Easter Sunday across the miles...

The Holy Week has just ended. I missed the Holy Week in the Philippines when people stop working on Wednesday and resume their works on the following Monday. Filipinos normally do some sacrifices like fasting and abstinence during the Lenten Season especially during the Holy Week. On Good Friday, most of us got our own way sacrifices, do the Stations of the Cross, go to holy and sacred places like churches and chapels or what we call Bisita Iglesia, pray a lot, go to mountains, and old people read and commemorate the Passion of Christ.  I missed all these. I missed the Philippines during these holy season of the year.

An almost a week vacation feels so relaxing and its our way of freeing ourselves from all the stresses we bear inside. But since not all the countries do not have the same beliefs and cultures as Filipinos do, OFWs have to follow the beliefs of their bosses. As for the Italians, since Italy is a Catholic country, they celebrate the Holy Week but unlike the Filipinos, most of them still work until Friday and Saturday. They have their holidays on Sunday (Easter Sunday or Pasqua) and Monday (Easter Monday or Pasquetta). As for the Japanese, i don't think they celebrate these days on their calendars. So that's why they work during these days of the year.

This is our (my babe and i) first Holy Week being together yet we are miles apart. And on Easter Sunday, since the Japanese people don't celebrate this, my babe got a duty during that day. He got an early duty to the airport around 6am from where he slept on the embassy during the night of Saturday due to a late dinner schedule of the embassy's diplomats. It was a night when he impressed his bosses by speaking Hindi language during the conversation on the dinner. Hahaha. Good for you baby! Job well done. :D So instead of going home that night, he preferred staying there after work. And it was early Sunday morning when he went to the airport to pick up the Indian Ambassador's wife. He worked thru the day but found himself sometime to visit the church and attend the Holy Mass on that Easter Sunday together with ate Maria and kids and Tito Boyet's family at the St. Ignatius Church, thereafter the mass, had their late lunch at Ginza Yakiniku. He was still on call from work and had his late duty after the family's lunch. Early morning, I've got a sunflower delivered from my babe. <3

thanks babe for the wonderful flowers <3

When on that same day, I on the other hand, had my Easter Sunday trip to France. I woke up so early like around 2.30am, took my bath, prepare some sandwiches and at 4am off we went. I was excited with the trip since this is my first time to France. :)) I wish my babe was with me :( It would be more exciting if he was coming too. But then, it was so impossible being miles apart. Who knows, the next time around would be our own trip, just my babe and I. :D -- excited. hihihi.

Along the trip we were talking online until he came to church to attend the mass. A 5 hour trip was never boring since all of us were happy and excited, nobody slept along the way. I was with Joy, Beh, Tita Ludi, VA and Onin and Faruk was our tour guide and driver.

By 9am, we were already at Cannes, nice place. We first went to a chapel on top of the world where we could see the whole city down there. It was a fantastic view of the port with a bunch of yachts and boats and ships, a scene of the beach, and the view of the wonderful city. Stupendous. And so we went down there and had to shoot thousands of photos of the beautiful waterfront scenery. We stayed there for an hour. Later on, we walked along the seaside, had another bunch of photos until we reached the car. Along the way were the huge and grand hotels, Splendid, the famous and expensive Carlton Intercontinental Hotel and other fantastic architectural designs man has ever built.

Later on we went off to the city of Nice, like the name itself, the place was as nice as it was. We did another turn around the city and had taken another bunch of photos. hahaha. Each one of us got his own cam and took shots on everything worth capturing. After Nice we went off to Antibes, another town. Same routine, roam and shot and pose and shot on their rocky beaches. :)) 

Then off to Monte Carlo, Monaco. Along the way, we dropped by at McD, and we were so disappointed, their foods were tasteless, hahaha, i guess French people were on salt diet. :D But then yeah, at least we had tasted their stuff. So then off to Monte Carlo. Up up and away. The place is mountainous, on our right side were sharp cliffs while on the left were high walls of rocks and mountains. I was sitting on the right during the trip so yeah, i was able to see all the panoramic scenes down there, the view of the sea, the tall buildings and houses, ships and yachts, which seem to be miniatures and paintings. It was so wonderful and eccentric. Until we reach the place. I was like, man, this is heaven! Amazing. Grand. Marvelous. The place of the very rich people. By just looking at the buildings, all i can say was this is a place of the wealthy, the city of money and luxury! We roam around the place to get a parking and we did it for almost 15 minutes, the place was full with expensive and first class cars, and by the looks of them, they seem to have all the money in the world. hahahaha. Exaggerated, but that was true. Finally we got a slot and off to shoot the place. On the place stood the Grand Hotel de Paris, Cafe de Paris, Casino de Monte Carlo, and amidst all these was a beautiful garden, and it was like paradise. :) After a series of photoshoots, we then went off to enter the grand casino. Enormous. Inside were lots of game machines and the place was full. Every machine was occupied. So we waited for our turn. Hahaha. My first time and my first time inside a casino. We all had our tries and we lost LOL. Only Onin and Faruk won. Lucky them. :D After a series of games, we went out and got each one a cup and cone of ice cream. It was so expensive hahahahahahaha. But its all fine, a once in a lifetime experience is never bad at all. We were all tired that time so at around 6pm, we were off to Monaco. The city of Monaco is under the mountainous place of Monte Carlo. Along the way home, we dropped off to Monaco to get a shoot on the beautiful panoramic view.

The entire day was tiring yet a wonderful experience. Got home around 1130pm and was excited to see the photos on big screen LOL. Off to bed while uploading, waking up the next morning, i saw that the upload stopped and hadn't finished, so i had to reupload everything and that was it, so happy to share the photos with my babe. Tag. Tag. Tag. :D -- I LOVE YOU. Next time around, it will be our own trip to Paris, France. Dream on... :D