Mon 01 January 2007   (New Year’s day)

The Temple Mount was supposed to be my first destination on the New Year’s Day, but the site remained closed all day — as it had done on the previous day, and on the day before that. A new different political or religious dispute arose day after day, and I never got the chance to enter the Temple Mount during this journey.

I took a photo of Aqsa mosque from afar, and then walked to Mount Zion where my car was waiting for the adventures of the new year.

I spent the next two hours driving in south-eastern Jerusalem, taking panoramic photos of the Kidron Valley region. These photos are available on a separate page, with a map indicating where each photo was taken.

At 9:30 I was back in the city center, where I visited a bank to refill my cash reserves. The communication lines between Finnish and Israeli banks were temporarily out of order, however, so I left the bank as empty-handed as I had gone there.

I drove to Tel Aviv, and visited the store of Survey Israel on Lincoln Street, wishing to buy a few maps. I had emailed them beforehand to check the opening times of the shop (9—13), but as I knocked the door at 12 o’clock, a security guard told me that the shop was closed due to annual inventory.

I returned to my car and drove to Shalom Tower, which was supposed to offer a roof terrace for taking panoramic photos of Tel Aviv. I went to the top floor by elevator, only to find out that the roof terrace was closed due to renovation work.

The New Year could have started a bit more brightly: the Temple Mount closed due to political tension, international bank communications out of order, map store closed for inventory, and now the panoramic platform closed for renovation...

I parked my car at the beach north of Old Yafo, and spent four and a half hours walking and taking photos in Yafo and southern Tel Aviv. The best of these photos are available in the Common Ground section of this website.

Southern Tel Aviv and Yafo seemed to be mainly inhabited by the poorer social classes. Nearly all houses south of the “skyscraper belt” were two or three storeys high, in moderate or poor condition.

I walked from Mered Street to Yehoshua ha Talmi, Amzaleg, Shlush, Gevulot, Kishon, Abulafya, Alfasi, Poriyah, and then several kilometers south along Sederot Yerushalayim (where the four next photos were taken).

A long walk later I arrived in southern Yafo, and turned west towards the Mediterranean Sea at Yefet Street. Mosques seemed to be a more common sight in this region than synagogues.

A new massive building, the Peres Peace Center, was being built at the seashore behind this mosque. There was nothing to be photographed in the foundations, but I took a photo of the pavement of the street — namely the iron cover of an underground sewer, which carried the logo of Tel Aviv-Yafo municipality. Conveniently written in one language only, not to waste ink for the languages of hostile enemy cultures.

I walked back north towards Tel Aviv along the seashore, and arrived in the port of Old Yafo just before sunset. It was slightly ironic to find out that also here the only written languages visible anywhere were the two official languages of the state — namely Hebrew and English — while the only language that I heard people speak on the quays was Arabic.

After sunset at 17 o’clock I drove back to Jerusalem. The bank communications were functional again, and I was able to fill my empty wallet with fresh new cash. I celebrated the event with a pizza slice at Sbarro restaurant.

At 20:30 I briefly visited the Jerusalem Mall, and then I retreated to the hostel to pack my luggage for the flight home early next morning.

The trip meter of the car showed 2950 km at the end of the day, of which 160 km were driven today.