WYD08 - Randwick Vigil Mass

We did our pilgrimage walk from Central Station to the Randwick Racecourse. A pretty long walk (we were originally gonna start at North Sydney) but with the huge crowd and walking with friends, the moment just passed by. We also had to carry our own backpacks and sleeping bags for the overnight stay at the racecourse.

Along the walk, we joined an East Timor group in praying the rosary at Centennial Park. We passed by all different groups from different countries carrying different flags. The whole WYD week, these were the flags I've seen: poland, canada, wales, italy, germany, mexico, spain, US, philippines, indonesia, brazil, scotland, korea, japan, malaysia, singapore, india, pakistan, vietnam, new zealand, sudan, south africa, argentina, ireland, england, burma, east timor, australia, tonga, france, puerto rico, guam, lebanon, and more that I didn't recognize.

Then came the Vigil Mass hosted, of course, by the Pope himself. It was a great feeling to be with the Pope with at least 200k pilgrims all together. And a once in a lifetime experience camping at Randwick with the rest of the pilgrims overnight. It was freezing, middle of winter weather, with just a sleeping bag (two for me). I woke up a couple of times during the night. Around 1am, there were still people up chatting and making noises. By around 3am or 4am, I woke up again and I heard silence. It was full moon and there was a halo around the moon. It was amazing!