Sunday, October 4, 2015 @ 1:10 AM
One of the few obvious sights that you'll immediately noticed when you're in Cebu, there are A LOT of churches or chapels around, big or small, there's a loootttt!! Majority of the people are Catholics. I did see one of two mosques while we're on the road but not that much. Temples, err, I think I saw one in Cebu City? Anyways, we did visit a few churches in our itinerary and I can say that most of their big churches are sooooo verrryyyy beautiful. Simala Shrine was one of them...

That's our 2nd destination for Day 2 :) We took the habal-habal from Carcar directly to Simala Shrine. Alternatively you can just take the bus but it won't drop you off right in front of the church though, you'll need to haul a habal-habal to get you further in!

Simala Shrine in Sibonga is a castle-like monastery. This beautiful holy place is believed to be a place of miracle where people's prayers are often heard and granted. There was also a miracle that happened where the Mother Mary statue cried! 

Entrance to the church. No shorts allowed for the ladies! But luckily, for visitors, you can rent a sarong outside the entrance for 20peso each.

The moment we stepped through the entrance...my breath just caught, the view was just so...AMAZING!

Gahh my camera phone does not do the place any justice!! You really have to BE THERE to experience just how spectacular the whole church was. GO GOOGLE SIMALA SHRINE IMAGES NAOOOO!!! 

It was a place built in honor for Mother Mary, how much effort and time was spent on perfecting every inch and tiny detail of the church. If you see clearly the place is still under construction, its still an on-going project but I can only imagine how many years it has been to reach the current place the church is standing now.



I read from the Internet that believers will bring letters written for Mother Mary, asking for blessings or show appreciation for granting their prayers. We walked around the interior of the church and there were a lot of glass cabinets put up on the wall. Being curious, I walked closer to one of them and inside the glass cabinets were actually all the letters being carefully kept and displayed. There were a lot of them! Letters saying thanks for letting them pass their exams (they even put in their exam name tag, pencils, erasers and calculators inside!), I noticed mostly were from nursing schools or the marine. It was soo cool I mean I've never seen something like this before.



Another section was the granted prayers for the sick. This was a very touching section for me. I mean, just look at all medical equipment, I can't imagine how much the patients' must have suffered and prayed every day for recovery. There was one particular board I saw was about a newborn baby who suffered complications during birth, from the pictures it looked really critical and there were tubes inserted into the baby. The tubes were even bigger than the baby's tiny palm >,< But through their prayer the baby survived and grew to be healthy lah. On their board they pasted the baby's feeding equipment, all the tubes and syringes used during operations, and medical prescription etc etc. Seeing all these, doesn't it make your heart feel a bit, pained? For a baby to go through all that...huhuu! T____T

A lot of Mother Mary statues inside the church. Often you'll see visitors who came to pray would touch each and every one of the statues then looking up at the statues, silently offering their prayers hoping to be heard. I didn't take many pictures inside because I dunno, it just felt like it would be kind of intruding lah. So I'll just snap mental images it'll be enough laaa x)

Do visit this place if you're really into buildings and spectacular views. If you're bringing along a super pro camera, EVEN BETTER! No doubt you'll spend hours here just snapping pictures haha. There's something to snap at every corner, believe me. I would've done the same but gahh, if use phone camera only no feel laaaa x( Or, if you're a believer, you can even write a prayer letter before visiting here :)

Signing off....Simala Shrine, Sibonga  

Off to our third destination soon! :D

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