Penang 2024 - Bukit Mertajam St Anne Original Church

 

St Anne Church is a very popular church, especially during the St Anne Festival where people from all over will come and pray to it. It's a Roman Catholic church, so people mainly come and pray for miracles, and return to thank St Anne later. I've never been to this church before even though my father used to come yearly for the festival. That was until he got his wallet pick-pocked, lol. Note, not all religious people are holy, so please be careful when you are visiting any festival where there are crowds. Above is the original St Anne Church. It isn't very big when it started, but now, it's a gigantic church covering a large area. This post is focusing only on the original church, which is charming by it's own means. 

The first place I ran to was to the grotto. Note to self, grotto is not the same as a ghetto! Lol. It was a nice area, with a cave that looked rather man-made, with Mother Mary inside a small cave. You can also go under it, where there is some water features. Nothing fancy. But I think the compound was a rather nice place to sit and contemplate life. It was super hot when we visited, yet it was beautiful here.

After that, we went inside the original church. The place felt really old. And there were little retro signs and deco everywhere. I'm not religious, but I don't mind going into any religious places to see how the other people live their life. I do often find such places beautiful and peaceful, mostly.

The main and front of the church was beautiful and classic.

And behind, the beautiful simple stained glass, and wooden structure of the old church captivated me. An old indian guard inside told me that I was free to take photos, but I didn't take many. Just these few.

Exiting from one of the side doors, I saw some interesting wordings on it. And an even more interesting QR code there. Actually these days, QR codes are everywhere for you to scan and find out more information. Problem was, people like me who hates turning on their data and camera to scan things, we tend to take a photo to scan it later, and eventually forget about it. I still appreciate actual words and info being placed there, rather than a blunt QR Code....

Side view of the original church, looked like something out of a French country side. Simple, and lovely.

And just next to it at the back, it where you can find the Holy Water area. If you have a container, you can filled up here. Else, please go to the office and purchased an empty bottle in the shape of St Anne. Very commercial looking, as most RC items are. I can say that, cause I've been to the Vatican! Lol. Anyway, I didn't have a bottle. My cousin decided at the last minute to bring me here, else I would have brought a nice glass bottle here.