Right Back Into It

The old port of Jaffa

West St Kilda Summer Street - ahhhhhhh

When you have an international departure at 6am that means you have to be at the airport at 4am - well you may as well not even bother going to bed.  Especially if you're a last minute packer like I generally am when on holidays.  We'd been staying in a little weatherboard house in West Kilda that Judy Davis stayed in for 3 months just before us (a neighbour told us - I love her!), and it had lots of trees around it, and parrots living in them.  They usually woke me up, but not that morning.  I dressed the kids in their clothes the night before.  That is a genius plan by the way, and I'm thinking about adopting it in everyday life.  One of the school mothers used to do it with her daughter.  Just load her into the car asleep in her clothes from the previous night, load her out, shove a peanut butter sandwich in her floppy little hand and get the teachers to wake her.  I was inspired - and at least you'd save on pajamas.  

Apparently it's not as cruel as it sounds....

Bangkok was just a stopover, but a long stop over that involved a night in a new Japanese owned hotel.  It was like being back in Japan but with a Thai edge.  There were a lot of Japanese staff who were trying their best to hold on to standards in Japan, but all the Thai staff kept fucking it all up for them.  In other words, blowing their cover that they were still basically in Thailand and not Tokyo no matter how much they bowed.  We ate some sushi, swum in a crazy pool that actually hung out over the side of the building, and I discovered my 5 year old likes fois gras - all pretty standard stuff really.  The fois thing is a bit disturbing, but I hate to say that I too really love it.  I do.  It is unbelievably delicious - and this is coming from a former vegetarian who still shuns meat on most occasions.  Sometimes I think it's embarrassing that I originally became a vegetarian at age 13 because I found out River Phoenix was one, and I thought if I ever got to meet him, at least we would have something in common.  I usually decide it's better that nobody knows that kind of thing, and then I just accidentally just blurt it out for everyone to know my shame.  I started eating meat again once he died (ok, not really, but strangely it could have been around that time).

Just floating - 60 stories about the ground

I wasn't looking forward to the flight to Tel Aviv.  For a start it was the same leg as the one last year when we actually moved to Israel, and on that flight we'd lost an engine over Eritrea (http://twintravelling.blogspot.co.il/2013/10/unexpectant-entrance-into-eritrea.html).  Plus, the weather in Israel was horrifically bad - storms, snow etc - and also all that horrible shit in Paris was going on - police shooting the gunmen and that other dude going sick nuts at a Jewish supermarket.  I was sure that they would have bumped up security on an Israeli airline going from Bangkok.  But still, the anxiety filtered through.  I'm forever scanning the faces of my fellow passengers and trying to spot the tero (terrorist).  I though a had a small group of men picked out who were sitting near me and NOT speaking Hebrew.  It turned out that they were Druze and from a village near my brother in-law lives.  They seemed to love me - I felt sure they didn't want to see me in tiny bloody pieces.

Holding it together - just.....

The flight itself was pretty bumpy, lots of "ladies and gentleman please fasten your seatbelts" going on.  However, as we came over Israel things took a turn for the worst.  The plane was lurching around like crazy.  Even though Cordi was belted down I still had to hold her still, the flight attendants were strapped down tight themselves, and me and my fellow passengers were exchanging "Oh Fuck" eye language.  Suddenly there was a massive jolt and a giant blue flash and explosion on the wing.  Yep, we'd been hit by bloody lightening.  You know it's not good when you can see the flight staff with their hands over their mouths, while their eyes bulge with fear, all looking round at each other in panic.  There was the whiff of doom in the air.  But nothing happened.  We just kept on bouncing around like there was nothing going on.  No announcement from the pilot, like - "Ladies and Gentlemen we have been struck by a giant bolt of lightning please fasten your seatbelts and prepare for death".  Luckily that baby just kept on flying.  Fifteen minutes later we touched down in Tel Aviv, as lightening struck the ground nearby.  So there you go everybody - getting hit by lightening does not necessarily mean that you will crash.  Isn't that good to know???

I think it took me a week before I felt settled again.  There was a rather nasty stabbing of 12 people on a bus by a Palestinian guy in Tel Aviv a couple of days later which never helps.  A good old heroic 23 year old nutcase stabbing old ladies in the neck - so that's always heart warming.  Jesus, if I ever had the inclination to take a bus around here then that was stamped out quick smart after hearing that news.  Apparently he stabbed the bus driver first so he couldn't open the doors.  It meant that everyone was trapped inside the bus with the nutjob going stab crazy until one of the passengers got them open and everyone piled out, stab victims running hundreds of metres in fear and before they collapsed in shock.  Great stuff.  Nice one dude - shouldn't you be having beers at the pub and tuning chicks on tinder or something?  Studying for uni exams?  Having a toss in your room down in the basement under your parents house?  Anything????  Fuck - some people's life choices.  Imagine his morning "to do" list........"Hmm let's see what to do today.....drop Ali at school, pick up something for dinner, stick a knife into a bunch of people going to work".  He was eventually shot in the leg by the cops, and I'm positive that nothing better than that will happen to him for quite some time.  The Israelis probably already demolished his parents home or something.  It's a common deterrence tactic - they just bulldoze down the home of any stabbers/bombers/car smashers.  Does it work?  Well, I guess it depends on how much you like your parents.  Parents shitting you?  Just run over a baby and then their house will be flattened - "No, I'm not doing my homework - take that bitch!".

The other major thing that happened was of course the greatest annual event in the northern hemisphere.  My birthday!  I am such a suck for birthdays - I would like it to be a birth month really, but really its more like a birth'end. Two days is enough I guess.

"I love Rock n Roll putta nother dime in the juke box baby"

I brought it in the night before, with a throat stripping karaoke session.  A week later and my throat is still ulcerated.  My poor nieces and nephews did not what they were getting themselves in for.  I have had significant amount of karaoke experience, and despite being a horrendous singer, I am not shy with that microphone.  In fact I employed my favourite technique of going through the list and deleting any songs other people had put in that I didn't like.  Anything in Hebrew - cut, anything too soppy - cut, anything that wasn't sing-a-long enough - cut.  That basically left everything that I had chosen plus a couple of others.  Listen if I can get away with that kind of behaviour anytime, it's on my birthday.

I remember my first karaoke experience in Japan.  I was the brand new teacher at my school so they had a welcome party for me.  I didn't quite realise that this meant 40 people all in a giant room with unflattering lighting, me being handed the microphone and expected to go first.  It was a little daunting to say the least.  The last time I sang anything was in year seven choir when Mrs Wright stopped everyone mid song to point me out and say that I was so off tune that I was putting everybody else off and that I could stay in choir for the upcoming eisteddfod as long as I mimed.  Basically I was not to make a sound, yet appear like I was enthusiastically singing.  The tragic thing was that I did stay in that choir and mime for the eisteddfod.  Why didn't I just drop out?  I'm humiliated even to this day.

These people actually have talent - this was one of the rare occasion the mike was seized from my vice-like grip

Oooh - it's my famous drunken bung eye

Fortunately I am a big show off, so I really gave it my all for all my new students despite my shortcomings.  And thus my karaoke career took off in a major way.  The more shots, the better you think you are.  And you can believe it too, until some wise guy makes a video and shows it to you when you're sober.  I used to love karaoke so much that sometimes me and my husband, on our way home from the pub in Tokyo, would stop in at a karaoke club for a couple of hours of Madonna and The Guners.  Those clubs are everywhere - it's perfectly normal and acceptable behaviour ok.  The other great thing about karaoke in Japan is that there's a telephone on the wall which you can use to order food and drinks.  They bring it all to you, you don't even have to miss a beat.  They had that telephone service in Israel too - hence the number of shots.  I was reasonably seedy the next day, but not so bad.  None of this vomiting in the rose garden at my parents house in my undies (quietly, so the neighbours over the fence can't hear), as what might  have happened after Camille's Christmas Champers Soiree last month.  Twenty five glasses of the stuff does nasty nasty things - plus the rest.  Apparently I was chicken dancing at my friend's nightclub - actually pecking bogans with my hand, and then ended up taking over a buskers guitar and belting out a bit of "Danny Boy" down at Salamanca at about 1am.  The poor man handled it pretty well - I think he only offered a "Gimme me a break sister".  At least I had the opportunity to cure myself the next day with 3 Mikonos potato cakes and a litre of Coke - the food of kings.

Nanna's house - the serviettes were old tea-towels

My husband had planned a birthday surprise trip to Jerusalem to have lunch in what is considered the best restaurant in Israel -Machneyudah - for anyone who's interested.  Granted, it was pretty amazing - the whole thing decked out like you were some Israeli Nanna's country home in the '50s.  The food was unbelievable - I especially enjoyed that they had a sort of chocolate ball thing called "The Iron Dome"(named after the kind of force field that protects Israel when nutcases are chucking long range missiles at us).  Thank god for a sense of humour in this country.  That's the problem with the bloody religious fantatics everywhere I reckon - shizenhausen senses of humour.  Just have a few laughs buddy - take it easy on the murder and stuff.  Talking of murder and stuff (as you do)  the Israelis dropped a bomb on some Hezbollah guys just over the border in Syria last week (The Hezbollah are a Lebanese terrorist group which now makes up part of the government in Lebanon).  There was also an Iranian general hanging out with them who copped it as well.  That's the thing here - things are going along swimmingly and then "Pow".   So everyone's been kind of waiting for the retaliation that was thought sure to come.

Creamy polenta, mushrooms, truffles and asparagus - insane

Rock wall carving just outside the restaurant

Painted building - Jersusalem

We were up in the far north on the weekend.  Staying near the Sea of Gailee (where old Jesus did his water walking and fish thing if you get into that stuff) at my sister in law's.  We decided to go and have a look at the snow on Mount Hermon which borders Syria and Israel.  It used to be part of Syria but during one of the wars was won by Israel.  It's pretty beautiful - but of course they weren't after it for it's wild flowers - it is of course a very important strategic position, you can see for miles.  Last weekend though it was covered in snow.  We drove part of the way up and watched a few Arabs piffing snowballs at each other behind a sign that said "Do Not Enter This Incredibly Dangerous Area" - or something to the same effect.  I would not be mucking around with that shit - there are mines everywhere up there.  Mines and grapes - interesting combo.  Apparently the snow gets pretty decent up there - but that was not the case now.  Still very very pretty but unless you wanted to ride rocks you better leave your snowboards at home.

Snow in Izzy - what are the chances?

Thanks for the apple dude, but I'm not paying $40 for a jar of honey

So maybe I won't do a wee on the side of the road then....

UN Post in the North

There's a lookout point where you can see Syria, and actual Syrian villages.  The border is well and truly closed - I'm pretty sure there's a large amount of no-man's land between the two countries monitored by international forces.  We drove up to the UN checkpoint but the guard refused to have a photo taken with me (he could of told me earlier - I waited ten minutes for my bloody iphone to recharge in the car).  Anyway, things are a bit dicey up there at the moment, but even so we were shocked to see, hear, and feel a major explosion on the Syrian side of the border.  This was accompanied by an earth shaking boom.  You could see the smoke rising from above, the sunny crisp day made it completely visible at about 20km away.  The there was another explosion, and another!

First boom

More booms

Picnic in the sun

As I watched from my completely secure position(???!!!) on a hill not so far away, I started to think about what it must really be like right there where it was actually happening.  Was it a military target or were there people there?  Was it ISIS, the Syrian government forces or Hezbollah?  It was close enough to be shocking, but not close enough to be frightening - I mean there were Arab ladies having a picnic and making people cups of coffee next to me.  Basically it was war tourism.  

However, yesterday rockets were fired into Israel from Syria, and Israel of course responded as they always do with more rockets. The mountain we visited was closed and evacuated.  Then this morning there was a mortar attack from Syria.  Mortar shells hit an Israeli vehicle and injured 4 Israeli soldiers, 2 of whom have died since, while one Spanish UN peacekeeper was also killed in a separate attack.  Of course it's all over the news here - I can feel the very slightest amount of creeping tension, there were a lot of helicopters going north this afternoon.

All I can say is fingers crossed everyone, fingers crossed.