The Western Wall

One of the most sacred sites for Jews is The Western Wall, is the remaining wall since the destruction of the Second Jerusalem Temple.  "The Second Temple was the Temple rebuilt by Jews returning from the Babylon Exile in 517 BCE. It was destroyed by the Romans in 70 CE. The site of the ancient Jewish Temple is now occupied, in part, by the golden-domed "Dome of the Rock" Mosque."

Again, without much personal religious history, I still found this site to be extremely moving.  The wall is divided up into 2 sections: male and female.  Men have to wear yarmulkes (which are provided) and women need to cover their shoulders.  Although there were a lot of tourists at the wall, there were also religious folks who were performing very animated prayers towards the wall (or hands on the wall), swaying back and forth and some even crying.  The cracks of the wall were filled with little pieces of paper of prayer.  Quite a moving site to see, like the historical significance of the wall totally possessed my body and mind.  It made me think of everything and everyone that meant so much to me that it moved me to tears.

After being at the wall, I recalled my friend Shari telling me to walk backwards and "never turn your back to the wall."  And that's exactly what we did.

Afterwards we tried going into the Dome of the Rock, which unfortunately was closed.  If you go, definitely double check when it's open, because it's only open to the public for select hours during the day.

I love Old City Jerusalem

Let me tell you, my favorite part of the trip was The Old City in Jerusalem.  Or actually, Jerusalem in general.  There's so much history, richness, and emotions that you can feel throughout the city; you can't help but be mesmerized by this historical city.  I think Wikipedia put it best, "You do not need to be Jewish, Christian, or Muslim, or even be overly concerned with religion, to be overwhelmed. Anyone with a sense of history, spirituality or the human species should be absorbed by the tremendous weight of human civilization that cloaks nearly every part of the city."  

We first entered The Old City through Herod's gate and quickly found ourselves in the Muslim Quarter (the other quarters are Jewish, Christian and Armenian).  The city itself reminds me of The Forbidden City, being encompassed by walls, containing over 3000 years of history, all I could imagine was how different life must've been outside of these walls.  What impressed me the most of The Old City was that, unlike The Forbidden City, people still live there!  There were all these streets that branched up from the main streets that were named "____ Ascending" (is that a religious reference, I wonder?).   I noticed children coming in and out of doors so I followed one of them, and noticed that each door opened to a large courtyard with what looked like an apartment building or house.  I didn't go in, well because it would've been rude, but also, I didn't want to be stoned to death.

What I did not like about The Old City was the borderline rudeness of the kids.  While taking a picture, a group of Muslim school girls came over and pulled my hair.  And we overheard another group of kids mocking this male tourist to his face.  I think there's a difference between curiosity and rudeness.  In China, the kids will stop and take pictures with a tall white man and think he's the coolest ever.  They would never pull his hair and mock the way he speaks.

I guess it would make sense why most people enter through Jaffa Gate, which is in the Christian quarter. I'm not implying any religion bias since I am not religious, but it is definitely a less hostile religious culture.