Israel/Jordan Day 10: Temple mount and day "off"

Sunday... our day "off", but we discovered we missed Eric the moment we emerged from the hotel and didn't see him leaning on his car with his Yankees hat and smiley demeanor.  Still, we knew the drill... let's walk!

It was our day to explore the old city on our own, and in order to save time (temple mount was only open to non-muslims today from 8am to 11am), we took a Gett to the dung gate (to remember, money rolls up hill, shit rolls down hill... the dung gate was closest to the Western Wall and the lowest elevation gate), and after a brief scrutiny by Israeli security, we took the tourist ramp over and through the Western wall and into the grounds of Temple mount.

The walled area within the wall of Old Jerusalem featured the third holiest site for Muslims.  The great builder, Herod, was once again the guy mainly responsible for making this huge platform out of a very hilly area.  

We were essentially alone on the Mount, and it was a very chill moment taking in the beautiful mosque at our leisure.  Credit to Alex for finding the glow spot to take this pic...

Outside one of the many exits from Temple Mount (you can exit any of the Muslim exits, you just can't enter), we grabbed a table so Kim could grab some food.  We watched with amusement as a "tour guide" who asked anyone he could see (several times) if they wanted guided tours of the city, repeatedly sneak a handful of candy from a vendor beside us.  The vendor got wise, and instead of yelling at the guy (the assumed response in most places in the world), he simply covered up his candy with a plastic sheet until the guide wannabe took the hint and left.  

We wound around the Muslim quarter, through the Jewish quarter and up to the Jaffa gate where we got tickets for the rampart walk.  There are actually two separate wall walks, but this one was apparently better and took in the North, East and South sides of the old city.  For the next hour we walked up, down and around the top of the border wall, seeing a different view of the Old City.  It reminded my of the Dubrovnik wall walk - we saw tennis courts, schools, small churches, houses built on top of houses, lots of garbage and even a collection of old, discarded, huge Christmas ornaments.

The end of the walk took us back to the Muslim quarter, so we took more meandering ways through the market areas of both quarters, shopping, until we found the bagel spot from Friday and stopped for lunch. 

We sure got our steps in today.  By the time we left on foot through the Jaffa gate, we were ready for a tram to take us up to the market by our hotel.  Despite getting tickets, the whole system soon shut down (we think someone left a small shopping package at a station ahead of us - the sudden onrush of police and specialty vehicles was pretty impressive.  More steps - we walked back towards "home".

When we got to the market, it was alive as it had been when we were first introduced to it back on Thursday afternoon.  

After a siesta, Beth and I went out wandering back to the market for some people watching.  We found a small crowd gathered around two guys with a guitar and what I think after googling was a "chordaphone".  A really cool sound - Beth and I watched for 20 minutes.

We met up with the Ver-slu-ee (that's how Beth's brother Brian calls the Versly!) and went to the market for a drink to kill time before dinner...

Our appetites were ready, so we headed to the nearby Crave Burger for dinner.  It was fantastic - ground steak gourmet burgers.  We sat next to a couple that looked like they were on a date night - we chatted them up and learned that they had five kids and came there every Sunday for dinner.  They were quite conservative, even ending off the meal by reading a written prayer.  I think I would too facing five kids back at home.

The waitress was also really chatty.  We can't get over how approachable and friendly everyone is in Israel.