Jerusalem, what can I say? It's been on my list of top places I need to visit in my life for, well... most of my life! I've still never been to New York, or Rome, but I can now say that I've been to Jerusalem, and wow. Jerusalem is in incredible city. It's at once amazing, beautiful, calm, historic, terrifying, ancient, new, interesting, boring, fascinating, touristy, not touristy, you get the picture.
The city is a place of contradictions, there are areas of incredible beauty, and not too far away, areas of abhorrent ugliness. There are days and places of absolute tranquility and peace, and there are days and places of violence and tension that makes the air feel heavy. The old city is a monument to history, and the modern city surrounding it is a monument to progress.
Really, it boils down to this: Go to Jerusalem. At least once in your lifetime, go and see this incredible place, it is worth it.
In this post I'm mostly going to be showing photos with some captions. There is so much to talk about in every photo that it would take me forever to get through this post, never mind a whole series if I were to go into detail about it all. However I will title each section so that it can be a bit more organized and cohesive. Now without further ado, here is the first set of our photos from that most famous place in the world and in history, Jerusalem.
Markets
An orthodox Jewish man, sitting outside of the city's famous Mahane Yehuda market. (one of my favorite photos from Jerusalem)
Like spices, dates and olives? Jerusalem is the place to be!
Inside the Mahane Yehuda market, like most open air markets, it's just non stop bartering.
Outside of the market, it was a rainy day.
Two men arguing about... mmmm... something, my Hebrew and/or Arabic isn't great. In one of the market areas of the old city.
Around the famous old city (Inside the walls of Jerusalem)
An orthodox Jewish man walking through the old city, yes out of focus, but I still like the image.
Incredible covered street leading up to temple mount. This place had such an incredible atmosphere, it was awesome to just stand there and look at it.
Sabrina in the same street.
The city is an absolute maze of these covered, winding, nonsensical streets, we loved it.
Very typical street scene inside old Jerusalem.
Another very typical old Jerusalem street scene. We loved it here but later found out from friends that this area, near Damascus gate, could be quite dangerous at times. We never felt scared or threatened at all during our time in Jerusalem, but there was a bombing while we were there, and we did hear some other reports of violence.
A closeup of the actual gate part of Damascus gate, notice all the bullet holes? Yeah, we didn't see those the first time, haha.
Just past the gate (from the photo above) you leave the walls of old Jerusalem at the area known as Damascus gate. If you happen to turn around, and look to the top of the walls you'll notice the famous Damascus gate sniper. Always there... watching you.... with a sniper rifle. You seriously start to get used to it after a while.
Military and Security
There is no getting around the fact that Jerusalem can be a high tension area. At first it can be a bit unnerving how public and open the military presence is in the City, and in fact in the whole country, but you start to get used to it quite soon. It's also good to realize that they are just regular people like you and I... except they have military training and walk around with guns. They look quite intimidating, and really, you should be intimidated by them, but all of the soldiers and security folks that we interacted with were super friendly and nice. Here are some photos I got of some of the city's security and military.
On the phone.
I think these young guys were new recruits, their weapons were unloaded and there was a big training display going on right near by. I think they liked having their picture taken ;)
Some shots of the training display.
Though I wouldn't dare to even blink improperly at ANY of them, these fellas in particular gave me the distinct impression that they were not ones to be trifled with.
Police officer walking near temple mount area.
Temple Mount, the Palestinian territory separation wall, and a view just outside of the old city.
The Temple Mount complex is probably the most famous landmark in Jerusalem, and at least one of the most famous in the world. Here is a shot from up close to a section of the western wall. Not the famous area, but a more quiet section near the exterior corner.
Al-Aqsa Mosque, the third holiest site in Islam, which sits atop Temple Mount, the holiest site in Judaism. A very interesting place to visit.
View of Temple Mount. You can see the Dome of the Rock with it's golden roof. Al-Aqsa Mosque is to the left, though you aren't able to see it's dome in this photo.
Similar view of Temple Mount and the Dome of the Rock at dusk.
This is a section of the infamous wall separating Israeli controlled areas from the Palestinian territories they border. A very intimidating sight, and a sobering one when you aren't used to such directly enforced segregation.
A wider view of the above photo, showing the surrounding Jerusalem neighborhood in the foreground.
In this photo I have walked across the valley of Hinnom to get a different view. Up to the right and across the valley is where I had taken the previous photo from.
Mount of Olives with Sabrina and friends.
From an olive grove on the mount of olives, across the Kidron Valley you can see Temple Mount and the Dome of the Rock. It's a very quiet and peaceful place, great to get away from the hustle and bustle of the city for a bit.
Sabrina on the Mount of Olives.
Our friends Dan and Ingrid taking a selfie on the Mount of Olives.
Dan taking photos of old Jerusalem.
Ingrid and Sabrina hanging out. This is the other side of the olive grove.
Sabrina and myself, taken by Dan.
Selfie time!!
Well folks that's it for Part I of our Israel travels! I'm still actually editing the photos between paid jobs that I need to focus on but hopefully I will have more soon, I can't wait to post our shots from Masada and the Dead Sea, it's an absolutely incredible place. As always if you like the post feel free to throw me one of those sweet, juicy up votes. You know I love em'! And follow me @dexter-k on Steemit for more new original content all the time.
Dexter