Visita Iglesia 2010, Bulacan

Seven churches, 14 Stations of the Cross, two stations per church. That's how it's done, unlike our attempt last year. The churches we visited were just around our area in Bulacan. Three in Marilao, two in Meycauayan, and one each in Bocaue and Sta. Maria. Here they are:

San Isidro - San Roque Parish Church

Malhacan, Meycauayan

St. Francis of Assisi Parish Church

Poblacion, Meyacuayan

St. Michael the Archangel Parish Church

Poblacion I, Marilao

St. Martin of Tours Parish Church

Antipona, Bocaue

La Immaculada Concepcion Church

Poblacion, Sta. Maria

National Shrine of Divine Mercy

Sta. Rosa I, Marilao

Our Lady of Fatima Parish Church

Heritage Homes, Marilao

The whole trip took us around three hours. As a souvenir, I bought myself a rosary ring from the Divine Mercy Church. I got five of them so far: one from our high school retreat in Caleruega, Batangas; one from the Our Lady of Manaoag Church in Pangasinan; one from Our Lady of Peace and Good Voyage in Antipolo; and a gift from a Ninong that he got somewhere in France.

I suddenly got interested in GoogleEarth and mapped out our journey. I used our own parish church, Sto. Nino, as the starting and end point on the map below. Here's the whole trip:

The Alchemyst

The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel, first book.

After finishing the Harry Potter and Percy Jackson series, I realized that I am hooked into fantasy novels. I saw this book at a local bookstore, read the synopsis at the back cover, and thought that I just might like reading the series. I did some research in the net and found out that is a recommended good read after Harry and Percy. So I bought it.

It is a good read, though not as great as I expected it to be, but if you're also into fantasy novels, I highly recommend it.

Synopsis:

It's about fifteen year old twins Sophie and Josh, whose world turned upside down when they got caught up in a magical fight between a mysterious man called John Dee and Josh's bosses who turned out to be none other than Nicholas and Perenelle Flamel. In the middle of the fight is the Book of Abraham, the secret behind the Flamels' immortality. It holds a lot of secrets, including one that can give rise to a better world of the "Elders" that only include humans as slaves or food, and one that prophesies the twins: one has the power to create it, the other, to prevent it.

John Dee managed to steal the book and kidnap Perenelle, but Josh tore off the last two pages to prevent Dee's plans to change the world. Now, Nicholas must find a way to awaken and train the twin's powers to stop Dee at all costs. But with the book gone, so is his immortality. He only has a month to do it.

This book actually has a trailer

Review:

This is very different to the books that I use to read. The book was told in everybody's point of view, including the antagonists. Every scene shifts to another character to see in their point of view. Sometimes the story goes on as it shifts from somebody's point of view to another, other times the time will be reset to see what the other characters are doing while the previous chapter was happening. This made the book very long in a sense that we see a lot of things that are happening at the same moment, but at the same time, very short: the whole book happened in a course of two days.

There are a lot of great battles in the action packed book. We see fights between immortals using their auras to blast each other up, we see an amazing event happen at the Golden Gate Bridge, we have a horror movie scene wherein a town was attacked by zombies, and we have a battle of half-crows and half-cats against pterodactyls and half-boars as the god-like "Elders" take on each other. A lot of that good old fantasy novel action.

The thing is, as the book ends, you'll know that it's only the beginning. So only read it if you are prepared to read the whole series of six books, the fourth book only to be released on May 25, so it will be a long wait.