![]() My office is located in the downtown of Ho Chi Minh City, a fifteen-floor office building, looking down at a long-standing Notre Dame Cathedral that stands across a street the Post Office. The church is not just a historical religious place, but a tourist attraction, a relics of ancient construction style. It is also my lovable souvenir full of distress that my next-door girl friend and I used to knee in front of the statue of Jesus Christ on Christmas eve to pray for our love to last forever. Saigon Notre Dame Cathedral was build from 1863 -1880, with the height of 60m, by the French Administration to serve Catholic religion. On its facade are there two higher towers symmetrical with respect to the lower middle tower where is located a big clock with roman numerals that tells time to passers-by. The church's outside walls were covered with red bricks that were imported from France and retain their bright and lively red colour for decades, under scotching heat of a tropical country.
In front of the cathedral stands a Virgin Mary statue, which was said to had shed tears in 2005, drew such attention of thousands of people from every corner of the country that the local police tried to prevent people's gathering for praying. This church is one of the ones that give services in English on weekend to serve expats. It is also a tourist attraction that is one of the destinations in city tours. On Christmas eve, thousands of catholics gather in this church, even standing outside on streets, to do a mass. As it is in the downtown, many couple of lovers make a date here, hand in hand, to celebrate Jesus's birth before emerging into excited crowd to pour out on streets in the center of a city. Comments are closed.
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AuthorRebellious head, crazy about challenges, changes, passionate about writing. That's all about the author. Archives
July 2018
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