I spent Maundy Thursday together with Nanay visiting churches or what they call Visita Iglesia. This is a popular tradition in the Philippines during Maundy Thursday, during which people will visit church/churches and do the Way of the Cross or Stations of the Cross. This is done to recall the sufferings of Jesus Christ during the last few hours of His death.
There are 14 stations of the cross and we were able to visit 14 churches yesterday, yey! Normally, we only go to 1 church and finish the 14 stations but yesterday we decided to go church-hopping. We started at 3 churches in Malabon, 2 churches in Caloocan and 9 churches in Manila. We’re lucky that the Malacanang area has plenty of churches in the vicinity like the St. Jude Parish and St. Michael Church that’s why we didn’t have to go far from our route. I’ve been a believer of St. Jude way back from college days, much of my achievements I believe I got from praying and religiously attending the novena every Thursday. If there’s one saint I can turn on to for intercession, it would be St. Jude, he has brought so many miracles in my life and I will be forever grateful for him.
Meanwhile, one of the churches we visited is the Binondo church which is in the vicinity of Ongpin in Chinatown. Binondo church was our 8th stop a little before lunchtime. We planned to walk the whole stretch of Ongpin St. to get to Sta. Cruz Church but before that we decided to have our lunch at President’s Tea House. We were expecting the restaurant to be empty just like the deserted streets and malls during Holy Week but to our surprise, the place was packed. We were lucky to grab a table at the ground floor, a dimsum cart is nearby so I hurriedly asked the waitress to give me a non-pork dimsum. She gave me the shrimp dumpling (forgot the exact name), she said it’s new on their menu and suggested to give it a try. I also ordered Oyster Cake and Yang Chow Fried Rice for the two of us.
This shrimp dumpling is really good, the filling was succulent, almost melt-in-your-mouth goodness. Too bad one order is only 3 pieces, I wanted more! I will order this again on my next dimsum trip at President’s Tea House.
There’s nothing really special about the taste of the Oyster Cake and Yang Chow, just like your typical Chinese food.
For dessert, we tried their Chilled Taho. I’m familiar with Taho or bean curd as a drink with caramel syrup drizzled on it. The Chilled Taho is like this, only smoother in consistency has body to be able to take its shape from the mold. It also comes with the caramel syrup for you to pour according to taste. I love the fact that it’s healthy, and the caramel syrup can cover up for the after-taste of soya.
So this sums up how my Maundy Thursday went, 14 churches and 1 Chinese restaurant. How’s your Holy Week?
i missed all of these things during holy week in the Phils.
we don’t spend it that much here
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never pa ako nakapag Visita Iglesia 🙁 we planned on doing it this year pero my mom went to my sister’s house tapos wala maiwan sa mga bata and we dont want to bring them naman kasi iinit lang parepareho ulo namin! ha ha. Buti ka pa, and my food trip pa!
anyway, thanks for the ex link!
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