Mackens in Japan: Trip to Israel

As part of my job I work very closely with our factory in Israel. I have never visited this factory and after some recent technical issues we decided it was time for me and the technical team at IMJ to visit.

The journey from Japan is very long as you have to fly via a European hub. I decided to make the most of this by going via London and having a weekend in UK before going to Israel (see separate blog)

The factory we were visiting is just North of Tel Aviv in a place called Yavne. We were staying in Tel Aviv in a hotel right next to the beach. The weather was also excellent with temperatures around 20C.

View from my hotel room

This is in front of the factory. They had run up the Japanese flag especially for our visit

Factory Reception

On the last day we finshed at lunchtime and my Japanese team needed to head for the airport for their flight back. My flight was not until the next day so Fred, my contact at the Israeli factory, had arranged for Jacob, their friendly tour guide, to take me on a tour of Jerusalem. Jerusalem is about 1.5 hours drive away.

We drove around the outside of the old town and then we went on a walking tour of the major sites within the walled city. I have to confess to being very ignorant of the religeous stuff in Jerusalem, perhaps I should have paid more attention in RE at school. Anyway is was very interesting to see all these famous places. Often the churches were full of highly religeous people who had clearly made some sort of pilgrimage to come to the holiest places in the world as opposed to me who was wandering around as part of business trip taking snapshots.

Any way here's the pics....

This was given to Israel by British government in 1956

It is covered in scenes from bible

Israel Parliament

This graveyeard in Jerusalem that was used to bury all the famous people. In the background is the Garden of Gethsemane where Judas kissed Jesus

Dead centre of Jerusalem

More graves

In the background if the Valley of Hell. Our neighbour in Japan used to live near here

In the top left you can just see the massive wall the Israelis have built to keep the Palestinian suicide bombers out

This looking into the desert, east of Jerusalem. This is where the settlements that are often talked about in the news are.

We went to this very quiet part of a church to see the tomb of David. I had to put a skull cap on to get in and there was hardly anyone there. It was not the most well presented tomb

This is the room of the last supper. There were a whole bunch of people singing hyms in here!

Nice |Church

More nice church

This is one of the gates in the city wall. It was scene of massive gun battle and is full of bullet holes

Below street level they have excavated lots of old ruins that in the past they have just built over the top of

Ruins of old street that was excavated

This painting shows how the street used to look in the old days. Spot the odd one out

Very holy spot. This is the hill upon which Jesus was crucified. It is now built into a cluster of Churches that are over the top of the hill. Lots of religeous types at this point who tried to 'shsss' my guide. He was not impressed. Very funny

This is the stone that Jesus was laid out on when he died. If you wanted you could drapse yourself across this stone and do some wailing

This was a little tomb place that Jesus's body was stolen from. I think the guy standing outside may have been the devil

This is West Wall where all the hasidic jews hang out. It has a womens side and mens side. This is the mens side. I had to put a skull cap on to get in here. Above the wall was where the church used to be until it was destroyed. The holiest of the holy's were stored in the part of the church directly above the wall. You can write down your wishes on a piece of paper and place it in the wall

West Wall

This is the inner sanctum of the west wall. It seems you can spend all day in hear reading holy scripts and praying. This is also where they perform the Bar Mitzva ceremonies. Women are not allowed in here but they can watch from behind mirrorred windows on the balcony.

Sunset on the buildings that face the west wall. Buildings cannot be built from anything other than Jerusalem stone which keeps the city looking really good.