Intramuros, Manila Set One

Intramuros, Manila

Intramuros is the old Spanish heart of Manila. Heavily bombed during both the Spanish American war of 1898 and during the battle of Manila at the end of the second world war it has lost alot of the buildings that once graced its cobblestone streets but if one is listens ery carefully in the deepest corners of the citidal one can imagine that they are in Sevilla, Madrid, or Cordoba.

Pictures
1. Street kids playing along the four hundred year old walls of Intramuros
2. Walking along the walls of the inner sanctum I was able to snap this shot with no cars or people around. Having been through Espana a little when I was younger I felt just like I was back in Barcelona.
3. Lovers taking a break from reality in the ramparts.
4. Probably the coolest golf course that I have ever seen. Club Intramuros winds its way along the old moat of the city, its eighteen holes go through the walls and battlements of the citidal.
5. The Church of San Augestin, the oldest church in the Phillipenis, the seat of Spanish power for almost four hundred years it was built in 1520 and still operates as a place of worship for the upper class of Manila. In the square in the front of the church where I am taking the picture from the Spanish Inquisition reached even this far corner of the globe as heritics were burned at the stake here.

Flowers in the Phillipenes

Flowers
Just a few pictures of some really pretty flowers that I saw in various places around Bohol. Remeber this is winter so just imagine what the bloom is like in the spring and summer!

Bohol Churches

Bohol Churches

The Spanish made their mark in many ways on this archepligo that stretches over seven thousand islands. Along with pestilance, slavery, and oppression, they gave the Phillipino people an overwhelming desire to love God. The Catholic religion is so strong here, every motor vehicle seems to have some sort of slogan on it asking some saint or holy figure to watch over the driver, the vehicle, or both.
The churches that were built around the islands by the Spanish are all old. The church in Loboc were I celebrated Christmas mass was just being finished as the British were facing defeat at Yorktown in 1781, and this was a fairly young church by Phillipino standards. The churches at Albuqurqe and Blaycon were older dating from the early part of the seventeenth century, before the pilgrams who landed at Plymouth rock were even born.
The following pictures are just five of the many I took of churches around Bohol. They are mostly built of either coral or the native limestone and all are showing the ravages of being in the tropics, yet, in their age, they still serve a puropse. Every day they are still filled with the faithful coming to Mass, Communion, and Confession with Phillipino priests saying the sacred Mass in the native Tagalong langauge.
It is a exquisite site to see these almost mystical monuments to Catholicism, even to a cynic like myself. To me, a pretty much lapsed Catholic, it has almost made me want to start attending Mass again.

Pictures-
1. The church in Loboc were I went to Christmas Mass. It was packed when I arrived for the midnight service as the world famous choir of Loboc sang hymes from on top of a sagging balcony.
2. The black Jesus from inside the Loboc church. Outside, in the back, there is also a black Madonna.
3. The inside of the church at Balycon. Even with the paint peeling after three hundred years the magic of the sacristy still shines through.
4. A front view of the church at Albequrque, the second oldest stone church in the Phillipenes, built in 1589
5. The archway connecting the church and rectory of the Balycon church with the afternoon light shining through. I met a man named Jorge here who gave me a great insiders tour of the church. He told me that his great grandfather had been chrisitned by the last Spanish priest left in Bohol in 1898 and his family told stories about how their ansectors had helped to cut the stone that the church was made from.

Loboc Christmas Party

When we first got to Bohol we were kind of wondering what we would be doing for Christmas. We knew that we would be coming to one of the most Catholic countries in the world and we we knew that almost everything would be closed on Christmas day so we kind of thought we would be spending a quiet day just hanging around Nuts Huts, not doing much. Little did we know the fun we would have at the annual Christmas party in Loboc.

Loboc is a little town that was settled by the Spanish in the early part of the eighteenth century. It has a very nice three hundred year old church, a few stores, and not much else. But what it does have is a huge community hall that looks like a huge aircraft hanger that was host to one of the funnist parties that I have ever been to.

After having a great dinner at Nuts Huts and a concert by the locals singing traditional Phillipino songs we took a boat down river to Loboc. Only five of us elected to go, and lucky me, I was the only guy!

After the boat trip, a great ride I might add, with stars and comets shooting through the dark night sky, we reached the stone steps that pass for a boat landing in Loboc and headed twoards the hall.

As we paid our two dollar entrance fee and went in, we realized that we were pretty much the only people inside and thought, "wow, this is kind of worthless, no one is here, it wont be fun, blah, blah, blah", little did we know that the crowds would eventually flood in and the dancing would start in earnest.

The night was great, we drank, we danced, we hung out with the mayor of Loboc who came over to introduce himself, I fell in the river, it was one of the most memorable Christmases that I ever had. I was even dragged out on to the dance floor for a bunch of songs and you all know how rare that is.

1. The girls and I, minus Kelly, with a table full of empty San Miguels.

2. Allisson and I on the boat ride back to Nuts Huts after I fell in the river.

3. The girls getting a few dance lessons from the Mayor of Loboc, Leon Calipusan.

4. All of us hanging out with Leon

5. As the night wore on things got crazier and crazier as we drank more and more San Migs

Christmas at Nuts Huts

Christmas at Nuts Huts-
After a great Christmas dinner of pork stew and home-made bread we were treated to a concert by a local band playing and singing traditional Phillipino songs in the dinning room at Nuts Huts. There was much singing, drinking, and dancing going on with the locals, it was a great time!

Pictures-
1. The singers, with someones son in tow who was very shy but knew the words to every song!
2. My Israeli friend Rob and Gretel of Nuts Huts
3. The leader of the band, eighty-two years old and still dancing and singing, he and his wife have eighteen children and live in a little shack across the river with no running water or electricity. I really admire this guy, a great man.
4. The whole Nuts Huts crew up and dancing
5. The band. The instruments may be old and battered, Pablos banjo is 100 years old, but they still hum in perfect harmony.

Chocolate Hills, Bohol

The Chocolate Hills-Bohol

The Chocolate Hills are a geological feature unique to Bohol. There are over twelve hundred of these hills located in one, and only one part of the island.

There are several theories about the origin of the hills. The most fanciful says that they were created by giants who came to earth. Some scientists say that this area is the remains of an ancient sea bed while still others say they are made of limestone that sit on clay and have been worn away through the eons by water, giving them their conical shape.

They get the name "Chocolate Hills" because, during the summer dry season the hills turn from the emerald green that we saw to a brown, glistening chocolate colour.

No matter what made the hills, be it giants or a natural process, they are very beuatiful to look at. They rise from a pretty flat plain in the north central part of the island like upside down ice cream cones with rice fields and palm trees winding between them.

1. I took this and the following pictures from an observation point deep in the Chocolate Hills. In the foreground is the road that we took to get to the hills. You can see the rice fields and houses that surrond the bases of the hills.

2. More of the Chocolates

3. Leslie, Saun, Kelly, and Kelsey on the observation deck overlooking the hills

4. This picutre was taken on a ride to the northwest of the main part of the hills, on the northern boundary of them were we stopped to take a break from riding. Its a great view of the size and shape of one of the hills.

5. A final view of the hills

Bohol Pictures 6

More Bohol-

1. I found this huge centipede when I stopped to rest in the shade in a huge mahogony forest.

2. How many people can you fit on a scooter? In the Phillipenes a shit-ton. Everyone in this picture got on this scooter to ride. I once saw four full grown men and two fifty kilo bags of rice on one little Honda scooter.

3. This is a calamansi, a type of sour citrus. You find this everywhere in the southern Phillipenes. Small and green, it looks like a round lime. It tastes really sour and is used to make drinks and sprinkled on grilling seafood.

4. Riding my bike in the interior of Bohol I found a group of kids on a dirt road, in the absolute middle of nowhere. They had no t.v., no computers, they did not even know what an I-pod was but they were so incredibly happy that I stopped to talk to them.

5. Rice paddy and a hill in the background.