This post is about our visit to the Machane Yehuda market in Jerusalem, one of the most famous food markets in Israel and a must-visit destination for foodies.

The Machane Yehuda is one of Jerusalem’s most authentic markets. It’s the best place to literally get a taste of Middle Eastern flavors and Middle Eastern life. It’s a very local market full of color, life, sounds, and, of course, tastes.

Many of the shops have been around for at least a hundred years, if not more. This is Jerusalem, after all, one of the oldest cities in the world.

I visited late in the afternoon, but the market was still alive with shopkeepers trying to sell off as much of their fresh foods as possible, and with locals buying ingredients for dinner — plus tourists like me snapping away at all the exotic and interesting foods on offer.

This market is literally eye candy for the adventurous foodie. And for Orthodox Jews, it’s seventh heaven as everything sold here is kosher. I even found some stalls selling the clothing worn by Orthodox Jews — including the white inner vests and the black caps.

Most people were very friendly, and I kept getting offered all kinds of food including nuts and fruits, and even cooked meals like little plates of rice topped with nuts and raisings.

“HAVE SOME…”

I was quite full from lunch and determined to keep to some kind of diet during my trip. But I couldn’t very well refuse all these offers coming at me as I walked through the market’s “street.”

The post Visiting Machane Yehuda market in Jerusalem appeared first on TRAVELIFE Magazine.

I never forgot this story and it’s quite timely to think about now as I’m packing my luggage to fly to Tel Aviv for another memorable #Travelife to Israel. I still have to fly to Tokyo this weekend and then it’s on to Hokkaido for some last hurrah skiing next week before getting on that plane for Tel Aviv; but yes, I’ll be in Israel sooner than I can say “Happy Hannukah.”

 

On that particular trip to Israel, I’d spent one morning in the Old Town section of Jerusalem, you see, when my guide decided to tell me this story. In fact, I can still remember exactly where we were — we were standing on a landing overlooking the Wailing Wall and the Al Aqsa Mosque. Living a never-ending Travelife, of course.

 

THE POPE, THE RABBI AND A TELEPHONE CALL TO HEAVEN FROM JERUSALEM 

 

Anyway, the story goes that the Rabbi of Jerusalem once visited the Pope in the Vatican in Rome. When he entered the Pope’s office, he saw a gold telephone on the Pope’s desk. So the Rabbi asked the Pope: “What is that?”

The Pope answered: “Oh that? That’s my telephone for calling God.” The Rabbi was very impressed. He said to himself then: “I definitely have to get myself one of those.“ 

 

THE POPE VISITS THE RABBI

 

Then a couple of months later, the Pope visited the Rabbi in his office in Jerusalem. By that time, the Rabbi of Jerusalem had already gotten himself a gold telephone for calling God, and this was proudly displayed on his table.

 

The Pope saw the gold telephone and said to him: “I see you’ve gotten yourself one of those gold telephones for calling God.” The Rabbi nodded happily. Then the Pope continued: “It’s really very useful to have a hotline to God. I just wish it was cheaper to call God.”

  

COMPARING COSTS OF A TELEPHONE CALL

 

The Rabbi asked the Pope: “Why? How much does it cost you to call God on your telephone at the Vatican?” The Pope answered: “It’s very expensive. It costs me about US$1,000 a minute to use my gold phone.” The Rabbi shook his head and remarked: “That’s unbelievable. How very unfortunate for you.”

The Pope was surprised. So he asked the Rabbi: “Why? How much does it cost you to call God from your telephone in Jerusalem?” The Rabbi answered: “Only about ten cents a minute.”

  

The Pope was shocked. He said: “Ten cents a minute to call God? But how can that be?” The Rabbi answered: “Well, for me in Jerusalem, talking to God is just a local call.” We all burst out laughing at this joke. Hope you enjoy it too, wherever in the world you happen to be, on just another wonderful day in our never-ending, and never-endingly eventful Travelife.

The post The Pope, the Rabbi and a telephone call to Heaven from Jerusalem appeared first on TRAVELIFE Magazine.

On that particular trip to Israel, I’d spent one morning in the Old Town section of Jerusalem, you see, when my guide decided to tell me this story. In fact, I can still remember exactly where we were — we were standing on a landing overlooking the Wailing Wall and the Al Aqsa Mosque. Living a never-ending Travelife, of course.

The Pope, the Rabbi and a telephone call to Heaven from Jerusalem

Anyway, the story goes that the Rabbi of Jerusalem once visited the Pope in the Vatican in Rome. When he entered the Pope’s office, he saw a gold telephone on the Pope’s desk. So the Rabbi asked the Pope: “What is that?”

The Pope answered: “Oh that? That’s my telephone for calling God.” The Rabbi was very impressed. He said to himself then: “I definitely have to get myself one of those.“ 

THE POPE VISITS THE RABBI

Then a couple of months later, the Pope visited the Rabbi in his office in Jerusalem. By that time, the Rabbi of Jerusalem had already gotten himself a gold telephone for calling God, and this was proudly displayed on his table.

The Pope saw the gold telephone and said to him: “I see you’ve gotten yourself one of those gold telephones for calling God.” The Rabbi nodded happily. Then the Pope continued: “It’s really very useful to have a hotline to God. I just wish it was cheaper to call God.”

  

COMPARING COSTS OF A TELEPHONE CALL

The Rabbi asked the Pope: “Why? How much does it cost you to call God on your telephone at the Vatican?” The Pope answered: “It’s very expensive. It costs me about US$1,000 a minute to use my gold phone.”

The Rabbi shook his head and remarked: “That’s unbelievable. How very unfortunate for you.”

 The Pope was surprised. So he asked the Rabbi: “Why? How much does it cost you to call God from your telephone in Jerusalem?” The Rabbi answered: “Only about ten cents a minute.”

The Pope was shocked. He said: “Ten cents a minute to call God? But how can that be?” The Rabbi answered: “Well, for me in Jerusalem, talking to God is just a local call.“

We all burst out laughing at this joke. Hope you enjoy it too, wherever in the world you happen to be, on just another wonderful day in our never-ending, and never-endingly eventful Travelife.

The post The Pope, the Rabbi and a telephone call to Heaven from Jerusalem appeared first on TRAVELIFE Magazine.

Sunset over the Dead Sea this morning

Even by our never-endingly eventful Travelife standards, it would be hard to beat this very interesting day in Israel that began with a warm swim in the salty water of the Dead Sea, and continued on to Tel Aviv for a look at an award-winning installation by an Indian artist at the Venice Biennale.  Then I went for a test drive of the world’s first electric car with a replaceable battery.

That’s me driving the car, with Elad, the instructore, next to me.

You would think that would be enough for a Travelife sort of day. But after driving the car around some Tel Aviv neighborhood (and you’ll read more about this in a later blog entry), we went on to the Jaffa Port to have dinner and watch a much talked about show at the Nalaga’at Center.

I’m going to recount tonight’s experience before anything else, as it was truly memorable for me. It was full of new experiences and it made me think about so many things in my own life — and that’s what travel should really do for a person.

Travel should give you opportunities to push your own boundaries, and also opportunities to reflect and contemplate. Tonight I had all these.

Adina Tal, founder

The evening began with a meeting with Adina Tal, founder of the Nalaga’at Center, and Talia Winokur, Resource Development Manager, over simple cocktails that were served by deaf persons at the Cafe Kapish next door.

This is how I learned about Adina’s heroic efforts to give lives back to the deaf-and-blind of Israel.

Adina is a theater professional. Several years ago, she had the opportunity to conduct a workshop for the deaf and blind. This was her first contact with people with these kinds of disabilities. And from then on, she never looked back. She helped train them to perform in a show that has received rave reviews and is traveling the world over. In January 2013, the group is headed for New York for a series of performances.

After the show, everyone is invited to taste the bread and to talk to the performers

These shows are literally a reason to live, for these people who are both deaf and blind.

Many of them started out as deaf — either they were born deaf or they became deaf early on — and then their illness caused them to eventually become blind.

Scroll down to read more…

I tried to imagine — and, I must admit, not without horror — the terrifying and terrible experience of being both deaf and blind, or of gradually becoming both deaf and blind.

In such a situation, your mind is alive and you have so much to express, but you have almost no facility for communication. Your world is slowly and literally closing in.

Talia

Talia admitted to me: “It is a terrible experience to be deaf and then to grow blind as well. Many of the people who come to our center admitted to thoughts of suicide.”

But happily, the Nalaga’at Center and the regular shows they put on by the Jaffa Port as part of the Deaf-Blind Theatre Ensemble are able to give back to these people some part of their lives.

I watched them onstage tonight performing the show “Not By Bread Alone,” helped by interpreters and assistants. You must remember that they are performing as regular actors but they cannot actually see or hear anything.

When I saw them onstage and I thought about their situations, I felt like crying.

Yes, it’s been a most emotional visit to Israel, and beyond the historical sights and religious backgrounds — or perhaps because of these? — Israel is truly an emotional country.

To heighten the experience to a depth I can’t even begin to describe, I decided to have dinner at the Black Out restaurant next door, which is affiliated with the Nalaga’at Center but run independently. It’s a restaurant for about 30 persons that operates in complete darkness, so you eat your meal as if you are blind.

There are several restaurants like this around the world, but this one is special because the waiters and waitresses are all legally blind. So whether they are in the kitchen or in the restaurant, they really can’t see anything.

In other hip cities like Paris or New York, there are also restaurants resembling Black Out — but the servers wear night-vision goggles or use some special technology to get their way around the dark. Here in Tel Aviv, the servers are truly in the dark whether they are in the restaurant or not.

Scroll down to read more about dinner in the dark…

I decided to do this, although as it was a last-minute decision and there were no other seats available, I had to go alone. As I actually have claustrophobia, this was a very big deal for me to spend over an hour in pitch darkness with complete strangers.

However, as I have decided to rise up to all sorts of challenges this year, I took the plunge.

First let me explain that it really is utter, utter darkness. You can’t bring cameras or phones, no one turns on any kind of illumination, and it is so dark that you can’t even see your finger in front of you. Pitch black.

You enter by holding the shoulders of your server. Immediately, your sense of hearing is heightened because you have lost your sight.

I became aware of dozens of voices all over the room, echoing like in a theater with good accoustics — but there was not one word I understood because no one was speaking English.

This, of course, increased my sense of isolation further.

My server, Maya, who is of course legally blind, led me to my table, where I sat in front of an Israeli couple. She had already told me who she was seating me with, so I knew it was couple in front of me, although I couldn’t see them.

Maya told me, as I sat down: “You can talk to them. They speak English.”

Scroll down to read more about the couple in the dark…

So we began talking in pitch darkness, which was truly surrealistic. I found out that they were both engineers who were living in the seaside town of Haifa, and that it had been the girl’s birthday yesterday — so this was a surprise for her. What a surprise it was, indeed.

They were midway through their meal when I came in, as I’d come from the cocktails. While waiting for my food, I asked them: “How is it to eat in utter darkness?”

The guy answered: “Very interesting. I’m eating with my fork and one hand.“

Maya, my legally blind server tonight

We talked about all sorts of things, and Maya joined us every so often. She was especially concerned about how I was feeling, as I told her I had claustrophobia but I was determined to do this.

Earlier on, I’d also asked her: “How do you manage to walk around?” She walked around completely normally, you see.

She answered: “What’s so difficult? This is just like walking in my own home.”

When my food came, I was surprised that I had not too much trouble eating it. But I did ask Maya: “Is it better to eat with your eyes open or your eyes closed?” It didn’t really matter, right, as you can’t see anything either way.

She replied: “I prefer to eat with my eyes open in the darkness, as I find that I get sleepy if I close my eyes.” On the contrary, I realized that I ate better with my eyes closed, as my sense of taste and hearing got stronger somewhat.

Tonights’s dinner companions in the dark: Birthday girl Adi Fuchs and her boyfriend Micha Milshtein

Talking to these three people but not seeing them was an interesting experience, indeed. It’s surprising how the mind can form images of people even before you can see them.

By talking to the couple in front of me, I had a sense of what kind of people they were — including how old they were and how they looked.

After dinner, we left the restaurant together so we could finally see ourselves. I was completely surprised to find out that they looked completely different from what I had imagined!

This is definitely a must-experience in Tel Aviv, especially the Black Out dinner and show combination.

Just another day in our never-ending, and never-endingly eventful Travelife. Good night from Tel Aviv.

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That’s the Wailing Wall, ever-present symbol of Jerusalem

Music played while we saw the different artists projected onto the plastic tubing

This morning, I woke up at 330 AM in Amman, Jordan and took the 25-minute flight from Amman to Tel Aviv, Israel. The flight is so short that I barely had time for a few sips of orange juice and one article in the FT Weekend, and then we were landing in Israel’s Ben Gurion International Airport.

This may be among the shortest international flights in the world, but it certainly is among the most expensive I’ve ever paid for. I looked online and checked with travel agencies in Manila and Amman, and the prices were all the same for that very short flight. Including taxes and surcharges, economy comes up to about US$620 and business class to about US$1000. Yes, all that for a 25-minute flight.

As you can imagine, the flight wasn’t too full. The other option from Amman to Jerusalem or Tel Aviv, you see, is over land; and that’s pretty near, except that border procedures may take time. From Amman to the Israel border is only about 45 minutes, and then from there to Jerusalem, it’s just over an hour.

But depending on who you talk to, border procedures can take quite a while. So, because of this uncertainty, and the fact that the most of the people I was traveling with in Israel were also roughly landing in Tel Aviv directly from Asia on other airlines at about the same time, I decided to go on the plane instead.

After checking into my hotel in Jerusalem, I walked around the local shopping center and bought a whole bag of Dead Sea skin care products. I really like the Dead Sea products and they work for me, so I thought I’d take advantage and stock up, especially as they’re quite hard to get abroad. With the exception of the Ahava skin care line, most Israeli skin care companies using Dead Sea minerals are not available outside of Israel.

In the afternoon, I visited the Holocaust Museum in the hills of Jerusalem. The last time I was in Jerusalem, I didn’t go to this museum, and I’ve really been wanting to see it.

I spent the whole afternoon here. It was superbly done and so touching that I broke down in tears halfway through, and had a heavy heart for the rest of the afternoon. It’s very sad but it’s a must-visit place in Istrael. Don’t ever miss this if you find yourself in Jerusalem.

More on this experience in a later blog entry, as this deserves its own entry.

Scenes from daily life in Israel

The heaviness didn’t go away for the rest of the day so I didn’t even have an appetite for dinner. Fortunately at 8 PM, we went over to the Israel Museum to see the installation exhibition/ performance of the internationally-famous Israeli artist/ designer/ architect Ron Arad in the museum gardens. Called 720 Degrees, it’s currently the talk of art circles in Israel. I love all kinds of art, so this really lifted my spirits back to its usual place.

We’re so lucky it’s on here in Jerusalem during our two-day stay as it really was quite an experience. And even if we are lucky enough to catch this somewhere in the world in the future, I think the experience of seeing it in Israel is really somethinge else because of the location itself.

It’s so cutting edge and it was so surreal to have experienced this ultra-modern and high-tech installation only several hundred meters away from the remains of one of the oldest and most controversial cities in the world.

Food and drinks in the gardens of the Israel Museum

The Israel Museum is simply beautiful, and tonight it was so crowded with people who had flocked to see Ron Arad’s temporary exhibit.

The gang’s all here to literally enjoy an evening out.

Everyone walked around the gardens in a happy mood, and tables were set up to sell drinks and snacks to people watching the show. The weather was fine and the entire atmosphere was not unlike a very cool lounge set-up.

In one corner was a temporary installation made of plastic that was circular in shape and the size of a small building. People could go inside this and watch the show by separating the plastic tubes, or they could stay outside — but whether they stay in or out, they will see beautiful images being displayed onto the plastic tubes for a pretty visual and surreal experience.

High-tech installations in an old city

I sat for the next 90 minutes mesmerized by the interplay of light, color and form in this makeshift arena  that changed mood and feel by the minute. This is a temporary installation made with plastic tubing, that videos are projected onto. They can be seen and enjoyed from almost anywhere in the vast gardens.

Later on, I said to my Israeli friend, who had accompanied us that evening: “Gosh, Israel is so cool. It’s hard to believe I saw such a cutting-edge exhibit in one of the oldest cities in the world.“

He said to me: “Yes, Israel is alive and going on with life in spite of everything. This is how we live, this is how we celebrate life, and this is one of the ways we are able to keep sane.”

What a wonderful art experience in Jerusalem, one of the oldest and most fascinating cities in the world. I sat on the garden for rest of the evening, contemplating my luck and the perspective of problems in one’s world.

I being in the middle of grandeur in the middle of nowhere in Petra just the other night, and then today face-face with a full blown experience of the Holocaust, followed by a most enjoyable and mind-blowing exhibition in the gardens of the hills of Jerusalem.

The world truly is so wonderful and there is so much to discover and experience. Don’t put off for another day your never-ending, and never-endingly eventful Travelife.

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