Israel: Jerusalem

Hello! I'm finally back from my trip to Israel and Turkey. I have tonnes of photos everywhere so I decided to start blogging about Jerusalem first, since it was the highlight of the trip!

It could have been a mistake on my part to have pretty high expectations before heading to Jerusalem. Like Rome, I was hoping to find places where Jesus actually was. It was pretty impossible for many reasons- one being a place was known 'traditionally' as it was named; two, the city was conquered so the new ruler converted the church into something else or three, the city you see now has been built on top of the old city. So pretty much, I couldn't even walk the streets that Jesus used to :'(

Nonetheless, we got to see many sites mentioned in the bible. Some were controversial and some were possibly real. Not all of them were mentioned in the bible and were founded based on 'tradition'.

Ps: Sorry in advance for some of the blur pictures. It was raining when we reached Jerusalem so temperatures were 6 Degrees Celsius so my hands were freeeezing. For easy reading, I have ordered the pictures in chronological order of Jesus' life although I didn't visit the sites in that order.

#Church of Nativity in Bethlehem. The star marks birthplace of Jesus of Nazareth. Bethlehem is under Palestinian control and was such a scary place to go to. You can definitely feel the difference between the Palestinian and Israeli areas.

The Cenacle houses the 'Upper Room' where The Last Supper was held. It was later turned into a mosque.

#Church of All Nations. It has the Garden of Gethsemane where Jesus went to pray before he was arrested. The church has the rock which Jesus apparently prayed on too!

#Church of St. Peter in Gallicantu. It was built upon the house of the High Priest where Jesus was kept and tortured after being arrested. It was also the place where Peter denies Jesus three times.

#Via Dolorosa is the route through the city where Jesus walked with his cross till he was crucified. It is not the actual route because the old streets of Jerusalem have been buried under many years of new streets. There were about 11 points along the journey and there supposedly used to be 50. One has the place where Jesus placed his hand on the wall. Franciscans walk the route every Friday praying and singing songs.

#Church of Holy Sepulcre. Owned today by 6 different groups, this church houses the place where Jesus's cross apparently was, where his body was laid and where his tomb was.

#Where the cross was. They built altars around it.

#Where his body was laid before burial

#Jesus' tomb. 

#Apparently, a drop of Jesus' blood dripped on the floor and caused a split on the ground. This is a picture from a level below where the cross stood.

#Garden Tomb. An alternative and more plausible location for Jesus' tomb. The picture shows the original face of the cave when it was excavated in 1883. It resembles the face of a skull which can be translated to 'Golgotha' as mentioned in the bible.

#Jesus' tomb. This seems to me to be the possible tomb because of some logical hints- it was a new tomb, there was a garden nearby and there was also a winepress and cistern. Jesus was laid in a new tomb and was crucified near a garden.

#inside the Old City

omb of David is housed on the ground floor of the Cenacle.

Wailing wall. I was expecting a whole long wall but only a small portion is kept for people to wail at. Both men and women have their separate sections to wail at. And urm, our section was much smaller than the men's. Hurr, I carried my backpack in front of my body most of the times to prevent pickpocketing.

#City of David was an interesting experience because the tour helps you to understand the terrain of Jerusalem and how the Old City was formed. It also had the Siloam Pool which only has been partially excavated because a majority of it is under houses of Palestinian Arabs who have not sold theirs to the Jews.

#Mount of Olives. Jesus will come back and raise the people who are there first, as mentioned in the Bible, so this is the largest cemetery in the world. It costs $100,000 now to be buried there and they'd simply bury your body in the cement coffin and build the next coffin over it.

#Kidron Valley. The city of David and Jerusalem is built between two valleys which are very steep. This makes the city hard to conquer but David captured it by going through the water tunnel.

#Streets during Jesus' time. This for one, was a place that Jesus would have definitely walked because it was the main route up to the Temple.

#The old tunnel. While we were walking through it, our guide suddenly told us it was for dirt and nonsense... LIKE WASTE :O We stopped touching the walls after that.

I hope I haven't come off as too skeptical about Jerusalem. I went to find the truth but failed to find it. However, I now have a much better picture of where Jesus walked and his life during the 1st century. One of the places we couldn't enter sadly was The Dome of the Rock/ Temple Mount. It is the most distinctive building in the whole Jerusalem but we can't enter because it is now a mosque and a very holy site for Muslims. It contains the stone which Abraham nearly sacrificed Isaac on.

Sorry about the late update! Was so busy meeting friends today and this post had tonnes of pictures that needed to be in high def! Will be posting about the Dead Sea and Jericho next :)