First stop... The Orson Hyde Memorial Park! Oh wow!! I was ecstatic! Luckily they gave me a cool memory book where I can right down notes. This contains my full account.
It was so cool to come here and learn about Orson Hyde, the history of his travels here and the land we are on. Of course it was amazing to read his dedicatory prayer and learn more about it. I was touched.
What a view of the old city and the Dome of the Rock!
The onion spired church is what my guide called this. He is full of these funny puns. My guide Steven Rona is a unique guy. He grew up here and lives in Germany when he is not doing tours and has dual citizenship in Israel and America. Although he makes jokes about Mormons and other churches he is extremely tolerant and respectful.
We walked to the bottom and he told us the story of President Kimball and the 2000 lds members that gathered for the dedication. 2000 Mormons on the mount of olives did not go unnoticed here I learned. The Post ran an article and cartoon about it saying did you know in 1841 a Mormon man dedicated the land for the returning of the Jews. In the 1800's it was insane to believe that would ever happen. The paper gave the church credit for that.
We then went to the Israel museum where they had this huge model of the old city.
We then went inside the
and learned about how the Dead Sea Scrolls were found and saw some of the scrolls! So cool!
This is a model of the lid of the vase's where the dead sea scrolls were found. The dead sea scroll museum is under this. Pretty creative.
One of the actual items the scrolls were found in!
Dead sea scroll! Snuck this picture. Written on leather dating in the 1st Century! So cool.
We then went to a diamond store because they wanted to show us how diamond polishing and cutting are apart of Jewish culture. Over 50% of all diamonds are cut and polished here. It was fun to see how they do it!
The older couple on my tour are Dan and Edith Baker. They are so funny. Fanny packs are back! They were carrying so much stuff all day! They kept dropping stuff all day and it made me laugh. At lunch Dan dropped his lunch too.
After lunch we headed to the City of David.
Thousands of years old.
Under the city of David they dug a tunnel for getting water to the city. We walked these tunnels. They are called Hezekiah's tunnel. It was awesome! Way adventurous.
Here is Hezekiah's tunnel.
Water was about 1-2 feet high. Some parts higher.
This was so much fun! At times I'd turn my light off, pitch black. This tunnel is how the city was conquered at one time. They snuck up through it and attacked.
The end! We walked the 1/3 mile tunnel and took about 30 minutes. The tunnel system is amazing.
The Pool of Siloam here below! Reference John 9.
We then walked back up through the old sewer system. This was cool. It has only been open for a couple years to tourists.
More of city of David. Again thousands of years old.
The south wall of the old city!
We then drove past where Oscar Schindler's grave is. Cool.
What a first day!
I lastly had to stop and get an adaptor to charge my phone. I decided I needed to spend the night trying to catch up on my blog too. I want to capture all this Holy Land stuff while I'm here, not a week later.
I found this in a shop. Had all American license plates.
Walking home I saw a Jewish wedding about to get started!
Seriously all my reservations are gone now. What an incredible first day! I love it and am so happy to be here to see the Holy Land.
No comments:
Post a Comment