Rosy moment

The delicate pink stained glass windows of the Chapel of St. Thomas More in the Ateneo Professional Schools do not have obviously religious images unlike those in other Catholic churches and chapels I've seen.

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A gym for the spirit

The two-day prayer recollection that I went to earlier this week was held at the Loyola Retreat House in the town of Angono in Rizal Province, east of Metro Manila. It is run by the Society of Jesus and visitors and retreatants are greeted by a statue of St. Ignatius of Loyola holding his Spiritual Exercises, which was the basis of our recollection, though in a much shorter form.




Almost hidden among the trees at the back of the retreat house is a small shrine depicting one of the most important events in the life of Ignatius. He was a Basque soldier and after his conversion, he made a pilgrimage to the Benedictine monastery of Santa Maria de Montserrat in Catalonia, Spain where he lay down his arms and armor in front of an image of the Virgin Mary.




The Loyola Retreat House is nowhere near as gorgeous as last year's Caleruega. It is actually quite spartan in its furnishings and design, but since it is used strictly as a venue for spiritual retreats, I think it was a much better choice—it was completely quiet. The most extravagant adornments in the center are the beautiful stained glass windows in the small chapel. Again, St. Ignatius is depicted holding the book of the Spiritual Exercises in one of the four large windows behind the altar.

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Glory and praise

Another lovely sunset at Manila Bay. It would have been more fitting if this were a sunrise, but since that's next to impossible for me, I thought this would be a good enough choice for today. I've always wanted to get a photo of sunlight streaming through a break in the clouds, and now I have. Happiness.

A blessed and joyful Easter to everyone!

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An oasis from consumerism

A small pond within a small park in the middle of the Greenhills Shopping Center in the City of San Juan. It is right next to the tiangge (bazaar) and is outdoors, hence the covered walkway between buildings. I wonder if the thousands of shoppers that pass through the park everyday notice just how lush it is.

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In the trenches

The Law School and Graduate School of Business of the Ateneo de Manila University are located in Rockwell Center in Makati City. Though other cities have been competing aggressively during the past decade to get companies to relocate their headquarters by offering big tax breaks, Makati is still considered the premiere financial and commercial center of Metro Manila. Hence the location of the two schools, both of which offer continuing education courses for professionals. Its little palm-shaded brick building provides a visual respite from the glass towers which surround it.

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Vermilion tears

Walking along the mossy ramparts of the historic Fort Santiago in Intramuros, I spied a statue of Philippine National Hero Jose Rizal through the branches of a flowering Caballero/Flame Tree (Delonix regia) in a gated and locked room inside the roofless ruins of a former Spanish military barracks. Rizal was incarcerated at Fort Santiago before his execution in Bagumbayan (Luneta or Rizal Park) in 1896.

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Spanish courtyard

Plaza San Luis in Intramuros is a small courtyard in the middle of a reproduction of a 19th century Spanish mansion. Fountains became a feature of these grand homes when running water came to Manila in 1882. During the Spanish colonial era, the entire complex would have belonged to one wealthy family with living quarters for their servants, a garage for a carriage or two and storage rooms. Today, the Plaza San Luis complex is a mix of cultural and commercial establishments. It has a small art gallery and souvenir shop, and the restaurant Barbara's, popular as a wedding reception venue for those who get married in the Manila Cathedral or San Agustin Church, is on the third floor and roofdeck. A large part of the building is occupied by Casa Manila, a colonial lifestyle museum which recreates a home of the privileged class of the era. It's a must-see for anyone interested in antiques, home design or the history of Manila.

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The way to the palace

Postigo del Palacio (postern of the palace) was one of the main entrances into the walled city of Intramuros during the Spanish colonial era. It was built in 1662 and took its name from the fact that it was the way closest to the palaces of the Governor-General and the Archbishop. This was the path that Philippine National Hero Jose Rizal took when he walked from his prison cell inside Fort Santiago to Bagumbayan (Luneta or Rizal Park), where he was executed in 1896. It was damaged during the Battle of Manila in 1945 and restored in 1968. The gate is usually closed nowadays but if it were open, it would just lead to the Club Intramuros Golf Course, an 18-hole golf course built around the beautiful and historic stone walls of the old city.

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A room with a view

This is not in Metro Manila. Again. One of my husband's cousins got married in Tagaytay City in the province of Cavite yesterday afternoon and the house that the bride and groom rented for the reception has a magnificent view of Taal Lake and Taal Volcano. Taal Lake is the third largest lake in the Philippines and is located in the province of Batangas. It has several islands and the biggest is where the still-active Taal Volcano is. The reception was supposed to be outdoors so guests could enjoy the view but it rained the whole afternoon, shrouding the entire lake and ruining their original plan. It was bright and sunny when I took this photo this morning, but the dark clouds beginning to form signaled yet another wet afternoon.



The reception was eventually held in the living room of the house. Even on cloudy days, wouldn't you just love to have a view like this from your home? I know I would!

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End of the visit

The two-week visit of my sister and three nieces has ended. They went back home yesterday and, as is always the case the day after any of my family leave, I'm feeling out of sorts again. So I decided to post another photo from our trip to Subic Bay, where we actually did nothing but hang out at the All Hands Beach (yes, there is an Officers Beach). All my nieces are water babies and on the first day, my sister told them they had to get out of the water by 6:00 p.m. Here they are squeezing water play out of the last few minutes while the sun set behind some of the mountains of Zambales. The youngest has just gotten the floaty, the middle one has decided she just wants to sit on the shore, and the eldest is that little dot beside the first string of buoys.

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Subic Bay

I wasn't able to post a photo last Thursday because I went with my sister and nieces to Subic Bay, a couple of provinces north of Metro Manila. Subic is an excellent, natural harbor surrounded by hills covered with thick woods, and is located between the provinces of Bataan and Zambales. It used to be the location of the largest American naval base in the Pacific before the Philippine government asked the U.S. government to close it in 1991. Now, it is the Subic Bay Freeport Zone. Aside from its obvious industrial and commercial use, Subic Bay is a popular weekend destination for Manila residents because of its eco-tourism theme parks, beaches and duty-free shopping. This is just a small portion of the bay. In the foreground is the old base's airport, now the Subic Bay International Airport, which was FedEx's Asia-Pacific hub before they closed it in February 2009 to transfer the operations to Guangzhou in Southern China.

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Garden gate and topiary

From director Ricardo G. Abad's notes on Tanghalang Ateneo's staging of Aristophanes' Lysistrata, translated into Tagalog by Jose F. Lacaba:

Aristophanes staged Lysistrata at a time when Athens, his beloved city state, had just lost a major battle against Sparta and was slated to suffer more routs catastrophic enough to end the golden age of Ancient Greece. That Aristophanes would write a comedy about a horrific war, and a sex comedy at that, testifies to the playwright's irreverent spirit and his powers to think out of the box.… So angry must Aristophanes have been that he took what at that time was an absurd idea, housewives as change agents, and gave these women the task of making men end the war.

This is the set that Gino G. Gonzales designed for the play. I know that it's a cheeky way to commemorate International Women's Day—and a unique entry for Scenic Sunday too—but I think Aristophanes would have approved.

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Ortigas Center skyline

I've finally decided to join Scenic Sunday, a photo meme of scenery, and this is my first entry for it. Of course, this being Metro Manila, I'm going to end up posting mostly urbanscapes. Like this one of the Ortigas Center skyline. Like the mall scene I posted last November, I took this from the 7th level of Shangri-La Plaza mall's carpark building. The low, wide building is SM Megamall and to its right is the capsule-shaped Edsa Shangri-La hotel with its roofdeck tennis courts.

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