Tel Aviv'in It Up

This morning, Wakako, a Japanese journalist, and I take a minibus to Tel Aviv to meet up with Yoko who is already there. After getting off the minibus we had to enter a mall to cut to the other side of the street where the bus station is.





Most public buildings in Israel have some sort of security. At the mall entrance sits a single security next to a metal detector. She goes through both of my backpacks only briefly enough to see the top items and lets us through the beeping metal detector. At the other side we find a bus that is heading towards old Tel Aviv.



The public bus in Tel Aviv looks like any other normal bus, however the clientel is quite different. There are Orthodox Jews, Muslims, and Soldiers carrying firearms and large duffels bags. We arrived at the old part of Tel Aviv called Jaffa. Here we get off the local bus at an amazing looking clock tower and trek towards our hostel.



The beaches of Tel Aviv start next to Jaffa and stretch all the way to the high-rise buildings of new Tel Aviv. It is winter here and the waters are still warm to swim, however I am told that the beaches are the most empty. The overall feel of this city is completely different from that of Jerusalem. It feels soul-less compared to the ancient city of Jerusalem and the modern feel of the city makes it seem like I can be anywhere in the world right now.




I meet up with Anna, a Spaniard, who I met on the Jerusalem walking tour. She is out here doing geological research for school and we decide to check out the beach and walk around the city. There are still a lot of people on the beach, especially for winter and it makes me think how great it would be to live in a place where I can hit up the beaching during Christmas. I’d imagine that it would be must like Christmas in Australia where families each sea food and go to the beach for the holidays.



That night at the hostel I meet my first Chinese traveler. She is staying in the same room has Yoko and is only here for the night and I finally get another chance to practice my Mandarin. The nights are quite cool and without a kitchen I am forced to eat at the local street food stands near our hostel. For being in the middle of the Arabic quarter of Tel Aviv the food here doesn’t hold a flame compared to Jerusalem.



I’ve met and talked to several Israeli people while I was in the city. Four out of the five have told me how Israel is the greatest country in the world within five minutes of meeting them. Yet they don’t really ever justify their statement and the discussion of their country usually ends with that statement.



The walk back from the main city to old city of Tel Aviv takes about forty five minutes. Check out this license plate I found while walking home. It is actually from Sedgwick County which is where I’m fromI usually return after sunset everyday and walk along the beach. The sunsets here have been some of the most colorful I’ve yet to see. The temperature drops immediately after the sunsets and the entire city shuts down.

Jerusalem Walking Tour

I am not really a religious person and being in such a religiously iconic city I decided it was be a pity if I didn’t get anything out of it. Thus I decided to take one of those free tours that I’ve been accustomed to back in Europe. The meeting place is towards Jaffa Gate and I leisurely stroll past the open air markets.



I arrive early at the meeting point just inside Jaffa Gate at half past ten and have half an hour to kill. So I browse around the shops near that area where everything is about double what I pay near Damascus Gate. I site opposite the two tour guides that look like they’re picketing with two huge red signs advertising the free walking tour. By 11 o’clock there is a fairly large group of tourists gathering around that area and I move from my bench where I was enjoying a circle shaped sesame seed bread and coke.





The tour was very informational and full of religiously important sites. We also toured the many different quarters of Jerusalem where Jews, Arabs, Christians, and Armenians all co-exist. Jerusalem has such a significant presence in so many religions that we are only able to cover a fraction of what the city has to offer. There are other different walking tours that are more dedicated towards certain topics.





One of the discoveries on the tour was a small coffee shop connected to a hotel that is inside the city walls. This cafeteria for the hotel is raised up above the busy and noisy streets of Jerusalem. There at the top is garden, tree providing shade and an aura of peace that is hard to come by in this city. It is amazing how quite a few meters make and I can even hear birds singing. This coffee shop would be visited many times during my stay in Jerusalem.

Israeli Po po's

Tonight after coming back from Mount Olive, we each split up to gather cooking ingredients from the markets around our hostel. We get back to the hostel and cook a meal for eight people in a kitchen just large enough for two grown adults to stand in.

Our hostel is on the Japanese backpacking trail and currently there is a huge number of Japanese backpackers here. We all gathered for dinner and half of them assume that I too am Japanese and converse freely with me in Japanese, until I tell them that I can’t understand Japanese. Then its quiet the rest of the time.

During the middle of our dinner four civilian dressed men came into the hostel with one man dressed in Israeli soldiers’ uniform. They are all carrying firearms and the soldier is holding an Uzi. They check all the dorm rooms and then find an elderly Japanese guy. I was talking to him earlier and he was a Japanese journalist on vacation in Israel. They cuffed and shackled him and the rest of the guards searched his bags. When he protested and told the soldiers to be careful with his belongings, one soldier strikes him on the back of head with his rifle.

The hostel owner and the soldiers are yelling back in forth. I can’t be sure they’re yelling because Arabic and Hebrew all sound like angry languages to me. The hostel owner then comes over to our table and assures us that everything is okay as the Japanese guy is bleeding profusely from the back of his head. Then the soldiers gather his bags and drag him out cuffed and shackled to an H2 hummer sitting outside.

It was an unbelievable experience and I had an urge to take some pictures from our balcony he was escorted out. It was just really hard to get a good picture since the sun had already set and it was dark outside. The entire experience was surreal and the danger portion of it didn’t really settle in until after they had left. I wonder what happened to that guy.

Mount Olive

I talked to more people at our hostel and they all recommend that I check out the sunrise and sunset at Mount Olive. It is my understanding that Mount Olives marks the point where Jesus will return. This is why the hillside is filled with tombstones of people who want to be buried at that exact location.



Since I am not much of a morning person I rule out the idea that I’ll see a sunrise. Instead I opt for a sunset visit and trek towards the road leading up to the top. I walk along the ancient walls of Jerusalem past Damascus Gate. I still have not grasped the idea that I am actually walking along something this ancient. A left the intersection and I start to march up a steep 45degree hill. This steep uphill climb is well worth the effort for the view over the city.

Little Town of Bethlehem

I told the border crossing guard that I had only planned to visit Jerusalem and maybe Tel Aviv. I also told her that I was not going to the West Bank or Palestine. I lied. Today after walking around the old town and running into some Polish travelers I decide that I am going to join them in their day trip to Palestine, specifically to visit the Little Town of Bethlehem.



Near Damascus Gate we find a minibus stand and there we take the local route to the border crossing into Palestine. The border crossing looks like a maximum security prison, not that I would know what a maximum security prison actually looks likes. But if I were to imagine a maximum security prison or from all the ones depicted on TV, this border crossing definitely fits that vision. There are high walls lined with barbed wire. There are several chain link fences around the outside that funnel into the main entrance of the structure.



Inside the border crossing we queue up behind two booths along with all the locals. When an Israeli guard sees us he waves us over and we by-pass the 20 or 30 people in front of us and walk directly through the gate. We didn’t even have to flash our passport and thus the fact that I didn’t even have an Israeli entry stamp didn’t come into play.



On the other side, a line of taxis wait to rip off tourists. After bargaining with 10x what the rates should be, we start walking on foot and finally a taxi driver chases after us with the standard rate. We are taken into the touristy heart of Bethlehem.



The Church of Nativity is where Jesus was born and it is the main attraction of Bethlehem. There is a long queue to see the star that marks the exact spot where Mary gave birth to Jesus. We visit several other churches that are historically/religiously important such as the Milk Grotta Church where Mary hid Jesus away from the massacre of males in Bethlehem.



I got a bunch of pictures of churches and significant sites, however my favorite was towards the end of the day. We are walking the narrow streets of Bethlehem when two cars crossed and neither would yield. They both inch forward until they both get stuck. They get stuck and it requires several people lift up one of the cars so that pedestrian can cross. It was quite a hysterical site. I guess the Little town of Bethlehem wasn’t really designed for cars.

Exploring Jerusalem

Jerusalem is another minibus ride away and we tell the driver to drop us off near Damascus Gate. This is where our hostel is located. We emerge from the minibus in the hustle and bustle of Friday afternoon Jerusalem. We find our hostel outside the ancient walls of Jerusalem and quickly drop off our bags to explore the inside of this relic.



Walking around the narrow streets filled with tourist shops, small markets, and more tourist shop it is difficult to believe that I am actually standing inside the walls of The Jerusalem. The streets wind in every direction and through a series of turns it’s easy to get lost. Next thing I know I am walking through an underground entrance to see the Wailing Wall. I queue through a metal detector and our bags are x-rayed before we are allowed to pass. Soldiers all armed with multiple firearms are standing around the entrance and along the walkway towards this sacred site.





The Wailing Wall is divided in halves, or more like 1/3 and 2/3. The smaller section is designated for women and the larger half is for men. Men must cover the top of their heads before going approaching the wall. A platform overlooks both areas where tourists line up to overlook the masses of praying people and to take pictures. There are prayers written on little pieces of paper that are stuffed into the cracks of the Wailing Wall. Walking up to the stones there are hundreds of these little pieces of paper stuffed there.

Can I See Your Passport?: Entry into Israel

In the morning I left the Amman hostel with two Japanese girls that I had met the previous day, Yoko and Yasuko. We meet up with another one of their friend’s Chi and take a taxi to the minibus stand. We are headed to Israel.

The King Hussein Bridge Crossing or the Allenby Bridge Crossing as it is called in Israel, is out in the middle of nowhere and is desert landscape all around. It is the few entry points where an Israeli stamp can be avoided. Our bus arrives at the border and everyone piles out. A Jordanian soldier checks all of our passports and before I hand over my passport I make sure he knows that I don’t want the Jordan exit stamp. He nods and just looks at the passport and we are all let back on the minibus.

The bus drives through the gate and down a dirt road towards another building. Here we take all our bags off the minibus and go into the building to get a Jordanian exit stamp. The officers here check my passport again before I am let into the building. Inside a queue forms behind a small pair of windows where two Jordanian soldiers are taking exit visa fees and stamping passports. I hand over my passport after explicitly telling him not to stamp it. He says okay and asks for 15JD which is the only border crossing that charges such a high fee. After paying the man, he places the Jordan exit stamp, which actually looks like a postage stamp of Petra, on a separate sheet of paper and then stamps it with a date. I take that page and then get back on another bus.

This new bus waits for full capacity before leaving and then charges us a fee for transport from one building to the next. In between there is another checkpoint. This soldier just wants to make sure we have paid our exit fees. He collects all the loose leaf pages of exit stamps and waives our bus through the check point.

The bus drives though the Jordan/Israel border lined with machine gun posts, barbed wired fences and to an Israeli building. On the side is a huge entry way where luggage is building piled through an xray scanner. We leave our bags at the front without any bag claim whatsoever and the porters slowly move them through the building. At this point I just have my daypack and we line up to go through a metal detector and another smaller x-ray machine.

An Israeli girl holding a US issued M16, checks my passport again before allowing me to go through the metal detector. I’m not sure for what but she asks for it and glances at it for not more than two seconds before handing it back. After I go through, we fill out a form and queue up in line to get our Israeli visas.

I finally reach the end hand over the form and intentionally hang on to my passport. Another Israeli girl plays 21 questions with me. Why do you want to visit Israel? Where will you go? Do you know anyone in Israel? Who are they? Where are you staying? What is the address? How long will you stay? Where in Israel do you plan on visiting? What do you do? How much money do you have? Do you have credit cards? Can I see your credit cards? Etc. She didn’t really like my indecisive answers since I don’t know anyone in Israel, I have not booked any hotel, I have no idea where I am going to go, I have no idea how long I will stay, I have enough money, I have no Israeli shekels, and no you may not see my credit cards. These types of questions go on for another 15minutes and finally she asks for my passport.

Before I hand it over I tell her that I don’t want the stamp. So she asks why? I make up answer saying that I plan on visiting other Arab countries and she asks which one. I randomly remembered Syrian as a country that didn’t allow visitors to have Israeli stamps on their passports. So she asks to see my visa for Syria. I tell her I don’t have it yet. And then she says it’s not possible for her not to stamp my passport.

Bullshit, it’s not possible, I thought. She exits the booth and goes to talk to her supervisor in a corner office. Another 10minutes go by and I am asked to go to her office. Inside, I play another game of 21 questions with the supervisor who is sporting an Uzi slung over her shoulder. The Uzi had a double sided clip for faster reloads. Finally she says that it okay and stamps another sheet of paper.

On the other side of the booths there’s another Israeli soldier that checks my passport before I am allowed to queue up for yet another booth. This soldier is just checking my passport for the Israeli entry stamp which in my case is on a separate sheet of paper. He says that I can’t enter with a stamp on a sheet of paper without writing on it. Not sure what he met, so I end up going back to the office where the girl writes some chicken scratch and then a smiley face on my loose leaf paper with the Israeli entry stamp. I show my passport yet again before I can queue up and finally getting to the front the guy says it’s ok, takes that loose page and lets me through. Before I leave I ask him what the girl wrote. It reads “it’s okay” he told me.

At the other side there are no ATMs and only one money exchange place where the worker wanders off for 15mintues at a time. There is a big pile of luggage here and I dig through all the suitcases before finding my bag. The Japanese girls I was traveling with took a big longer because they had to fill out a separate form. I changed my money and waited for them on the other side. Finally another hour goes by and they make it through as well. Going through this ordeal took an entire morning and required at least a dozen passport checks and now I am in Israel with no proof of exiting Jordan and no proof of entering Israel on my passport hoping that this is how its suppose to work.