Israel Day 8 : Mount of Beatitudes & Sea of Galilee

Okay.. bear with me people..

my Israel Blog will be finishing soon. haha..

it’s 8/12 days in Israel.. so yeah.. 

i think i wont write much in this entry. but we’ll see how it goes. haha..

firstly, i want to show you our very last hotel in Israel. 

not a very luxurious, like the previous one.. 

it’s more like a very old resort for me, whereby u still locked the room with the traditional key, only few floors there, and no wi-fi at all at the building, except the lobby. haha..

so yeah. you can always find us in the lobby every afternoon and evening, engrossed with our smart phones, giggling and spamming the instagram. haha.

but on the higher note..

our hotel is facing the Sea of Galilee.. 

i took the above pics from my instagram, so thats why the pics size is a little bit different. hehe.

we met a lot of American-Jewish there..

and got a chance to know one of the girls.

we chit-chat about 20mins.. and we learnt something new about how the Jewish preserve their race on earth by arranging a free camp to Israel and hope that some of them can fall in love, got married and give birth to more Jewish..

well. they are indirectly match-making them with some good motives, to know your more about your Jewish root. haha.

*i will talk more of this on my next post*

 

move on to my Day 7

this day was very ‘adventurous’. why?

because we are climbing to the mount – not literally,

but literally sailing on the sea where Peter walks on water 2013 years ago. hihi..

okay. so firstly is Mount of Beatitudes, the place where Jesus deliver the “Happy” sermon on the Mount. hehe..

well.. like i said we did not literraly hike the Mount, because they already furbished it with some souvenir shop at the entrance, decorate the whole path with water fountain and “Happy” verses along the way to the church.

yess.. like most of the ‘sacred’ places, they’ll surely built up a church on it.

*thank God for CROCS! this flat-shoes really comfortable for travelling* hehe

 they also have the monastery house there.. owh. i think it’s a pretty buildings and garden. hehe..

*if you place this somewhere else, it just looks like some rich people’s house, isnt it? haha*

 

The city of Capernaum.

A town in Galilee where Jesus taught in synagogue and healed the man who was possessed by an evil spirit (Luke 4:31-36)

not much to see here, and somemore the weather on that day is not friendly at all.

i think that’s the hottest day ever in my whole trip. haha

but i like the ruins of the synagogue. it’s just sooo nicee. i love the big pillars.

like i travelled back to some ancient greek time, where Zeus is still known as a god of the greeks.

 ci bom with her triple protection : sunblock, hat and umbrella hahaha

gigantic crocodile tongue. ahahaha.. i mean aloe vera.. 

is there any other name than aloe vera? cause it doesnt sounds right for a plant.

aloe vera drink just sounds better. haha.  

 

the Sea of Galilee

okay.. this is one of a kind experience. because we sailed on the sea where Jesus asked Peter to walk on the water, and it was my very first sermon on the boat.. haha.. *sounds very tacky*

we also have small session there,

firstly we get to know others first (since we are together with some other small group that came from all over the world), then we sing some songs and he finally he shared something about Faith.

well.. i think all pastors will share the same thing if we are talking about walking on the water.

Faith to walk on your ‘water’, the impossible. =)

 quite a big boat, right ?

i think i can jog around here. haha.

as we approaching the land..

ill see you again on my next Israel’s entrees. =)

Advertisement

Israel Trip : The Wall & Day 4

Before i continue to our 4th day.

i want to share this first with you

we went here on our 3rd day. when we about going back to the hotel. 

if you think that it’s just a normal graffiti done by the youngsters there, like we have it in Somerset (scape park), Singapore.

too bad, it is not. 

it’s Palestine-Israel border wall.

 

it was made by the Israeli to separate them from Palestine. 

a kind of an action that they made to protect themselves from the Palestinians.

we always thought that Palestine are full with unfriendly people, like what many media portrayed.

but when we were there, they are actually not that bad..

well.. while we took some pictures here. some people did scream at us in a language that we dont understand.. 

maybe they think it’s an offense by taking our ‘touristy’ pictures there. 

but we already asked our tour guide.

and apparently he said okay. so. why not? haha

we want it simply because we found it interesting and historical in one way or another. haha.

 

i thought it’s just a normal border wall. like to let people know that they are entering Palestine.

like we enter Johor, Malaysia from Singapore.

and i just knew it means more than that. 

we got a chance to chat with a Palestinian.

started with a light conversation that was made by our friend, Raimond.

 

‘do you play basketball?’

‘yes, how do you know?’

..

and the conversation went deeper. 

we asked him some questions about Palestine and all. 

and to my surprise, he was willing to share.

he said it’s like living in a little prisoner there. they are not allowed to enter Israel whenever they want. 

they need visa to go to Israel. 

and its not easy to get the visa. *he showed us his visa and ID too, maybe we have this disbelief face, until he  showed us his.*

 

like if you applied it today. there’s no guarantee that they will grant you in 2 weeks time. or 1 month time. etc etc. *where we as a normal tourist, we need to apply visa 6 weeks before arrival.. some timeline they gave us. so at least we know what to expect*

and the duration of the visa is up them also. they c to an give you 3 moths of stay, maybe less or more. it’s really up to them. 

we also asked, then why you dont go for another country.

and he said. they just cant. it’s very difficult to get the visa as well, and cost a bomb to them too. 

because the salary there is not much, and the government cant do anything about it.

so sad to hear this kind of story. hopefully things will get easier for all of them. 

 

On a lighter note.

we proceed to..

 

Day 4

The Upper Room – known as the room of Last Supper.

forgot to take how the whole room looks like.. =(

the room is quite small. maybe like a 3 bedded apartment in Singapore but without any partitions. hehe.

the room is a very simple room with a little bit of decoration.

apparently this room is symbolic. not a really exact place where God pours down the Holy Spirit to the 120 people (Acts 2)

 

but this place leaves a special place in my heart.

i can feel the presence of God soo strong there eventho its symbolic. (sorry if i sound weird for those of you who are not Christian. hehe.. but that’s truly what i felt)

we prayed there as well for us, our future and our TLG *our youth* congregations too.. hehe..  

and when we prayed there, it felts so nice.. like i dont want stop praying and praising God. it feels like.. home.. 

then it comes to my thinking. why the presence of God is so strong there eventho it’s only a symbolic place?

and ive got the answer.

it’s about expectations. 

it’s about our way of thinking.

before i left for Israel, i have a yearning to pray in the upper room (well. since we didnt go there with pastor, we wont have any sessions unless we pray there by ourselves)

 

i have expectations that it will be a very great praying session..

i want God to do something with me like what He did to the 120 people there. 

i have this mindset that God is there.. 

and i think that is why i felt the atmosphere is different there..

God gave it when you are expecting things from Him. hehe.. 

our first group photo after upper room

– the king David with his harp –

 

Ein Karem – birthplace of John the Baptist

you can found this ‘decorated hole’ in every church that is believed to be someone’s important birth place.

in this case is John the baptized. 

so you can touch that and pray in the altar as well.

 

 

and somewhere there we found PAULANER! hahaha.. 

i dont expect to see this cafe/bar somewhere near a church. 

and somemore it’s in Israel. haha..

guess they know how to indulge themselves too. muahahha. 

and a little nice cafe beside paulaner.

ahhh.. how i wanted to just sit there and relax and sheltered myself from the hot hot sunn.. *fiuhhh*

Yad Vashem – the Holocaust Museum

 view at the back of Holocaust Museum

It’s world largest Holocaust Museum. it’s a nice museum i may say, in terms of building and how they set the place. and yet a very sentimental place too. 

they displayed everything that can display there.

like the history of Hitler, belongings of the victims, videos of people who survived the Holocaust, who saved them, and what countries they fled to. etc etc.

i still cant comprehend why this Hitler guy hated Jews so much.. 

and im still in ‘awe’ on how he can managed to take over other Europe countries at that point of time, and tell the government to kill all the Jews there.. 

many stories there that is very heartbreaking.

like there’s a story from a woman who once lived in Holland, if im not mistaken, she comes from a Jews family. and when the Nazis want to take their family, her mother quickly hide her in a cupboard and only said to her ‘go to aunt … house’. and that’s it. that’s the last word that she heard from her mother. =(

and the Nazis have million ways to eliminate the Jews as well.

with the concentration camp, killing the mentally ill with some gasses in the back of an old truck.

Stuffing them on the train with less air and without food given, and let the train runs for 10 days. 

and tell them to dig their own graves and shot them after that.. 

hoahh.. what a frustrating facts. 

after this we went to..

 

Pool of Bethesda

a pool whereby the sick can get healed if he/she stepped in to the pool when the angel troubled the water. 

(John 5)

 they said the real Bethesda Pool is deep down there.. 

but they left a pretty ruins i may say.. hehe..  

and our last stop for the day is

 

Via Dolorosa (the way of Jesus’ suffering)

all of us know that Jesus need to take the cross and walk in a very hot, long and winding road before they crucified them..

and to my surprise as well. the christian and the catholic have a different believe on this via dolorosa thing.

the christian believe that Jesus has walked this way, lets say the right path.. 

but the catholic said that Jesus walked to the left. 

and both of them build a church there. hauhaua..

well.. *mau2 mereka dehh* 

and today we just walked the via dolorosa. so we dont go the catholic / christian churches yet.

and another surprise.

it is now a very bigg market.. *like Grand Bazaar in Turkey maybe* haha

*jadi kurang begitu ada kesan sentimental.nya disini. hehehe*

the Damascus gate, if im not mistaken. hahaha.

the old one is below there..

and the new one is up here.. hehe.

that’s all for my 4th day. 

hope you enjoyed the read. =)