The old city of Jerusalem is TINY. It is one square kilometer and built atop its own ruins. In some excavated areas I could look down ten feet and see the top of the city walls from 800 BC. The current streets and walls date from 1537 AD. Every street is packed with history, and …
We now head toward Galilee to see the ministry sites of Jesus. My mental picture of most Bible stories are two-dimensional felt boards, so I am excited to replace that with the experiences of real places. Nazareth and Basilica of the Annunciation: where the angel Gabriel announced to Mary that she would be the mother …
Haifa, on the North coast of Israel, is destination one. It sits at the foot of Mt. Carmel and just down the coast from Acre and Lebanon. I was mesmerized by the scenery outside the bus window as I thought of my favorite Old Testament story. Elijah challenges the prophets of Baal that whoever's god …
If I were an evil travel agent, I would book the first two days of my trip in the exact same way for someone else. It was so frustrating that it felt diabolical, yet I had done this to myself. We arrived in Tel-Aviv after 22 hours of travel on a Friday night. Shabbat (Sabbath) …
This is the largest city on Earth and it goes on for miles in every direction with at least four separate downtowns. We started with day trips out of the city to slowly get our bearings. Our rail passes still had three remaining days of use. Mt. Fuji was high on the travel list but …
We have been on 20 airplanes in the last thirty weeks. Most are budget carriers that don't even include water, but today we got food, wine and movies. My seat seemed to have been added later since it was halfway in the aisle.I got more leg room, but people gave me confused looks as they …
We got rail passes! Trains in Japan are expensive, so we bought a 7-day pass that allows unlimited train travel. First day: round trip to Kanazawa from Kyoto. The famous Kenroku-En garden is considered to be one of three "perfect gardens" and is the easiest to visit with our itinerary. It was peaceful and well …
We got off the train in Kyoto and it was snowing--our summers really are behind us. We stayed in the old geisha district of Gion. It is easy to imagine samurais and Geishas walking around the area because it is well preserved and because we saw tons of Geishas and samurais walking around. They don't …
Winter is coming...This is our first real stretch of winter weather. We successfully avoided the massive Australian heatwave, but the transition from 80F to 40F is making my eyeballs cold. I don't know how people in the Midwest handle -40F. I am doubting my own ability to handle future winters since we don't really get …
We flew into Cairns and walked from the airport to our Airbnb. It didn't look that far, and it wasn't raining too hard when we started. It was only 2.5 miles and I wanted to stretch my legs after flying. We passed a mangrove and started to search for crocodiles when flies and mosquitoes swarmed …
We Won't Melt 