so continuing my journey from the last post, the next day, we went to jerusalem! we followed a tour group of about 40 people! i must say it was difficult to run the group in a very efficient manner just cos of its size, but still, it was good to have followed a tour group! i learnt more on this trip on top of my last time here with pok! though i think it was too rushed!
i was very tired in the morning, cos the trip the day before was quite exhausting, and i was on a call till late at night so despite appeals to not sleep by the tour guide, which later turned to sarcasm, i slept all the way to jerusalem! haha! our first stop was a drive up to some mountain, where we got a panoramic view of jerusalem! i was pretty groggy, but stepping out into the cold and absorbing the view kinda woke me up! :)
after that we went down to jerusalem.. our guide stopped us on one of the streets and pointed at the row of houses standing before us. "on the extreme left, you can see buildings from 2000 years ago.. and now you go to the extreme right, those were built 2000 hours ago!" truly amazing! next we stopped at the entrance of an excavation site. apparently the current jerusalem is built on stilts, so that excavation can continue to take place below jerusalem! how cool is that! so there were stairs leading down to the excavation site, and this was what he said "every step you take, you are going 200 years back in time!" okay.. i made up the number cos i cannot really remember! but roughly lah!
we went to the different quarters and "ran" through the muslim quarter! haha! i think the guide din want us spending money there! haha! we went on the via dolorosa.. the first part nothing new cos pok and i spent ALOT of time on this and the guide basically rushed through it! and of course after that he took us to a "tourist trap"! gave us half an hour to shop and him to earn commission.. well.. of course i din contribute to his commission haha, we went out and had a coffee while the others shopped on!
the last stop on the via dolorosa was the holy church of sepulcher, where stations 10-14 reside. the last time we couldnt figure out where exactly each station was in the church.. were kinda guessing and trying to interpret the guidebook! heh..
moving on.. the guide believes that station 12 (where jesus was crucified) is authentic, while station 14 (where jesus was thought to have risen) is not so authentic. while they were excavating and rebuilding the church, they found a rock near the spot with some graffiti which says smthing like "jesus i'm here to visit the place where you were killed".. after carbon dating it they found it to be written around 9AD! muahah cool eh! on the other hand, station 14 is not thought to be authentic because in the jewish culture, one was not supposed to bury the dead within some number (416?) of steps from the city boundary.. the place where jesus was crucified was very near the city boundary and this station 14 is only about 80 odd steps from it! okay.. no pics to share cos it's too dark to take any decent fotos..
this was also where i finally understood why mary and friends only found out on sunday that jesus is gone when he was crucified on friday!.... and it's because it's shabbat on saturday!! you are not allowed to bury the dead or visit tombs on saturday in the jewish culture! and since jesus was a jew, and so was his entire family, mary pleaded with the romans to let them bury jesus before sun-down on friday (good friday), but cannot visit the tomb for the entire saturday, so only on sunday (easter) did they find out that jesus has risen! i feel very ignorant, but when i heard the story i was like... "wahhh... so des neh!!"
after the church and after lunch, half of the group headed to bethlehem while the other half continued in jerusalem!
the israeli side of the wall...
JULES! i saw the graffiti on the wall!! i din realize that they were the same ones you posted until a while later! here's one that i took a pic of:
it was quite different across the wall.. i'm not sure if it's just me and my imagination but many buildings looked empty, the streets seemed less busy, and the people felt less aggressive.. we visited the church of nativity.. the guide says that this site is authentic too, and it's all thanks to the romans! the christians were coming here to pray after jesus died, and the romans were not very happy about it.. so they erected a statue of one of the greek gods so that ppl will stop coming and worship jesus! well.. that helped mark the spot where jesus was born! hehe back-fired lah!
here is the entrance to the church. notice how small it is now (taller people had to bend to get in) and how big it used to be!
and here's the jerusalem cross perched on the church
and here's the jerusalem cross perched on the church
the pictures taken in the church din turn out very well.. too dark lah! so sorry no pics!
me and bethlehem!
the next stop was another tourist trap, where i learnt another piece of interesting info.. we were playing with one of the souvenirs in the store (a globe) and ajai showed us that where there's land on one side of earth, the direct opposite side you have water. especially evident when comparing antartica to north pole!
here's smiley me still in bethlehem waiting to cross back to jerusalem..
now come to think of it, i feel bad for smiling so brightly.. it was a fun experience for me because i never expected myself to have this chance to be here.. abit 将自己的快乐建筑在别人的痛苦上 like that.. nonetheless, it was quite an adventure i must say! and THANK YOU KIRTAN once again (though u are still not reading this) for coming to israel! it was a great weekend, fun experience and cool company! :)
