Ironwulf.net: En Route – The Philippines, Travel, Photography Blog

Captivating. Dazzling. It’s really an experience watching the Ayala Triangle Symphony of Lights. I brought some of my relatives there and I was amused seeing the awe-filled look on their faces. This is another thing I like about Christmas, a lot of free entertainment for everyone like this light and music show and it’s becoming a new tradition in the likes of the COD Christmas display decades ago. And technology indeed has caught up in capturing the light spectacle. While I enjoyed shooting the lights, I also enjoyed looking at the people watching them.

First let me greet you all a blessed Christmas. It’s been a crazy year with a lot of highs and lows. But Christmas is here to remind us to count our blessings instead and see the world in a different perspective. I can’t say that things have all been good seeing the tragedy that happened to our brothers in Mindanao. But it shows that there is hope for humanity seeing the great outpour of support from people giving what little they can offer. This season, I revisit Simbang Gabi on some of the popular churches in Manila to capture a Filipino tradition.

I try not to travel around during the holiday seasons as the vehicular and human traffic is horrendous at this time of the year. But I decided to make an exception on the 17^th of December 2011 to witness this year’s Ligligan Parul 2011 or the Giant Lantern Festival in San Fernando, Pampanga. It’s a grand annual lights and music spectacle featuring the Filipino’s traditional Parol (Christmas Lantern) showcased in a gigantic scale. This year, 10 baranggays (villages) take turns to display their sophisticated light design display on their Giant Lanterns in-sync with their choice of music to give us audiences a feast to our senses.

To all my visitors, regular blog readers here or everyone who stumbled here, wishing a sincere Merry Christmas to ALL! May each one of you have a joyous celebration with families and friends. And don’t forget that CHRIST is the heart of CHRISTmas who always reminds us to GIVE. With that you can send your gifts to this address…. hahaha kidding. Just enjoy the holidays, so eat, drink and be merry!