i promised an update some weeks ago, and i'm finally fulfilling my promise. the last trip to israel was especially fruitful! work-wise, and fun-wise. i'll start with the fun stuff =)
so kirtan, my colleague from india came over to israel for 2 weeks. he just joined our team and was here to learn about the company, procedures etc before going back again to india to fulfil his duty. i must thank him again for coming to israel! and so must you, cos if not for him, i don't think i'll drag my butt out of my hotel room on the weekend and visit exotic places, learn new things, have fun things to blog about! *chorus* "THANK YOU KIRTAN!"
i couldnt bear for him to stay in the hotel room over the weekend just cos no one was going to bring him around.. i'm pointing fingers at another colleague of mine whom i shall not name here! haha =) so i volunteered, though a little unwilling at first (i still wanted to rot in the hotel room). we finished dinner on thursday night at about 9pm, and decided to go through my faithful guidebook to see where there is to go. we decided to go to the north, cos i've not been there before.. had wanted to book a taxi to take us around, but found out that we could still book a tour! so we went with the tour instead! =)
the first stop was caesarea, "old junk" as menno would call it.. some ruins from the crusader's period!
here's me with the restored amphitheatre sorta thing in the background
and me again with a large foot
and me me me with the ruins in the background =)
haha there were only the 2 of us, so it's either me taking pictures of kirtan or him taking pictures of me, and since this is my blog, you shall only see pictures of me! muahahah =)
oh and here's a piece of well maintained mosaic we found! these rich people (of all times) really have too much money and time to spend.. these mosaics were so painstakingly created!
next we went to haifa, more specifically, we went to the bahai gardens.. where the founder of the bahai faith is buried. i think i've blogged about this before, but i shall talk about it again. apparently the prophet of the bahai faith is the grandfather of the founder. he was locked up in akko (another place i visited on this trip) and from his cell window, he could see the mountains where the bahai gardens now sit, and he asked his grandson to buy it! his grandson was the one who penned down his words and eventually formed the bahai religion. it's the second time i visited the gardens.. (so i din download the fotos kirtan took thinking i have it somewhere but i don't! so sorry no fotos to share...) this religion places alot of emphasis on beauty, and i learnt that, every member of the religion must donate $1 a day! they have about 6million believers all over the world! this is exactly where they got all the money to build beautiful shrines and gardens everywhere!
3rd stop is rosh hanikra! my favourite! this place is right at the israel-lebanon border! it's a white chalk cliff face with a sea cave, and we could walk right behind the caves looking into the waters rushing up at us! okay this description does not do justice to the coolness of the place.. anw, it's a little like niagara falls (to those of you who've been there), where you can walk behind the cave watch the waters splash up against the cave walls, and in some cases at you!
we were first gathered at some steps leading down to the waters (behind the railing). i came late, so i wondered aloud how come no one went to the bottom of the steps close to where the action was! and i courageously took a step down.. at the same time, the water splashed into the opening, wetting the first 5 steps!! i immediately stepped back! and took a picture right there with a new found friend - asami! she's from japan! and was on a backpacking trip to israel for 3 weeks!
we continued on our journey through the caves, and we stopped at this one bridge. we were supposed to cross the bridge to get to the other side, but this bridge was hovering above the waters.. okay not exactly hovering lah, but the waters were splashing onto the bridge (and anyone on the bridge at that point of time). so we hesitated! but the guide said "go go go!!" so i went, followed by some others and the guide himself! when i reached the other side, stupid me decided to follow another few peeps on a downward sloping trail.. so did the others behind me! and so, as you may have guessed, the water splashed onto the bridge and of course, down the trail (i should have noticed something was amiss when i saw that the trail was wet!) .. so the water came rushing down and i ran down the trail trying to be faster than the water and trying not to slip at the same time! but of course i did not succeed, so clever me held on to the railing on the side and jumped on the wall to let the water gush past me! :) after the water passed, i jumped down from my safe spot and looked back, there kirtan and asami were, drenched to their ankles! hahaha! it was cruelly funny! wet socks are never fun! but i couldnt stop laughing! kirtan had to sun his socks and walk around barefooted for a while! hahaha!
presenting the elephanteater! it looks like an elephant and an anteater at the same time right?
here's all 3 of us, wet socks and all, after emerging from the caves
as i mentioned before, we were at the israel-lebanon border! and this is what we found!
can you spot the buoys that form the lebanon-israel border on the water? think it's not so visible in the foto lah... but cool picture where the sky joins the sea!
and here's a heavenly view from the top of rosh hanikra! so pretty!
after lunch, we went to akko, a world heritage site! it was beautifully restored, but personally, i feel that the restoration caused it to lose its beauty of "old junk".. everything was too neat and pretty and i din like it that much. and by this time we were pretty tired, for it was the last stop of our trip and we have exhausted all our energy running away from gushing waters in rosh hanikra!
this used to be the "holiday inn" of older times.. they had rooms on the 2nd floor and car-parks (stables) on the ground floor!
this used to be jail cells.. do you notice how clean and white that row of cells are as compared to the rest.. well.. this is where the bahai prophet was locked up, where he saw and bought the mountains for the bahai gardens..
this is my guide for the trip, i must say he's a terrific guide!! 5 stars!! cant rem his name now though...
asami and myself at the lighthouse at akko! haha forgot to turn the foto around, lazy to re-upload so shall leave it as it is! :P
with this, i conclude day 1 of my exciting weekend.. haha.. there's more to come, but i think this is the most exciting part le, so no loss if i dun finish blogging right? haha =)
