Today we took a real tourist option and went on the open top bus tour of Tel Aviv. This city is such a sprawling, widespread city, with no real CBD heart, but office high rise, residential high rise, markets, shopping, cultural buildings, civic facilities, military facilities, educational institutions all spread across all areas. This tour certainly gave us a good overall picture.

Tel Aviv is probably the most secular place in Israel. It’s thinking and lifestyle are much more liberal in outlook, and this was obvious to us as we have been exploring. The number of conservative orthodox Jews we saw in Jerusalem would easily be tenfold or more than what we are seeing here in Tel Aviv.  There is also much less visible and obvious religious observance. And from what we hear, Tel Aviv prides itself on this. It is a coastal beach city after all.

We went one and a half times round on the tour, as the second time round we got off at the Azraeli Centre to go up the observation tower to see this city from a 360 degree perspective. These towers are architecturally fascinating as the three separate buildings are connected at the base with a multi-level shopping mall. The 3 buildings are externally similar in style except that one is triangular, one circular and one square. The observation deck was on the circular building, which is taller than both the others. From the top, the far spread of this city really couldn’t be missed. And … it’s flat! No wonder there’s lots of bike riders.

We had a couple of interesting experiences today. We went into an optometrist to find some clip on sunglasses for Chris. Another customer spoke to me in Hebrew asking my opinion of 3 different frames. She soon realised I only spoke English, but I easily understood what she was asking. Her friend did speak English, and thanked me profusely when my opinion was the same as hers and not that of the buyer! It seemed we became good buddies in that 2 minutes. Then when I was sitting at a table waiting for Chris to bring the coffee, the woman at the table next to me spoke to me in Hebrew. I easily picked up that she was telling me she was going away for a short while and would I look after her bag. Of course I said OK. Wow … not only do people want my opinion, but they also trust me with their worldly goods.

But then reality returned when we were outside. As we crossed the road to get a bus, we saw the opportunity to take a photo with reasonable perspective of the 3 shaped towers. I took one looking up, then Chris wanted to take another one with me in the photo so I walked off to be in view. As I turned around, I saw a security guard with an AK47 talking to Chris and obviously asking to look at the camera. I quickly returned. Apparently behind us [not the direction we were taking photos] was a US military compound and photography was forbidden. He asked to look at the photos and where we were from and what we were doing in Israel and in Tel Aviv. We told about our previous month and that we were Christians and had lead a Christian group here for 2 weeks. He asked for ID. We were very glad we had our passports with us. He asked where the group was, and when we said they had left the country, he wanted to know why we hadn’t left the country also. Our answer of having a holiday for 3 days in Tel Aviv was met with the response: “Why Tel Aviv … it’s not very Christian!” We thought that was an astute question, but then he smiled and let us go catch the bus! We also put the camera away!!

We finished our afternoon at the Carmel Markets, which was a great way to spend an hour and a half. We bought a few items to eat for dinner, and then caught another bus back to Beit Immanuel.

We are missing our group, but are using this time to prepare ourselves for the next phase of our travels. We’re reflecting on our first month, thinking about the stark contrasts of Nepal and the Middle East, the stark contrasts of the Middle East and Australia, and the stark contrasts of religion and grace. Chris will share more about that in another blog.