Day 3 - Aug 8

Woke up early again. I had to. We were to catch the plane to Cebu. I was impressed with the Manila Domestic airport. I knew it was old but it still works. It was clean. The flight was delayed for a hour, but that was ok. One thing I noticed is the statue of the Virgin Mary (Our Lady of the Airways) inside the waiting area.

We arrived in Cebu about lunch time. The Mactan International airport is very impressive, not because of the size, but because it is clean. It is not as crowded as Manila's. The streets are also clean.

We headed to the Days Hotel near the airport. We had lunch at the hotel and later, had a tour of the city. First stop was the Lapu-Lapu shrine. We saw the pillar erected for Magellan. We also saw Lapu-Lapu's statue. It is quite impressive to see how a local defeated a vastly superior foreign power.

After the Lapu-Lapu shrine, we went to the dried mango factory. On the way, gloria arroyo's entourage passed us. We had to move aside to let the self-proclaimed 'president' of the Philippines pass.

At the dried mango factory, we bought some 'pasalubongs' then headed to the Santo Nino Shrine of Cebu.

Right outside the church is a shrine for Magellan's cross. This is the first Catholic symbol in the country. We went to the museum of the Santo Nino Shrine. What is interesting is when we got off the van, a lot of women came and asked us if we want them to pray for us. I find this quite sad, because they were not even praying in the church!

The trip to the museum was very impressive. There were old church vestments, documents and items used at mass. There were relics from various saints. I can remember, St. Agustine, St. Monica, St. Peter, the Virgin Mary, Virgin Mary and St. Joseph, and even two from Jesus.

Obviously, those from Jesus and the Virgin Mary are second class relics, meaning relics that were touched by them. The ones for Jesus were a piece of wood from his cross and a chip from the pillar where he was scourged. They had kneelers in front of these relics that allowed you to pray and reflect. I said a little prayer before these relics, specially to those of Jesus.

We also queued to pray before the Holy Image of the Child Jesus. This image came with Magellan in 1521 and is the oldest image in the country. The image was burned a few years after Magellan was killed but was recovered in the fire remains - undamaged.

We had a trip the next day to Bohol at 9:30 am. To be able to fulfil our Sunday obligation, we tried to go to the Saturday mass. Maybe the Lord wanted us to attend the Sunday mass because we could not find a church having an anticipated mass past 6pm. So we decided to catch the 5:00 am mass the next day.

We had dinner at Mang Inasal. Grilled pork or chicken. The food was good and cheap. Their halo-halo was also refreshing in the hot night.