Walking around in Tel Aviv and Jaffa

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I, woke up around 9am and used the wifi facility to make a few calls on skype....this iphone is such a great invention....

I decided to do the walking tour as in the lonely planet guide book, need to make a start somewhere...

While walking down Rothschild blvd I turned into Sheinkin street; came across a roadside cafe that sold houmous and pita bread...I have been soo looking forward to having this...it cost 20 shekels which in my opinion is kind of expensive but hey i cant be in hunger now can I ?

Went near the Yemenite quarter and saw Kikar Magen David (Round about where 6 streets meet) and went down HaCarmel Street through the market areas...

It felt a bit like walking through Pita Kotuwa (Fort Area) in Sri Lanka.

Thereafter after going past Rambam Street and Nahalat Binyamin Street I wanted to go back to take a picture of the Shalom Tower and I ended up going towards the Charles Chlore Park via Neve Tzedek...

At the beach front I noticed a really cool tower far away to the left of the beach and was wondering why the guide book had not made any mention of it...and then only it dawned upon me that...it was indeed Jaffa....

I decided to walk towards Jaffa and then visited the old port and all over jaffa and the flea market etc...

I was told that Abu Hassan restaurant had the best houmous but I was too late it was shut..you can also get great views of Tel Aviv and also you will notice planes turning finals close to Jaffa and making their final approach to the Tel Aviv domestic airport...

After finishing walking about Jaffa and on my return Katja sent me a text saying there is a street party at Ben Gurion and that for me to come that way as she wanted to give me a local sim card which she had with her...

I went to the bus station and I showed the message on my phone to a guy at the station and he asked if the iPhone was mine and when I said yes he said wow you must be having a lot of money...I said actually it belongs to my cousin and that im just using it....

He asked me to take bus 66 and it cost 5.80 shekels for any one trip apparently if you are making more than 2 trips it makes sense to by a daily pass...

The bus driver couldn’t speak English and while in the bus I asked a local where I should get down and she wasn’t sure and she asked the driver in Hebrew and he said this bus doesn’t go there and for me to go back to the bus station and get another bus...

When I got off the bus before heading back I stopped a local lady who were carting 4 kids and I said i'm totally lost and asked if she knew where Ben Gurion was and she said its right in front of me just a 5 minute walk...it always helps to ask....

I met katja about 15 minutes later and we walked towards the beach to see the sunset....there we met Christian another cs’er who was staying with Katja just for the night as he was catching his plane back to Germany at 6am...on his arrival he had been questioned for 2 hours...and he wanted to go to the airport 4 hrs before his flight in preparation for another bout of questioning on departure...

We went to the port area and went to an art exhibition and then went and had dinner...there was hardly anything for a vegetarian and I ended up eating mash potato and chips and a bit of rice....

Went to an am-pm supermarket and while in the queue to pay got talking to a bunch of Israelies and one of them had been to Sri Lanka last August for a month and had loved it...

Came back to Katjas place and she was showing her strange film cameras which she can have double exposures and another one which can take 4 pics at the same time...we had some interesting conversations from politics to photography...

It was getting late and I left to Ariks place and got there around 12 midnight....got chatting with Arik and got to bed around 130am...

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