I recently met an Australian who spent a lot of time in the area helping the people of Palestine all he could, taking part in blockades, blocking Israeli bulldozers that are destroying Palestinians homes, in the end however his positive actions were put to an end as he is no longer allowed to go into Israel, and therefore no longer allowed into Gaza or West Bank, what hope do the people there have, none really, only the hope in the rest of the world coming to their aid eventually, just like all the prisoners of the Nazi’s in world war 2, the only hope they had was that the rest of the world would come to their rescue, which they eventually did, this time though its taking a little bit longer, i’d say we are 60 years late.”

On you tube there are many more video’s one posted by both sides, both sides claim they are innocent and are just doing what they have to, yet still there is war and death there, so someone, if not both sides are lying.

A short movie after the link


Reminds you of them videos of all the prisoners in striped clothes being marched to the Nazi death camps doesn’t it.

I don’t ever recall England arming its kids in such a way, I even recall stories of sending kids away at war time, but over there in the middle east they don’t seem to give a shit! They’re all doomed, at least until that generation of kids is dead. I say put them in the battlefield now, get it out of the way, looks like they want it, their parents want it, and they are ready for it!

A thought has just occurred to me that this is evolution in action, survival of the fittest. The stupid kill themselves off, I have always seen religion to be pretty stupid, so here it is in action, people killing each other of magical make believe entities, stupid and leading to death, its absolutely beautiful, evolution in action! It does make sense doesn’t it!

“Battle not with monsters lest ye become a monster and if you gaze into the abyss the abyss gazes into you.” — Friedrich Nietzsche

First of all i’ll put these pictures of the cats up, Lee has a family of cats living outside her house, her mother doesn’t like then coming in the house, so they live quite happily just outside it, they get fed everyday. Strange thing is they don’t trust us humans!! They run away if you go near them. They had a litter of kittens, so I made it my mission to befriend them. I would catch the kittens when I could, hold them down all struggling and put their faces in cream, and put cheese in their mouths. After a while the would forget I am holding them captive and eat eat eat! Using this special method I befriended only one of the kittens, which now comes to Lee when she calls, all the others still run away!

Lee has god damn wild tortoises in her village! Crazy hey! All the time I would look for them, and then one day Lee’s dad called us to the front room and he had found one! So I took it outside and watched it walk around and stuff, it was great!

This is a rather silly dog, its a husky type dog, normally used to living in extreme colds, so it makes sense that if it is to live in the heat of the middle east then it should have all its fur cut off, it sure does look silly though! And thats the kitten that friendly now due to my special catch n feed method.

One of the places to go and visit in the north was Nazareth, the place where Jesus grew up. You could see where J.C. went drinking on street corners, see where he first kissed a girl. Talking to the locals you can get stories of when J.C. had to be carried home that night when he drank a whole bottle of Jagermeister. Also the story of when he set fire to the bins outside the offlicense, and nearly burnt down Mr Cohen the kosher butchers house. All that has changed now, J.C. is long dead and buried (after one failed attempt), and now you can go and see relics such as this in the photo, its a church built on the long fallen home of Mary, J.C’s mother. The first picture is from outside the church and the next is of some stain glass windows inside.

More of the stain glass windows inside the church. Whilst we were there a huge tour group of Italian tourists came in to see, they were loving it!

Ok, the first pic is where it all went down, J.c. was raised here, this is the remains of Mary’s house, just think, J.C. came of age there, started to get interested in girls, was proud of his first chest hair, stole money out of his mama’s purse, then had some kind of epiphany (of the highest order) and the rest as they say, is history! The second picture is from inside the church, normally I don’t like to take pictures inside temples and churches, but everyone was at it!

There’s another one from inside the church, and theres Lee looking beautiful as she had to cover up her legs and shoulder to go in, so the church gave her some shawls to do just that, she looks like a perfect christian now eh!

This is from a seperate days traveling, where we went for a big ride around the whole of the north, mainly just looking at things from the window of the car. This is a murial to mark the spot of a helicopter crash, all young soldiers, coming back from a mission in Lebanon (I think they were on their way back) and they crashed, they wern’t shot down or anything, something happened and they crashed, it was one of them big 2 blade helicopters, so there were a lot of people in it, and they all died. Each of them big stones represents a person. Israel is a country at war, death surrounds war continuously.

Now this remains of a tank is in the north of Israel, its cannon is pointing towards Syria, a country that Israel doesn’t have good relations with, and putting a gun permanently pointing towards the country is a bit childish really, don’t you think? Its not solving anything is it now, and in the second picture there is a huge Israeli flag that all the people in Syria next to the border can clearly see. Its all a bit childish really.

The group you can see to the right of this picture is a group of American school kids, who have come to Israel to have a tour, im assuming they are Jewish kids. The tour guide was telling them about the history between Israel and Sinai.

Here’s some pictures from Haifa.

Here’s a church in haifa, with barbed wire all around it, and an Israeli flag a-flying in the grounds, I just don’t know why!
And Wadi Nisnaz, ahhh Wadi Nisnaz!

This beautiful building is home to the Bahai faith people in Israel, they believe in everything, they have symbols from all religions adorning their temples, wimpy copout? Good tactics? Safe bets? Call it what you will, at least there not killing people over what they believe.

And some beautiful sunflowers!! Me and Lee took some seeds from them and they were delicious!

And thats it, i kinda sped through the last pictures, it was taking way to long to write this, and I am in Australia now, so there are Australian things on my mind, i will put some pictures of Oz on later today, I hope people are still there reading what I write!!

Me and Lee went on a trip around Israel to see some of the main attractions. one of them was obviously the Dead Sea! It really is rather salty, and you all float down there.

So, after me and Lee left her friends house, who was living near Jerusalem in a desert! we got a lift down to the main road where we attempted to hitch a ride to the Dead Sea. Whilst waiting around I took to taking pictures of the cars that were speeding past us, these guys can be let off the hook for not picking us up because we wanted to go the other direction:)

Some more car shots, what I was doing was following the car with my camera and snapping away on with a slowish speed, hoping to get the nice blury background effect that you see so much with fomula 1 and other speedy sports. It worked nicely on some of them eh.

Around the same area as the cars is this scenery, desert like and dangerous looking. The buildings in the distance look like some kind of high rise appartments, but they look abandoned post apocolyptical style don’t they, like something from mad max or the head exploding manga, Fist of the North Star.

This is another of the amazing road signs you see all over Israel, there’s always some well known city to be pointed to, or other such amazing landmarks and things to see. This sign was just behind me as I was taking pictures of the speeding cars.

After failing to get a lift a bus came along! Going all the way to the Dead Sea, it was lovely and air conditioned, as outside the bus it was hotting up a treat. As we traveled on the bus we decended down and down, outside there were signs telling us that we were below sea level, by 300 meters, then 400 meters, eventually to about 420 meters below sea level, the lowest point on the surface of the earth, and because of this it was one of the hottest. Then as we leveled off I could see the sea, the Dead Sea.

We had booked to stay in the cheapest place we could find, so we walked up this big hill, in the blazing heat, and booked in. Whilst walking up the hill we saw many of these gazelles.

The place we booked in wasn’t so nice, we booked a double room but we ended up with a 2 bunkbed dorm room for both of us, we just kinda took what we were handed really, there wasnt many other people around. We met a couple of other people, a guy from California, and a girl, but I can’t remember where she was from.

So we quickly unloaded all our things in the room and set off to have a swim in the dead sea, walking all the way back down that hill, and then along this dusty road, past a lot of road works to a kind of resort area. The Dead Sea isn’t the most beautiful sea, there’s not typical beaches, more rocky inclines. The sea was very blue though, and incredibly warm!

Every rock that was on the shore line had been coated in salt from the ever decreasing dead sea, the sea was saturated in salt, so when the sun beats down and causes the sea to evaporate, salt comes out. There are a whole host of other magical minerals in the sea, but they happily remain in it, so the white you see in them photos is all salt! I took some home to lick at my leisure. So did Lee, she loves salt to an unhealthy degree (did i tell you that she once put salt on salami?).

This is both of us having a float! See! you really do float! nice eh! Its really hard not to float like this, you try and put your legs down so you can tread water and they come floating right back up. There is a common photo you can see of people reading a book floating in the dead sea, I saw many people doing it, I didn’t have a book, but you can see from my legs sticking up that its very easy to float in it. It also had a very oily texture, and when you looked into the water, it had that the turbulent effect you see when you add 2 liquids of different densities together, it did feel very nice on the skin, very smooth feeling on the fingers! And oh so incredibly salty if you got it in your mouth!

Salt glorious salt! The stuff was all over the place!

More salt! And Lee in some kind of salty heaven.

Here is a bit of interesting history of the Dead Sea, taken from Wikipedia:-

“Until the winter of 1978-1979, the Dead Sea was composed of two stratified layers of water that differed in temperature, density, age, and salinity. The topmost 35 metres (115 ft) or so of the Dead Sea had a salinity that ranged between 300 and 400 parts per thousand and a temperature that swung between 19 C (66°F) and 37 C (98°F). Underneath a zone of transition, the lowest level of the Dead Sea had waters of a consistent 22 C (72°F) temperature and complete saturation of sodium chloride (NaCl). Since the water near the bottom is saturated, the salt precipitates out of solution onto the sea floor.

Beginning in the 1960s water inflow to the Dead Sea from the Jordan River was reduced as a result of large-scale irrigation and generally low rainfall. By 1975 the upper water layer of the Dead Sea was saltier than the lower layer. Nevertheless, the upper layer remained suspended above the lower layer because its waters were warmer and thus less dense. When the upper layer finally cooled down so that its density was greater than the lower layer the waters of the Dead Sea mixed. For the first time in centuries the lake was a homogeneous body of water. Since then stratification (the separation of the water, back to layers of different saltyness) has begun to redevelop.”

So thats was my Dead Sea experience, we had a little walk around after it, but it was way too hot to be walking around, there were some other things to see, but we just didn’t make it, we couldn’t face the heat there. So we hung about near our room, watched the sun set, then went to sleep for an early rise in the morning to catch a bus to Eilat, or to hitch a ride, which ever came first!

We woke up early, but it was still crazy hot, we made our way down the road and started with the ole thumbin for a lift. After a short while we got a lift with a guy who took us to a junction further along the road so we could intercept busses from 2 different origins. The guy questioned me about what I was doing in life, why wasn’t I married yet and so on. I guess its common for 30 year old Israeli people to be married and settled down, he asked me what I was looking for with all the traveling, he was content to stay in the thin slither of a country that Israel is, and I thirst for a larger bite of the world, nothing wrong with either really. He spoke to Lee in Hebrew for the most part, leaving me alone to look at the barren landscape around the Dead Sea. It was a desert apart from the sea, but I guess to fish the Dead sea is just as much a desert to them as a real “sand” desert is to us. So the whole area is a very harsh place to live, still people were there, living it up in fancy airconditioned hotels, pickling themselves daily in the sea. After a while the buildings along side the Dead Sea turned from being hotels to being big industrial plants, sucking up the sea and separating the various minerals that are in it. I saw one such plant thats main goal was to remove the magnesium that was in the sea, there were huge piles of salt next to the plant, salt being an uneeded by product of the extraction, Lee wanted to stop for a snack, but we didn’t have time.

We got dropped off in the middle of nowhere, it was insanely hot and we waited in a bus shelter for a bus, after a very short wait there was a bus that took us all the way to Eilat, where we wanted to go. In Eilat we quickly raced around the mall, I wanted to get a nice diving mask ready for the Red Sea. We found one, then quickly raced to get a taxi to take us to the border, where we crossed swiftly, looking forward to getting to the Red Sea for a quick swim before the sun went down. We got to a taxi rank on the other side, which was Egypt! And we jumped in the nearest taxi, which proceded to wait for about 3 hours for other people, hmmm. Here we met a great guy from New Zeland called Dean, who since he was traveling alone, came along with us to the beach we wanted to go. We got there just as it was going dark.

Our destination was a place called Sinai, it is the home of mount Sinai, where the stone slab of 10 comandments supposedly first came into being, gifted to us from god, and where Moses kindly read them out, so all the illiterates had no excuse for not following them, we didn’t actually see mount Sinai, but we saw many mountains that probably looked the same. Sinai is a desert, there wasn’t much to walk around and see, the point is more to stay put and relax, so the heat was never a problem, and if it got too hot you can go for a swim in the Red Sea, which has some of the best views when it comes to snorkling. We would go for swims in the sea about 3 or 4 times a day, each time seeing different sea creatures, my best spots where a sea snake! And several Lion fish, both of these creatures were poisonous, so I kept well away! The sea was so clear, and so full of beautiful colourful fish, it was a joy to be there. It was however, a bit cold, I don’t know why this is, as its not a particulaly large sea, and its roasting hot on the land around it.

This is Lee braving the cold waters on a rough sea day, some days the sea was as still as a still lake! Some days it was quite wavey. And thats along the coast where we were staying, the beach huts cost about £1 a night and were simply a hut with a matress inside, nothing more, nothing less oh apart from a mosquito net with holes in it.

Thats the common area in the resort we were staying, and thats a photo across the sea, which is Saudi Arabia!

And thats a mountain behind where we were staying, probably much like Mount Sinai.

And thats it for this post, im sure if I would have wrote it sooner I would have remembered much more details and things, that’ll teach me to write it sooner!

I’ll get another post up super soon, the next one will be from the north of Israel!

I look forward to hearing your comments about this post.

The Top Ten Mezuza’s of Jerusalem!

Aaaaat 10:
Its this hole with a Mezuza crammed into it, you can barely tel its a Mezuza.

OOOaaaaat 9:
Its this painted over small metal Mezuza.

Hummmmanarrrraaaaaaat 8:
Its this rustic wooden one, it would have been higher up but it looks neglected, painted over, lack of love and attention, so its at 8.

POW! at 7:
Looks like ivory, but its probably plastic, and its dirty, and you can see where the old one clearly was.

HHHHmmmmmmmmmmmmaaaat 6:
Kinda alright looking metal one, bit dirty looking though.

Woop woop woop at 5:
Sleek, metal and modern, bit boring though.

Hiiiyah! 4:
Nice coloured metal job, and looks good on glass, not bad.

OMG! 3:
Nice chunky metal one, bit dirty but I like the chunky look.

wwooooooooo 2:
Nice, clear plastic, very modern you can see the paper thing inside, s’good to know its still there.

Shit!! Number 1!:
Very chunky, very polished, very finely crafted, very good. God would be pleased if there was a god that was.

And thats it! Until I find something to do a top ten of again. Maybe soon eh, hopefully im sure you will all agree!

Anyway, onto some pictures.

One of the first things I saw in Jerusalem was this wreckage made into a statue, I think it was orignally a bus that had been blown up by an attack, Israel is full of these types of statues, thinking about the Palestinians there should be signs in many areas marking where they lost a village or lost lives all over Israel, it just doesn’t seem fair, its rubbing the Palestinians faces in it, also its making them look like the complete bad guys. Dirty tactics again. Anyway, this second picture is nearing to the old city. All over Israel the road signs are full of well known names.

As always the army was present in full force, check out them big guns that they’ve got, I think its good to show the biggest and best guns in Jerusalem. And there’s some big bomber planes speeding around in the sky

Going into the old city on the Jewish side leads you to the wailing wall. You have to pass through a lot of security to get into there, big lines of people waiting to get searched and pass through metal detectors, whilst waiting about 5 full orthodox Jewish guys just pushed me out of the way and walked right in front of me and everyone else in the line, I guess they feel like I have no business there, while they need to go to the wailing wall and wail a bit. I spoke to a lot of Israeli people that speak down about these Orthodox people, they are often very rude and arrogant. The first picture is of the wailing wall with the Golden Mosque in the background, you can see that the wall is sectioned into 2 bits, one for women and one for men, the womens area is much smaller than the mans, nothing to do with there being more men than women, its just again, men have more right to be there, its them Orthodox guys again. Second picture you see that the womens side is kinda full.

I walked up to the wall, I didn’t put a message in it, I just went to have a look. Whilst walking to the wall there were some Teflin guys asking if people wanted to do Teflin, they asked me and I said that I wasn’t Jewish, the guy then said in a sly voice “Oh, enjoy your day” and his mate laughed, nice.

Theres an Orthodox Jewish guy doing his rocking thing next to the wall. The thing to do is write a message on a piece of paper, push it in a gap in the wall, and then rock back and forth on your feet a bit.

I saw many people wobbling and rocking back and forth, I think its a kind of mourning dance, as the wall is all thats left of the holiest Jewish place in Jerusalem, well, in fact holiest place anywhere for them, im guessing it was a synagog there, and the wall is all thats left of it, i could be wrong on that though. At some point in the past the area behind the wall was taken by muslims and they built a Mosque on there. In a shop in the jewish area I saw a poster that had 2 halfs, on one half there was a picture of the Mosque from above and it said before Gog(?) and then on the other half the Mosque was gone and there was a synagog in its place and it said after Gog(?) I don’t know what Gog is but I get the message, blow up the Mosque, surely whoever made that poster must understand why the Palestinians want the Jews out of Israel, they want what was once theirs.

Some guady things in Jerusalem, a great big neon sign stuck on these ancient walls going on about how Jerusalem has been Israels for 40 years. And a Holy Bagel shop

Whilst we were walking around in the old city a tooled up security guard stopped me and asked to see my passport, I said I didn’t have it with me and he radioed into his radio that I don’t have a passport! Someone had told him to stop me! I think it was because I was mouthing off a lot about some things I had seen, one being the poster advocating the destruction of the Golden Mosque, and another thing I saw, which was a T-shirt that said “Israel- Uzi Does It” and it had a picture of the Israeli flag and a couple of Uzi sub machine guns underneath it, making out that Israel was proud of itself for having lots of guns. So yeah this kinda pissed me off, and I made no effort to keep my mouth shut about how disgusted I was, Im guessing this was why I got stopped. Anyway, they searched me and Lee and Kaye who I was with then as well. The guy did a real good search of everything, went into all the little nooks and crannies in our bags, I think just to piss us off really, no other reason. Maybe it was paranoia though.

We took a wander over to the Christian area, wandered into a nice looking church and saw lots of monks in robes. We sat down to have a rest, I crossed my legs and a guy appeared out of nowhere and told me to uncross my legs and take my hat off, If I was in a synagog I would have to wear a hat! Dunno about my legs being crossed in one though. Anyway, I looked up and took that first picture, the roof of the church. Theres some glow in the dark Marys……….mmmm nice.

Heres some strange grafiti I saw, its some chemical structures of something or other, anyone know what they are? I know I should have some idea of what they are but I don’t, although I do know water and thats there, you see it? The long one with just carbon (C) is missing a lot of bonds, there should be 4 bonds on each carbon. 10 points to anyone that can gimmie some more info.

This is from a village kinda near to Jerusalem where me and Lee went to stay, one of Lee’s friends lived there. It was a village in the middle of nowhere really, in the middle of the desert close to the Jordan border. The village follows the pattern of many of the villages i’ve been to in Israel, which is a cluster of buildings with a fence around them and a security guard at the entrance. The Israelis are a paranoid people.

And thats it for Jerusalem really, it felt a bit like a religious theme park, so much touristy crap, and so many tourists, which is what i was! It did have a lot of beauty though. It also provoked me quite a bit, what with that poster and the uzi t-shirt, more and more Israel was getting to me. I found it harder and harder to discuss the history of Israel, yet I was face with the history everywhere. There’s so much paranoia and death in the country, so much racism from both sides. I came to the conclusion that it would be better if Israel was never created, which makes me an anti-zionist. If I’d tell Israeli people that I think things would be better if Israel was never created they would say that it had to be because of the holocaust, they had to have their own place so the holocaust didn’t happen again, and the Jewish people need a place to go, which is bullshit, I have Jewish friends in England living quite peacefully, and there are many Jewish people in America living very affluently and peacefully. I would also hear the argument that Jewish people need a country as there is no country that is predominantly Jewish, but a country should never be linked with a religion, Thomas Jeferson said this on the Declaration of Independance, something like “Thou shalt not mix state and religion” which America have done now anyway. I do know that its too late now for Israel to forget itself, its there now, and its there to stay, the Palestinians need to realise this and accept their fate, Israel needs to accept that the Palestinians need more than they have now, and Israel needs to show them more respect and treat them better. Gaza has been called the largest prison in the world, the Israeli army shoot wildly into the country from their watch towers on the border, this type of action generated hatred among the people that live there. The Palestinians fire rockets over the border into Israel which also generates hatred from the Israelis, the Israeli people only get told one side of the story which makes them side with the government. America backs Israel siding with them because of the simple fact that they are the enemies of America’s enemies, America then in a way has a base in the middle east. I think America is to blame for whats going down in Israel, and the Israeli people are unwitting pawns. I got sick of reading and thinking about it all eventually, speaking to many people in Israel made me see how it wont change anytime soon, there’s going to be a lot more death before it gets better. That turned out to be a bit of a soapbox moment didn’t it, it really did provoke me though. Anyway in the words of Tom Waits “Maybe God himself is lost and needs help, maybe God is lost and he needs all of our help”

Sooo many people came out for the day (it was a sunny day, but in the 4 months or so I was in Israel, it was always sunny). Everyone having a really good time, its always good fun when gay people are involved eh, bunch of crazy loveable hedonists. Yeah, many many people came out (sheesh talking about gay people is a minefield of innuendo) to march around the streets.

Theres some Jewish theme to the day, 2 gay male jewish tortoises getting married, how sweet. And another it of Jewishness to the day, this guy was blabering on about how homosexuality is wrong, eventually he started chanting in a cheery sort of way, something about the messiah and gays Lee told me, she couldn’t quite make out what he was saying. Crazy bastard, taking time out of his schedule to come and tell everyone that they are wrong, stupid stupid crazy bastard.

Couple of scenes from the side of the road, people looking from above enjoying the scene, and some happy looking guy sat on a bin clapping his hands.

This man is obviously gay, nothing wrong with that. Them balloons did spell out google, but they got all jumbled up and now they just support the gay colour theme.

Theres a float with the lesbians on, wasn’t as popular as the gay guys one. And theres some dykes on bikes.

The march went through all the streets gathering up everyone that it passed, and eventually ended up on the beach for a party fueled by house music, makes a change from trance music. (so much god damn trance music in Israel)

I call this picture “Oh lord, are these feelings I have kosher”

Thats it really, it all went on a few months ago now so it aint so fresh in my mind, nothing really crazy went on there though.

The north is very peaceful and hilly, they call them mountains here, but they’re not, they’re hills. Lee’s parents village, Rakefet, its really beautiful, each house is designed differently, they’re all detatched, with lots of land in between. Lots of nice plants around, a fence around the whole village, with a guard and gate at the entrance. Most of the villages i’ve seen in the north are like this. The first time I went to the north I went to visit Lee’s grandad in his kibutz, for those that don’t know what a kibutz is, its a kinda of self sustaining village, they are becoming less and less self sustaining, but thats the original idea. Everyone eats in a common dining room, all the children of the kibutz live together in a cresh, seeing their parents at weekends. This type of living really worked well, but I recently read that the Israeli government poached the leaders from the best run Kibutz for themselves, hmmm. I ate in the kibutz, and saw a few of the houses there, really beautiful place! Very peaceful community living.

The first time I went to the north I went to visit a village that followed the Erin way of life, basically they believe in some universal energy, and that you are in complete control of your destiny, something like this, very peaceful community living anyway. There was one road around the village, and to get to the houses you had to walk along beautiful pathways in between the houses. There was a communal lake, and lots of benches, and a stream going through the village with fish in ponds along the stream, they really got themeselves a beautiful place to live! Again this village had a fence around it and a guard at a gate on the way in.

These are from a village that are all members of the Erin religion/following. Quiet peaceful and loving type people.

A couple more pictures from the Erin village.

Whilst driving around in the north if we saw a village in the distance I was told if it was arab or not, I don’t exactly know what it means to be an Israeli arab, but they have their own villages and everyone knows it. I got told that there are 2 big arab villages near each other, and the government built a big Jewish retail park in between them, to what gain, I don’t know, but there was some stratergy in it.

The first is of an arab village from afar, the second is from within an arab village (a different one) where we went to eat amazing humous.

This is the retail park that was put inbetween the arab villages, looks just like Crown Point north in Denton, but with more sunshine. Same stuff here thats in England, does that make you feel comfortable or sad?

Everyone talks differently about the arabs, mostly its with a negative tone though. I met one girl who said she doesnt do any business with the arabs at all, as whatever she would buy would have “bad energy”, strange to hear this hippy talk in such a racist statement, “bad energy” indeed! pfft! I bet she still eats humous, the arab dish that all Israelis love!

Next to Lee’s village when I was last there was a joint 60th year anniversary and 25th misgav anniversary (misgav is the county i was in). There was lots of singing and dancing and jokes, all in Hebrew so I didn’t get a lot of it, although lots was explained to me, it was good though, very well done, lots of co-operation and togetherness, something that England is lacking more and more, there were fireworks at the end of the show, the only thing I got pictures of from that night!

Sky flowers at night.

More sky flowers at night.

Behind Lee’s parents house, there are all these things! And I heard a noise! A kitten noise, so I went searching and found a cat with kittens!

I took the mother cat some milk and chicken, and then the next day she had moved! But close to the back door, on a chair for all to see. But the next day she had moved again, to where, I don’t know.

We went for a trip out to see a ful orthodox village, this was like going back to bible times! Apart from when I bought a wall’s ice cream. There were guys in large brimmed hats all over, people walking down the street reading the bible (although i guess in bible times people didnt do that), lots of kids running around with peyots and skull caps, women dressed in grey hiding their hair, and American jewish tourists taking pictures of it all, oh and me taking pictures of it all and of the American tourists. It was a beautiful village, it seemed so far away from everything, like nothing could threaten it (apart from the bus after bus of American tourists).

We went to a full orthodox village, these guys are full orthodox!

Some strange doorway in the orthodox village, not for fat people. And a common graphiti in israel, its some Rabbi’s name.

We also went to the Kineret, the lake where all Israel gets its water from, a lake which unsurprisingly gets smaller and smaller every year. Israel has a big problem with this, among the solutions to their water problem are, de-salinate water from the ocean and buy water from Turkey. They have to do something, anyway, Jesus walked on that lake (or so it appeared, David Copperfield appeared to walk through the great wall of China, doesn’t mean he did it). It was a normal looking lake, few people swimming in it, people fishing as well. Nearby we went to stream coming into the lake where Jesus was supposedly Baptised, there was this big building there with a gift shop selling all sorts of Jesus related crap, including official Jesus crown of thorns! Official because they were made from the same thorny bush that Jesus’s was made from, they were really whoring the whole Jesus thing out. I also saw there a fridge magnet that said Israel with USA squeezed in the middle!! IsrUSAel! Crazy eh!

This is the Kineret from a distance, the lake where Jesus walked on water. And thats one of many famous graves that were along the road we were on. They say the graves are from famous Rabi’s from thousands of years ago, but as Lee’s dad explained (the guy in the picture ) they just say that its from such a such a rabi, and there is no remains at all in the grave. People take day trips to the graves and have barbeques there, there is even a barbeque grill and pit provided! And tables just outside the grave to sit and eat your meat.

And thats the Kineret, where our J.C. walked on water, I had a go, and you know what! I could do it! Turns out it aint so special after all J.C. You got any more tricks up your sleeve? And there’s Lee

And thats my bit from the north, Soon I will go to Jerusalem, I got told its only 50 minutes away! So I don’t know why i’ve not been yet. Tommorow I go to Jaffa, the arab part of Tel Aviv, its very old and is mentioned in the bible, I look forward to seeing this, its just south of the centre of Tel Aviv.

The graphiti of the woman tell you a little bit about her, how she was born in Bethlehem, in Palestine, she’s a 3rd generation Palestinian, and now she has a Israeli passport and is living in Israel, it finished by saying “Did you know, they’re coming!” It sounds like a warning, but I got told its sympathising with the palestinians, and its a good thing that they are coming. The second graphiti says something like, “The man who shouts”.

Thats a bit non PC isn’t it! The second picture says something like “They are coming” Its related to the picture of the woman from Bethlehem.

Another one about the Palestinians, I didnt get it translated, but its a similar story im sure. And I dunno what the other one is about.

I dunno on both accounts, but still nice in a cool kinda way.

Ooooh funny Rabbi!

Oooh funny Rabbi taking a poo! And some wall flowers.

??

Its funny cos you think its gonna say marijuana, but it doesn’t!!! It says graffiti and it is graffiti!!! ah hahahah!!

“My karma ran over your dogma!” Its funny!! Sheesh that Ghandi was a funny guy, they should put him back on tv for sure.

Its father christmas!

“Know hope” Get it! Its god damn comedy central with graphiti. And theres a gun, erm BANG! hmm….

Little ones.

David star, jewish thing innit, theres shed loads of them painted all over the place, people sure do love that star round them there here parts. And see that 2012:Matriarchy, someone thinks that in 2012 the world will be run by women, or mothers, theres a lots of 2012 theories, I dunno where this one come from though, its only 4 years away, I wonder how women will take over by then, still would be a nice change if it did go that way

Ahh yes a typical Tel Aviv beach scene, big burly macho guy, submissive woman in bikini, jellyfish falling from the sky and a cow in a space suit water skiing. That other one says “I heart T.V.” yet it appears that a T.V. is being smashed.

“We all fade away” and then someone disagreeingly says “Oh really” what a banter full wall!. And the next one, someone forgot all about leaving a circle of cardboard in the O’s and B, ruined it for me that did.

Whats that, questions are the devils work? Sounds Catholic to me, or even religious as a whole, maybe not so much thought went into it. The next one i really liked because there was a sweetie taped to it! Extra dimension!!!!

Last and least, messy wall with “Who is John Galt?” on, does anyone know? I could google it, but
ll let one of you do it and send me the answer, or maybe I’ll just do it.

Thats it, this is just one afternoons walk, im gonna go out again in a different direction and take more pics of graphiti so i’ll do another page of it soon.

Be sure to check out the previous two posts, one about Tel Aviv and one from India, also there’s one more post due soon above this one about the north of Israel ENJOY!

Thats the business district of Tel Aviv, looks pretty god damn modern eh, hands up who thought Israel didn’t have anything like this.

Its the same shots as above but taken at night.

There’s a lot of culture in this city, all types of restaurant to eat, many open minded people, lots of amazing street art (see my next post). There’s many houses that have been decorated in a variety of different ways.

Another cat! There’s so many here in Tel Aviv, so many street cats! And there’s a pretty wall, there’s many decorated houses here in Tel Aviv.

Like I said, there’s many decorated houses here!!

Since being here there have been three one minute silences, one for the holocaust, and two for the soldiers, each silence was marked by an alarm sounded all over the city, I guess its the same alarm that would mark an attack if there is one. On the day of the third alarm which was at 10am parties started at 12 midday, because Israel was celebrating its 60th anniversary, Israel is 60 years old! Young country eh! Its still in this crazy state of flux since its still young, not had time to settle down yet. The Palestinians at the same time mourned 60th year since they lost their home land, but you can’t really talk about this to most people here, its a touchy subject as I find out more and more, you just can’t talk about it!

More modern builds of Tel Aviv, and check out all the Israeli flags in the second picture, something you’ll see more of scattered around all the pictures I’ve taken, good or bad thing? Im not so sure. I know that if I see too many Union Jacks its not a good thing eh, massive patriotism just aint cool, or is it??

Lee works in the mall in the base of this building, the rest of it is offices and an observatory on the top, Im not sure what you observe from up there. And there’s that flag again.

Parts of Tel Aviv are super modern, far more modern than anything in Manchester, which makes sense since the country is only 60 years old, im sure though that most people in England when they think about Israel they think about camels and bible times, it just aint like that!

Orthodox Jews!!!! Such fancy clothes they wear. Lee tells me they wear these clothes to be less provacative, so as not to alure the opposite sex, smart and understated, keeping with tradition, I do like the hats they wear. And see that flag in that window! Someone smashed the window and set fire to the flag! Hmmmmmm…..

See the guy in the first picture with the black thing on his head, thats Teflin, something Jewish men do. Theres a beautiful cat with a large head, looks kinda human doesn’t he?

Im sure most people here if asked would say they are Jewish, almost everyone im sure! But for the most part they don’t really do anything about it, just like me, im a Christian since I was christened but I don’t do shit about it, im an athiest really. But there are more religious people here than there are in England, I see lots of people in the large brimmed hats with peyots (long curly sideburns), and many people in the little skull caps. Whenever I go walking around Tel Aviv I see a group of orthodox guys trying to get people to do Teflin (I think thats the correct way to use the word “do Teflin”). Teflin is a set of 2 little boxes with a prayer in each one, and leather straps to tie one of the boxes to your arm and the other to your forehead, if you get someone to do it then you get some kudos from God, and you help someone (if you believe in it that is). You strap it on when you say your prayers i’ve gathered, it gets you that little bit closer to god, kind of boosts your connection to god, there’s always someone having a go when I see them, they ask everyone they see if they want to have a go, they’ve asked me a few times, I always say “Lo” hebrew for no, I think if they found out I wasn’t Jewish they wouldn’t let me do it maybe I should have a go, see how far I get, oh yeah another thing, its just for the men, women have no business doing Teflin.

Sheesh knows what kind of beast that foot belongs too, looks like a large reptile, but I think its a large bird, a bird of prey. That big lump of a building is the InterContinental David Hotel, I think one day i’ll go and check out the lobby, see whats going on in there.

Funny lines on a dog there. And some concrete cats.

There’s a lot of dog lovers in Tel Aviv, lots of pedigree dogs as well, so many people out walking their dogs everyday, im gonna try and get some work as a dog walker, I think ill enjoy it

Another cat!! These guys came out of nowhere and started doing this street performance, it was really funny as well! Lots of interacting with the crowd and being silly.

They started hassling this guy in blue, who had a gun, I think he was a soldier not in his uniform. They started yanking at the strap of the gun and got all tangled up in it, he looked a bit panicked but went along with it…..it was really funny!!

Then one of them climbed on top of that car, denting the roof a hell of a lot! Whilst another climbed to the top of the lampost, I didnt see him get up there but it was pretty quick!

More lampost business. And a hug! The woman getting hugged I got talking to after the show, she wanted a copy of that picture, I directed her to this site so.. Hello if your reading this! And leave a comment at the bottom of the page

Thats it, thats all I can be bothered writing about Tel Aviv at the moment, im sure i’ve missed out loads of things that have interested me, but I want to move on to some other things, im sure i’ll write more when things come to me. Look forward to hearing from you all here.

Theres one more new post under this one, called “Stories from the End of India” plus two more coming by the end of today (hopefully), so they will be above this one.