Intramuros Under the Midday Sun Part 2

The adventure continues...

(3) Puerta Real.  This is the gate nearest Luneta Park.  Impressions: Wow.  Reason: I remembered the MTRCB sanctioning Lolit Solis for using that word before Real.  I don't want to be sanctioned either so I won't retype it.  Aside from Lolit Solis, I was amazed by the huge and massive walls of this Baluarte which was, if my memory (of the markers I read there, not of the actual events for I was but a potentia at that point of history) serves me right, destroyed during the 2nd World War and rebuilt in the 1980s.  The interior of this outer line of defense had been converted into a garden.  With the advent of the rainy season just a few days ago, the whole place look fresh and alive (pardon the diction).

(4) Western Walls.  Instead of going straight to Fort Santiago by way of the Antonio Luna St. I decided to turn left and traverse the street between the Muros and the back of Pamantasan ng Lungsod ng Maynila, which, by the way, was the original site of the Colegio de San Jose.  My goal was the San Ignacio Church ruins and the site of the first Ateneo de Manila.  I was, however, sidetracked by another garden.  I went into it and discovered the walls that form its western limits.  I was intrigued by this arc over what appeared and actually turned out to be stairs that led to another Baluarte.  This one was bigger than the first and was jutting out like a knife because of its pointed edge into what might have been, during the Spanish times the shores of Manila Bay.

I hesitated to climb the ramparts of the walls for doing so might burn me crisp for it was a bit past 11 o'clock. But, at this point the whole experience has, in my mind become an adventure.  I did not like to let go of the chance to ogle from out of the top edge of the walls at the rich folks playing golf and do another thing besides:  Let all my pretensions to fair skin go and allow my imagination to take me to when the British were bombing this side of the walls in 1762, breaching them and successfully conquering the city.

(5) It was the walls that I used in going to the San Ignacio Church ruins.  On my way there I saw a group PNP cadets in training. They were being driven to submissiveness by a loud mouthed pot bellied official. 

The Jesuit Church was described as unique in the Orient, a gem, a few historians stated.  As to what the uniqueness was ascribed to, I did not care to know.  Its ruins, however, do not reflect this at all.  They were unimpressive.  While there, I offered a silent wish that this gem, if ever it was a gem, be rebuilt someday if not by the Jesuits then by the Ateneans when less urgent things in society occupy them. 

The bells of the Manila Cathedral then started to ring.  I suddenly remembered the #1 item of my plan B.  I might catch a mass or something that resembles it and so off I go to the edifice which was the source of that head splitting noise.   It was 11:30 AM.

During the mass, my feet were so tired and my leg muscles so painful that I surreptitiously removed my shoes.