Saturday, February 27, 2010
Tel Aviv, Israel (25 Feb 2010)
In the beginning, I felt strange to see off-duty soldiers in casual wear carrying their unloaded machine guns and walking around on the streets with 70 L backpack, hanging out with their girlfriends in the shopping malls, getting their ice cream......But after a while in Israel, I started to get used to it. I felt like as if they were just carrying second mobile phones.
(Note: I was told that soldiers are responsible to bring their guns back home and have them locked in their home when they are off from duty)
Next Year Jerusalem (18 Feb 2010)
Israel definitely is not a country for budget travelers. Fortunately my friend, Ayelet, hooked me up with her nephew (Amotz) and niece (Anava) so I had free places to stay in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. Otherwise I'd be broke and not able to make it to Egypt.
Took a free walking tour in Jerusalem. The guide did an excellent job on giving us a concise run down of Jerusalem history and stories about the major part of the city. It's like a living bible. It did recall me some places and names associated to the bible that I studied long time ago although I failed most of the bible class at school. Well if they had a field trip to Jerusalem for bible class back then, I wouldn't have failed any of them. So I highly recommend to organize a bible field trip in school. Of course Fathers and Sisters are welcome.
Friday, February 26, 2010
High security Israel border (18 Feb 2010)
Learnt from guide books and many travelers that it'd be a problem getting into Israel if I had been some of their "enemy" countries especially Iran. I thought switching passport at Israeli immigration was the perfect solution to it so they wouldn't know exactly where I had been. However I didn't feel totally comfortable the day before crossing the border from Jordan, since I didn't know how to explain if they tried to trace it down. If that's the case, they might think I wanted to hide something.
I looked up internet for hours by using my i-touch through the free wi-fi in the hotel (Thanks god they had free wi-fi in this cheap hotel in Amman). Found out it was feasible to get into Israel with all the visa stamps I had although it would have high possibility of being interrogated and thorough bag searching. Their questions would probably be why, how or where I had been in those countries. The advice was just be honest. So I decided to take a shot.
After going through layers of security check at the border of Israel side, the immigration officer asked me some preliminary questions about my visit to other countries and Israel as well. Then she asked me to wait in the waiting area. After almost two hours waiting, there was another officer dressed in casual wear guided me to another side of waiting area where we sit side by side. She politely said sorry for the wait before introduction. As expected she asked me loads of questions about my trip to those countries, like: why was I going there? how long did I stay? where did I go? did I have friends there? did I stay in locals' home? how did I go there? any contacts? was it dangerous?
So I was just being honest (90%) answering all her questions. All they wanted to find out was if I was about to make trouble in their country. Guess she was happy with my reply. Then she said it shouldn't take too long to give me the stamp. After another half hour waiting, the first officer came back to me and handed me back the passport. Have a good day she said.
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
Spent a night on desert, Jordan (15 Feb 2010)
I wasn't too impressed about the jeep tour during the day on this desert, Wadi Rum. I was thinking why people kept saying that the desert was incredible. It was nice but wast super. Until the moment during sunset, the whole scene changed dramatically as the desert was veiled with red. It looked absolutly surreal. I didn't photoshop the photos here. It looked exactly like that or even better in reality.
Petra, Jordan (13 Feb 2010)
People say Indiana Jones made Petra famous. I say Petra made Indiana Jones famous. This is an amazingly big historical site located in the middle of dry dissert. Number one concern was water. It's not hard to imagine that such super low rainfalls was able to be sustainable for big population in the past while maintaining a major trade route between Africa and Middle East. They understand how to shape the stone in a way to collect every drop of water they could have. Incredible!
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