Old City Jerusalem ( more local history here)

Notes: Photo with a bad camera. Took these on an old trip with professor and a few cohorts.

The recorded history of this place is a little too long for me to write about within a paragraph. Not my fondest place in Israel, maybe because I hated the tourists and the street merchants were very rude. I took a photo of some kid’ pimp ride while trying to capture the scenery behind it and he demanded I pay him. I just sputtered a lot of gibberish until he gave up. 

The city was settled during the 4th millennium by the Canaanites. From there, it was either occupied or turned into a vassal kingdom by all sorts of folks, from Egyptians, Macedonians, various Caliphates and the list goes on. The poor city has been besieged, attacked and captured at least one-hundred times since its creation. I had the luck of being able to go underneath the Old City into some ruins below the Western Wall and saw remnants of the past that was buried and built over. Unfortunately, I was unable to take photographs since it was too dark and it would damage the old structures. The current Old City has four quarters: Jewish, Christian, Armenian and Muslim. I was there for a few days so I was able enough to venture around all three of them and managed to get inside Temple Mount, a sacred site to both Jewish and Muslim traditions. There are two points of entry to the site, each owned by their respective religion. My cohorts entered through the latter and some ladies were bundled up quite extensively. Why, I am not sure, because the locals didn’t dress that way. Ran across a similar issue over the Western Wall. I’m assuming the extra emphasis on modesty is because we arrived on holy days.

I had the luck of coming here during the year 2009 when Ramadan and Rosh Hashanah ended around the same day (September 21st). I remember getting hopelessly lost in the crowd, but the festivities were worth it. My fondest memories were celebrating Shabbat on the rooftops with the entire view of Old City Jerusalem and watching the Ramadan firework. I guess another thing I liked about the Old City were all the alleyways and crannies. My fondest memories was jumping around the rooftops, heheh. 

I remember getting lost in an alleyway and a group of wooers were coming onto me, probably because I looked exotic. I thought, “Wow, heh, Josiah you are a pimp.” Then they asked me if I was Japanese, and I replied, “Nah, I am American.” Their reaction was : ( My reaction was : (

Fail.

3 months ago with 4 notes
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