Friday is a commemoration of Jesus death on the cross as a proclamation of his unconditional love to all mankind.