We had an amazingly early start today, checking out by 8.30am (yes, Henry actually made it!) and leaving Jerusalem and crossing the Judean Desert to the lowest place on earth, via the new Jericho Rd and then heading north via the Jordan Valley. Driving along the valley, we were 400 metres below sea level (the same level as the Dead Sea).
After about 2 hours driving, Avi pulled in to the Beit Shean archeological site. This site had the remains of a Roman city, with the large Roman bath house partially excavated, amphitheatre, building with latrines and main street – it was fascinating to see, but also incredibly hot – the temperature gauge on the van was showing 40.5 degrees when we left – and it felt it. Now we were off to lunch in the Golan Heights – to a local shopping centre – (well, it did have air conditioning), so we headed there.
We were not expecting much, a small run-down looking shopping centre in what seemed the middle of no-where. We sat down in the small café in the centre, not expecting much, and were so pleasantly surprised. The food was really delicious (milkik, kosher diary, therefore no meat products) – Henry ordered the house specialty, Shakshuka, which we were told later was the only dish the owner actually cooks himself – baked eggs in a spicy tomato sauce. In case anyone reading this blog is interested, we have the recipe. After lunch it was back in the van to visit another archeological site – one of the earliest known synagogues (now in ruins), and then on to Mt Avital in the Golan Heights, a lookout and defunct army bunker that overlooked the Syrian border, and showed us graphically how logistically important the Golan Heights is to Israel’s security. The view was absolutely breathtaking, and quite surprising to see the lush green of the agricultural crops.
By 5.30pm we were all completely exhausted, and so we headed to Mitzpeh Hayamim, a vegetarian half board hotel, set in the magical setting of the hills near Rosh Pina. Andrew keeps referring to this place as ‘The Catskills’, because of it’s setting, the half board nature of the hotel and also because of the dated (although I quite like the kitsch nature of this place, love it in fact!) décor….as well as the rotund, Jewish clientele. When we arrived the ladies and gents were wandering around in their white gowns awaiting treatments or just strolling back from the pool and spa. You could just smell the relaxation in the air. Needless to say, the vegetarian buffet dinner (made with organic ingredients grown on the property) was just incredible, and now we all feel very repleat! We just had to go back for one more piece of cheesecake, or another scoop of the organic ice-cream!! Don’t know how we are going to fit breakfast in tomorrow? Can’t wait!
C
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
Monday, June 28, 2010
Jerusalem
Today was a quick whirlwind tour of Jerusalem as we only have one full day here. Tomorrow we leave for a tour of North Israel.
After breakfast we went for a stroll around the streets next to our hotel, off King David Street and headed for the Jaffa Gate in the Old City. There were markets set up on the cobbled streets of the Old City, along steeply stepped lanes, with small alleyways going off in many directions. The narrow lanes were lined with colourful scarves, beads, jewels, carpets, spices etc. It was nice to be told “I want to make you happy! What would you like?” by the male street owners, a very convincing argument in order to clinch a purchase from a girl. At one point, a young boy was trying to sell me and Mum a necklace with big blue stones and a silver clasp, going from asking 400 Shekels and then ultimately going down to 10 shekels, as we were walking away. Dad stood out like a very sore thumb on these streets (more so than me), wearing his Great Gatsby inspired beige linen coat over a shirt with black dress pants and closed toed shoes, as well as standing a good 3 feet higher than most. From now on he is going to up his ‘discretion’ level, which at this point has been very poor…for all of us. This came to a head when Zac set off the alarm of a motorbike in the middle of the Old City after climbing on top of it. Typical Zac, but embarrassing nonetheless.
We had an incredible tour of Yad Vashem by a man called David Metzer, he was organised to guide us by a friend of Mum and Dad’s, (he had actually taken Julia Gillard around the museum last June). The design of the museum building is very beautiful, being a long triangular prism shape made out of concrete and dug into the earth, gradually angling in deeper the further you walk through the galleries. The interior walls also angle inwards toward the end of the structure, in order to create a feeling of being trapped before opening up again to a panoramic view of Jerusalem to represent the ‘eternal hope’ of the Jewish people. One thing that David really accentuated throughout the tour was the fact that the museum is ultimately about ‘life’, not death. He explained how many of the survivors of the Holocaust do not see revenge against Hitler and the Nazi’s in terms of the death penalty and further death, but through Jewish life, in their children and grandchildren. The heart of the museum is the ‘Hall of Names’, which is a circular room lined by shelves with folders that hold the names of people who were killed during the Holocaust. There is space for 6 million names, but obviously half the shelves are empty. The idea was for this space to be a like a ‘virtual tombstone’, as most of those who died would never have had a Jewish burial. The tour was very comprehensive, but what I loved most about it was that the focus was not purely on the factual history of the Holocaust and Nazi Germany, but the many complex moral and social dilemmas intertwined with this like why the allies didn’t intervene, and why Jews didn’t try to escape Europe earlier?
We ended the day with a tour of the Kotel Tunnels attended by me, Henry and Zac and dinner at the Foccacia Bar in Rabi Akiva St, which again looked like turning into a farce, as Mum and Dad, and Zac, Henry and I all got lost trying to find the restaurant. We all eventually did find it, after asking about 10 different people for directions. Getting back to the hotel was easy, and sleep was sorely wanted.
B
NOTE: There has been a request made that I add in the following anecdote. After arriving at our hotel in Jerusalem at 1am in the morning after a 12 hour flight from Hong Kong, there was a mistake (well ,various mistakes) in our booking. The man checking us in kept getting confused with what was available so it ended up taking about an hour to get our rooms. By this point I was exhausted, hungry and already 'over' Henry and Zac's 'antics', so I ended up bursting into tears when I was told I would have an inter-connecting room with them. The man obviously empathised with me, because he ended up working something out to avoid this and wanted to 'see me smile'. There it is boys, my moment of weakness.
After breakfast we went for a stroll around the streets next to our hotel, off King David Street and headed for the Jaffa Gate in the Old City. There were markets set up on the cobbled streets of the Old City, along steeply stepped lanes, with small alleyways going off in many directions. The narrow lanes were lined with colourful scarves, beads, jewels, carpets, spices etc. It was nice to be told “I want to make you happy! What would you like?” by the male street owners, a very convincing argument in order to clinch a purchase from a girl. At one point, a young boy was trying to sell me and Mum a necklace with big blue stones and a silver clasp, going from asking 400 Shekels and then ultimately going down to 10 shekels, as we were walking away. Dad stood out like a very sore thumb on these streets (more so than me), wearing his Great Gatsby inspired beige linen coat over a shirt with black dress pants and closed toed shoes, as well as standing a good 3 feet higher than most. From now on he is going to up his ‘discretion’ level, which at this point has been very poor…for all of us. This came to a head when Zac set off the alarm of a motorbike in the middle of the Old City after climbing on top of it. Typical Zac, but embarrassing nonetheless.
We had an incredible tour of Yad Vashem by a man called David Metzer, he was organised to guide us by a friend of Mum and Dad’s, (he had actually taken Julia Gillard around the museum last June). The design of the museum building is very beautiful, being a long triangular prism shape made out of concrete and dug into the earth, gradually angling in deeper the further you walk through the galleries. The interior walls also angle inwards toward the end of the structure, in order to create a feeling of being trapped before opening up again to a panoramic view of Jerusalem to represent the ‘eternal hope’ of the Jewish people. One thing that David really accentuated throughout the tour was the fact that the museum is ultimately about ‘life’, not death. He explained how many of the survivors of the Holocaust do not see revenge against Hitler and the Nazi’s in terms of the death penalty and further death, but through Jewish life, in their children and grandchildren. The heart of the museum is the ‘Hall of Names’, which is a circular room lined by shelves with folders that hold the names of people who were killed during the Holocaust. There is space for 6 million names, but obviously half the shelves are empty. The idea was for this space to be a like a ‘virtual tombstone’, as most of those who died would never have had a Jewish burial. The tour was very comprehensive, but what I loved most about it was that the focus was not purely on the factual history of the Holocaust and Nazi Germany, but the many complex moral and social dilemmas intertwined with this like why the allies didn’t intervene, and why Jews didn’t try to escape Europe earlier?
We ended the day with a tour of the Kotel Tunnels attended by me, Henry and Zac and dinner at the Foccacia Bar in Rabi Akiva St, which again looked like turning into a farce, as Mum and Dad, and Zac, Henry and I all got lost trying to find the restaurant. We all eventually did find it, after asking about 10 different people for directions. Getting back to the hotel was easy, and sleep was sorely wanted.
B
NOTE: There has been a request made that I add in the following anecdote. After arriving at our hotel in Jerusalem at 1am in the morning after a 12 hour flight from Hong Kong, there was a mistake (well ,various mistakes) in our booking. The man checking us in kept getting confused with what was available so it ended up taking about an hour to get our rooms. By this point I was exhausted, hungry and already 'over' Henry and Zac's 'antics', so I ended up bursting into tears when I was told I would have an inter-connecting room with them. The man obviously empathised with me, because he ended up working something out to avoid this and wanted to 'see me smile'. There it is boys, my moment of weakness.
Photo Series 2
Yad Vashem
Post alarm setting off embarassment
The bike Zac set the alarm off
Jerusalem Hotel
In transit...
Me and mum found it very entertaining watching dad’s demeanor become more and more nervous and tense once we entered ‘Israel security’ world at the El Al check-in counter at Hong Kong airport. It is pretty shocking at first to see fully armed guards with big machine guns controlling the Israeli airline counters. And if I recall correctly…it only get’s more ‘confronting’ from here. The ‘interview’ prior to actual check-in is pretty full on. They want quite a detailed explanation of why you are visiting Israel (we said holiday/family), the names of your family there, where they live etc etc etc. They are also very careful about whether your suitcases have been around you the entire time post-packing. i.e. because the bellboy at the hotel took the bags down for us, they needed to put an extra tag on the bags because they had been ‘out of our sight’. It is comforting that the security is so careful, but it seems to have confirmed Dad’s fear that there might be reason to be nervous. Mum and me feel so safe in Israel having been there before and are looking forward to seeing whether the boys follow suit…
B
B
Hong Kong #2
A fleeting look at today’s highlights…
- Henry’s attempt at giving us a geography lesson, asserting that Seoul is in South America.
- Zac’s amazing banana pancakes at breakfast.
- Mum trying to run up an escalator the wrong direction because I wanted to show her something in a mall, hiking up her long black witch-like skirts but pretty quickly conceding defeat.
- ‘Uni Qlo’ at … What a shopping whirlwind. This Japanese brand is super cool and reasonably priced. I was throwing things at Zac to try on and eventually convinced/made him buy an amazing hot-pink t-shirt that looks so great. Overall, it was a very successful shopping outing…one that almost resulted in missing the flight to Tel Aviv…for which my shopping addiction would probably be blamed.
B
- Henry’s attempt at giving us a geography lesson, asserting that Seoul is in South America.
- Zac’s amazing banana pancakes at breakfast.
- Mum trying to run up an escalator the wrong direction because I wanted to show her something in a mall, hiking up her long black witch-like skirts but pretty quickly conceding defeat.
- ‘Uni Qlo’ at … What a shopping whirlwind. This Japanese brand is super cool and reasonably priced. I was throwing things at Zac to try on and eventually convinced/made him buy an amazing hot-pink t-shirt that looks so great. Overall, it was a very successful shopping outing…one that almost resulted in missing the flight to Tel Aviv…for which my shopping addiction would probably be blamed.
B
Saturday, June 26, 2010
Photo Series 1
Making noodles
Dinner at 'Peking Garden' in Alexandra House, Central, Hong Kong.
Sheltering from the pelting rain
Train station...bizarre 'alternate universe'
Zac at breakfast at the Sheraton
Bec's Room
View from Mum and Dad's room
View from drive into Hong Kong
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