Philippines Trip #2

2. City Tour - by AnaLee

CEBU CITY TOUR

We took a guided tour around Cebu City.  It was nice having someone to tell us about the different places we stopped at.  I loved the history!  This tour took us to some very interesting places.  The Taoist temple was probably my favorite. We also saw Heritage of Cebu Monument, one of the oldest houses in the city the Yap-Sandiego Ancestral house, Fort San Pedro, and Basilica Minora del Sto. Nino which was next to the Magellan’s Cross monument. It was a very nice 3-4 hours in and out of a nice van with aircon. I learned a lot about the history as well as the current situation of the city. A while later I found a fun site called Everything Cebu that explained the places we visited in greater detail. There are a lot more sites on there than what we were able to see in one day. You can go check it out here which is a link to the Historical Sites if you want to see more.

Taoist Temple

Everything here is symbolic from the number of steps and scales on the dragons to the cloud pillars and guardians stationed at the entrance.   Built in 1972, the temple is the center of worship for Taoism, which follows the teachings of Lao Tze, an ancient Chinese philosopher. 

In front of the Taoist Temple. There were 81 steps leading up to the temple (representing the 81 chapters of Taoism scriptures). 9 is an important number.

This was the stone that held special prophetic meaning for the founder of this temple. 

We learned that Filipino dragons have 5 claws.

These dragons were beautiful!

Fishing with a needle not a hook. This is a reminder of the virtue of patience.

Heritage of Cebu Monument

This fairly new monument shows scenes relative to Cebu's history including the Basilica del Santo Niño, and the Magellan’s Cross. The scenes depicted in the Heritage Monument included  the Battle of Mactan between Lapu-Lapu and Ferdinand Magellan. There were also a couple important individuals depicted in the monument including the late president Sergio Osmena Sr. and Blessed Pedro Calungsod. (see Calungsod Chapel below.)

Yap-Sandiego Ancestorial House

The Yap-Sandiego ancestral house is made of coral stones and molave wood glued together by egg whites.  Built in 1675, the old residence was passed on to great great grandson of the Yap’s and we were told that the family stays there a couple days of the year in the "functional bed room".

Mural in the room where we were standing in the above picture.

 Fort San Pedro

Fort San Pedro is a military defense fortification built by Spanish and native Cebuano laborers and started under Spanish conquistador Miguel Lopez de Legazpi in 1565. He led the expedition that occupied the island of Cebu under the crown of Spain and laid the groundwork for the Spanish settlement in Cebu. Fort San Pedro is the smallest and oldest fort in the country and is located at the Port Area of Cebu City.

Standing inside the triangle fort with our tour guide Alberto.

Magellan's Cross

This is what it is supposed to look like inside

 The kiosk containing the cross of Magellan was actually closed for renovations when we visited, but there were ladies selling candles and dancing there.  We learned that it was what they called a regular holiday called Araw ng Kagitingan, also known as the Day of Valor,or bravery. It marks the greatness of Filipino fighters during World War II. 

The plaque above the kiosk reads,  “From time immemorial this spot has been set aside to commemorate the erection of a cross in Cebu by the Expedition of Magellan. When King Humabon of Cebu and his Queen, son and daughters, together with some 800 of their subjects were baptized by Father Pedro Valderrama. This hallowed site was improved in 1735 by Rev. Juan Albarran, Prior of San Agustin and in 1834 by Rt. Rev. Santos Gomez Maranon Bishop of Cebu. The image of the Santo Nino found by the expedition of Legaspi in a house near the present site of the Cathedral of Cebu is venerated by the faithful in the nearby Church of San Agustin.”

Basilica Minore del Sto. Niño

Cebu’s historical Basilica Minore del Sto. Niño is the oldest Catholic Church in Cebu. It houses the image of the Sto.Niño, a representation of Jesus as a black Holy Child.

There were a lot of people there that day to worship. I felt like I was intruding just a little bit, but there were also a lot of people like us there to just see it.  The roof of the basilica had some large murals on it that were kind of impressive. We were also told that there are plans to renovate and use the large pipe organ, one of only two in Cebu. I hope they are able to do it.  I love hearing the organ play.

San Pedro Calungsod Chapel

Inside the chapel

We also stopped at the San Pedro Calungsod Chapel. It is dedicated to Calungsod following the Vatican’s announcement of Pedro Calungsod’s scheduled canonization in October 2012. Our guide pointed out that what makes the chapel unique is that it boasts of 100 walls, each standing at different heights and with varying widths. The walls face one direction so that when viewed on one side it appears solid and yet transparent on the other side. Incidentally, the church pews are spaced such that they follow the same grid as the walls.

Not my picture, but this one made it look very pretty even if it was 'modern'.

This was our driver.  He didn't speak English but he was very nice,  although very quiet. We ended up seeing him again.  He picked us up and took us to board the SuperCat for our trip to Bohol.

Philippines Trip #1

1. Macton City - by AnaLee

I was able to visit my parents in the Philippines for a week, (April 5-13th). It went by so fast, but we packed a lot into that one week. It made me feel better to hear people say that they had been there for 6 weeks and still felt that they didn't have enough time.  There is never enough time! What a blessing though and I'm so grateful that I was able to have this experience.

This is the first post in several installments.  I was initially going to just put a quick one together and be done, but . . . it sort of snow-balled.  Hope you don't mind that I took over.

Lapu-Lapu

One of the first trips we took together was to this historical site honoring the native hero Lapu-Lapu. This place marks the spot where the chief killed the explorer Ferdinand Magellan.  Coming there with three ships, the men that survived left on just one ship and completed the trip making them the first ones to circumvent the globe.

In front of the Lapu-Lapu shrine in Mactan City

Mural depicting the great battle of Mactan where Lapu-Lapu  killed Magellan. The plaque reads "Here on 27 April 1521 Lapu-Lapu and his men repulsed the Spanish invaders, killing their leader Ferdinand Magellan.  Thus Lapu-Lapu became the first Filipino to have repelled European aggression."

Sister Sorensen interacting with some girls that were there.  School is out for their summer break (Apr-May).

Market vendors have found the location a nice place to sell their stuff. This was my first experience shopping and it was so fun seeing mom in her element. She knew her way around.  I learned a bit about the currency and generally how to convert dollars into pesos. Honestly though, I just had dad take care of the money part. He had an app for that!

Elder Sorensen next to this beautiful shell ornament. Probably wouldn't fit in my carry-on though.

This adorable little girl was flying a home-made kite made of string and a plastic bag.

Last 2 Drawing Assignments

I turned in my last homework assignment for my drawing class today. I only have the final left. I have experienced the most anxiety and yet received the most satisfaction in this class.  It's been a stretching experience.

Surrealistic Rubbing 
A couple weeks ago we were working on texture and using rubbings to get textures.  We were also introduced to surrealism. The assignment was to include caricature, an eye, nose or mouth, with frottage texture (rubbings) in a surrealistic style drawing.  I admit I had a lot of fun with this one and was pretty happy with the result. I liked the freedom.  Surrealism is pretty weird generally speaking and its hard for my brain to accept most of it, because its so wrong, but this was OK, and pretty mellow. Bellow is my finished project. I used Afton's eye and a photo off the web.  My teacher suggested that I post my drawing on a social media site because it was a great example of frottage drawing. The real thing is much better than a photo could be, but this is it.

Last assignment - Your Choice

For our last assignment we were told we could draw anything we wanted.  I chose to work with toned paper and pastel pencils again.  The first time I really liked these mediums and wanted to try them again.  This is from a photo I took in Fayette last summer. It was a good connection for me.  I only had a few days to work on this so it was a good choice. Again, glad I have Dennis around to help me out.

Embarking to the Temple

Last Saturday Afton, Khora and I walked 4.6 miles to the Payson temple. Our stake put it all together including little rest stops along the way with snacks and spiritual thoughts about the importance and necessity of the temple. The girls did a wonderful job. There was singing along the way.  It helps when you have friends to talk to and keep you motivated and to carry you if you need it. (Khora got a few piggy back rides.) When we arrived at the temple the temple President and Matron spoke to us at the church next door. He said that we go to the temple to gain the power we need in our lives and to learn about God. He also said that repentance is a daily action that brings us closer to God and helps us to be worthy of the power and revelation we can receive there.  

 Later that night we went to the R.S. birthday dinner/program with our stake then viewed the General Women's conference. Of course we got ice cream at DQ after and had a fun girls night watching Princess Diaries 2.  It was a such a great day together with my girls. 

Rainbow Cupcakes and Helping Others

For primary the girls have been working on weekly temple prep challenges. Week #2 was "Help someone in need." On St. Patrick's Day Jacob helped them by baking cupcakes. They wanted to give them to some friends and neighbors. The girls each picked a couple friends and decorated green frosted cupcakes with rainbows (M&M's). They also took some to Sister Rundell and another couple in our ward. Bro & Sister Cooke. They are an adorable couple and she works in primary. When they brought them over she told the girls. "Thank you for helping me when I needed a cupcake!"  It was a fun way for them to serve others and learn to help in simple even fun ways.

A Compilation

I had a busy week.  A big test in Art History and another assignment in drawing.  This time the assignment was to do 4 small thumbnails for a composition including at least 6 elements and then a full sized rendering of one of the 4 thumbnails.  I only had a couple days to work on it, so I solicited the help of my personal tutor in order to get it done.  He was a big help getting all those piano keys blocked in as well as helping me to get the wood grain just right. He also did the music lines on the page. Up to this point my drawings have had only mid values without much of a value range, so on this one I really concentrated on getting the full value rendering which effected my subject choice.  There is a lot of contrast with black and white piano keys!!  It turned out pretty good although the pictures here aren't the best.  I was really happy with it and it did really well during the critiques in class.

including the thumbnails

Easter Bunnies

One of our friends has bunnies that are only a couple weeks old. On Sunday they invited us to come over and see them. The white one is the mom and the brown one is the dad.  Spring is here!!