Sto Nino

santo means holy and niño is a small kid. yeah, we're talking about the baby version of jesus. of course, living here in the philippines meant lots and lots of festivities. for a place made up of more than 7000 islands, you'll see a lot of action.

i wanted to see the visaya's region celebration of festivities. i always visit iloilo when i was a kid summertime since my dad's parents live there but never have i seen how the place celebrates its fiesta. iloilo, cebu and bacolod are know to celebrate extravagantly the feast of sto. nino every january. you see a lot of dancing, drums, food, people, and yeah, different versions of baby jesus.

cebu, if i'm not mistaken, would be the start of such festivity as this is the place where magellan from spain set foot first time in the philippines and offered the sto nino to the locals there as their symbol of allegiance. next is history. locals became christians, our country was then called philippines and everything else followed.

anyway, to my luck, i wasn't able to book a flight nor reserve a room on that week. not really, really sad as this event is celebrated yearly so i'll just be early next year. so just imagine me smiling when a friend asked to me join them in celebrating the feast of their patron - none other than sto. nino, last week of january. i know that may not be the same as what happens on cebu but check out these:

of course, they were telling how awesome it will be but i never expected it to be this awesome. there were a lot of participants. everyone has their own unique design for the sto. nino - a police officer, sta. clause (with reindeers), classic look with long curly hair, a bird guy hero on tv, etc. 2 of them were carried by more than 10 guys. At some parts, they danced while carrying the arc. really awesome how they did it.

we also have this kind of event back home. actually, the celebration is  this week but i won't be able to go home. i have said yes to another event - the hot air balloon festival.