Top Gate of the Old City
Bottom Inside the Old City
Day 6 From Tel-Aviv to Jerusalem
I woke up early that hopefully I can reach Jerusalem as early as possible. I packed up and got on the bus heading to the CBS. That was no problem at all, since that was only the reverse of what I have just done. I got on the bus for Jerusalem , which was heading east from Tel-Aviv. Although I started early, I reached there at almost 1100. because of the traffic jam.
I could feel cooler and cooler as I got closer and close there. The weather there was cold, windy and cloudy. What a miserable day.
I got off the bus and went to the info counter of the CBS. I asked for the bus route by showing her the map which indicated the location where I wanted to go. I got a quick answer.
I got out of the CBS, then I realised that I forgot to ask which direction. I asked a few people but still couldn’t get that quite surely. A taxi approached to me asking for business, I of course refused firmly. But he told me that I was sitting on a wrong direction,( I told him where I go, before.) I trusted him or not? Then I decided to trust him and went to the other side of the road. I did so because I wanted to test how honest these taxi drivers are. As I was waiting for bus, I also asked a few more people. A chubby young fellow suggested me to walk; he said that it was about 15 min walk. Walking was my initial planning anyway, so I decided to walk. As I was walking, of course I would keep asking people I met on the way. Still the exact location was not clear.
I asked police, I asked security people of government buildings, I asked all kind of people. No body could tell, but they were so friendly that they all tried to GUESS what the right way they thought. End up I spend at least 1.5 hrs to finish a 15min course! At last I asked a man he could point out the right location for me. He said, I just stayed there yesterday. Lucky I had him.
The taxi driver was right. He wanted to help me. I should have listened to him to catch a bus there. That would save my time and energy. Anyway.
Checked in and put jacket on since it was becoming cooler and cooler, and the worse thing was it might rain. So the day’s sight seeing started from 1;30. I was heading to the Old City of Jerusalem. I took a bus up back to the CBS. It took 45min. I took another bus down to the Old City . It took 30min. why was that? You probably asked. The reason was that when we reached East Jerusalem, it is so called New city , In fact it is not new, it is just compared to the old one, you will realise that the city is densely populated. That means many many people live here. The roads were so old that they are very narrow and have got a lot of corners to turn. It is a hill city; the bus has to go up and down. That means bus goes very slowly. And the bus has to pass many bus stops that make the route very long.
I reached the Jaffa gate where is the most popular starting point. I saw the Old Jerusalem city wall with my eyes. It is very tall and looks very sturdy. I went into the city through the Jaffa gate. You guess what did I see? I saw another Mongkok Sai Yeung Choi Street . I walked not far away into it, I decided to get back to the outside of the city. This time I tried to walk along the outside of the city wall. I kept walking northward and I passed 2,3 gates. They are all markets anyway.
It became a bit darker and sometimes it was a little shower, too. I’d better go back to the hostel before it is too dark.
Since I spend a lot of time in the bus, I have a lot of chatting with local people. I learnt a lot from this.
To day I have a little bit disappointed but…… we’ll see.
Tomorrow is a guided tour of Jerusalem .
Goodnight.
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