adventure in Eilat,Israel and Petra,Wadi Rum, and Wadi Musa of Jordan

Wadi Rum

rock bridge in Wadi rum i climbed and was on top of

Wadi rum

the treasury in Petra as seen in Indiana Jones

The monestry, longgg hike but worth it!

Wadi Musa where I crashed a wedding

Eilat- the touristy city of Israel... not too big fan of it, but it's still cool



So this weekend I decided to go on a trip to Jordan. I mean come on it's Jordan, it's this mysterious country shown in Indiana Jones and it was going to be my first Arab/muslim nation that I was going to visit. So me and my friends decided to meet up in Eilat, Israel and then head over to Jordan by crossing the southern border to Jordan. There are only two borders to Jordan from Israel. But since my friends were comming from Tel Aviv they were going to leave at 12 am from Tel Aviv and get to Eilat at 6 am Thursday, but me living in a middle of desert of Sed Boker didn't have much choice but to arrive to Eilat by myself at 7pm Wed.

I got to Eilat and walked around the city, and I guess this woman could see that I was a college student looking around and asked me if I wanted a hostel for 100 shackles. Now that's about $30 but me being a college kid, and preferin the adventure told her that I was just going to sleep on the streets and meet up with my friends at 6 am. Now this woman wanting to rip some money off of me called me crazy saying that I will get drugged by people if I sleep on the streets. I said thanks for the warning and just walked off, but that kind of stayed in the back off my head throughout the whole night... So I just walked around the city and went to the North Beach of Eilat. They had amazing night life and night market and I walked around eye shopping and just chilling like a tourist. Then around 2 am I decided I should get some sleep and found a nice layer of rock next to the beach and went to sleep. I kept one eye open just incase lol (that stupid woman's warning haha) but slept an hour or so but I kept having to evacuate from one loacation to another not because of people trying to drug me but becuase of these whole bunch of couples who kept waking me up by sitting near me and making out and moaning. lol love birds what can I say, and I guess they couldn't see me because I was flat on the rock and it was pretty dark. So I finally found a nice quiet spot and slept until 5 am. I woke up brushed my teeth, got some water from the fountain and met up with my friends. Then we took a taxi to the Jordan border and waited until the border opened. But all in all, my adventure in Eilat was fun, but I was quite disapointed in the City. It was just way too touristy for me, with all these expensive hotels, bars, shops, all it really was just a huge money spenidng place with not much history or substance. But for just partying and hanging out it's a good place.

Border to Jordan opend and then we went in had security check, got visa, and the Israeli gov. Raped our wallet (we had to pay $30 to leave the country. wtf right? but moving on) we then took the taxi and went to our hostel which was in Wadi Musa (Wadi means valley btw). It was a pretty city with mountainieous regions but some how apartments and houses growing in these mountains, like fungus and mushrooms growing on trees. From our hostel we drove to Petra and entered Petra. Now Petra was gorgeous. It's name one of the new wonders of the world, and it was in Indiana Jones, and man it was quite a beauty. And I was amazed at how old this place was, and even few years ago people were still living in this caves and rock carved buildings. We did some awesome rock climibing, hiking, and saw the nature, and also hiked for a 1.5 hour to get to the monestry which was very high up. I did a pretty good bargain and bought some souvneers for a pretty good price. (look at the pictures attatched and you will realize how beautiful it was)

After petra we had dinner and then me and some of my friends saw this huge parade of cars and was wondering what is was (there was a truck in this parade that had a fire work luancher on it's back trunk, something totally illegal in the U.S haha, and they kept launching these huge fire works as it traveled) we asked a man next to us and he told us that it was a wedding, so we decided to crash the wedding and jumped in his truck and joined the car parade. we yelled "Mah-Brook" which means conrtaualtions, and clapped and hinked and etc, and just massed around. Then we got to the wedding, and people warmly welcomed us in as we danced on the streets yelling mabrook mabrook. The girls went in to dance and shake hands witht he bride, and we were sent to the man's side to have man talk and be with the groom's side. all in all we had alot of fun and then went back to our hostel.

The next day we went to Wadi Rum, which is a town with preserved natural beauty and where Lawrence of Arabia's home is (the general in WWI-watch the movie) and it was alot of fun and we climbed alot of rocks. and we got a jeep tour through the desert which was sweet. off roading in the desert was pretty bad ass. We took some sweet pictures and saw the sun set and then came back to camp and tent out in the middle of the desert. Then we washed ourselves and had an amazing bedwin(the name of people that live in the caves and in the desert) dinner and I stuffed myself with amazing food. After eating we made a bon fire, had some beer and just danced to some Jordanian songs and also danced to some modern music and etc. It was a pretty sweet party in the desert. Then for some reason, I had this amazing idea that we should go streaking. In my head what I was thinking was Tarzan from Disney or Mowgli from hungle book where you run with the wild and you feel like a wild natural man. So me and some of the boys mentioned it (I was completely sober) the other guys not so much, but running with the natural just sounded awesome so we all stripped and ran out of our camp site. But as we kept running what we didn't realize was that there was another camp few hundred meters away from us that could see us. Me and my friend didn't knwo so we jsut kept running around, but other guys who wanted to scare the other camp (they were clearly gone) got clsoe tot he camp and the other camp guys saw them and ran after them. They quickly hid but me and my friend not knwoing just ran around without realizing that they could see us... then we got the cue and hid as well and quickly made our way back to our tent secretly. But when we got back our other friends thought it would be a great idea to hide our clothes and we were scrambling trying to get something to hide ourselve with. I picked up a 4 leged flat chair and coverd myself and my other friends took some cloth and animal fur. Then our tour guide also wanted to play a prank on us and dressed up and a bedwin and dressed on of our friends as a bedwin woman and set in the camp fire, and the other tour guide came up to us and said these are bedwin people so you should put clothes on and stay quite. not being able to find our clothes we covered oursleves with rndm stuff and set quietly in the chair not knowing what to do, hoping he bedwin man won't kill us for being naked infront of his bedwin wife. (it's a muslim country so.. streaking and being naked probs wasn't the best idea...) but then we realized that this was a prank and then massed around with them and then just massed around a bit more and then asked them for our clothes. but of course our friends didn't give it back to us and we had to sit around the camp fire with furs around our private parts( by then i had ditched the chair and wnet for the fur)... then the cops came....
so the other camp seeing the we were naked called the cops and also made a noise complaint for the loud music. So when the cops came in me and my friends were danicng around.... bascily naked with a small fur thing around our selves. our tour guide told us to quickly sit down and we set nervous wndering what was going to happen.... so bascily we could have gone to jail for what we did.. but our tour guide smooth talked to them saying that we weren't naked and had fur things covering us and we were jsut acitng like native americans around the camp fire. The cops and our tour guide argued for about half an hour and they finally went away and our tour guide told us that he saved our ass, and that he will have to go to police station the next day to figute it out and may go to jail or not depending on what they do. So that was the end of the party and we all went to bed. the next day we went to Acka, Jordan (not sure about spelling) and street shoped. I made some arabic friends and shopped, and then finally crossed the border to Israel and went back home. But all in all Jordan was alot of fun and people were really nice. I was on guard at first because Jordan and muslim country is some where I never been to and it was a mysterious country for me, but I realized they were some of the nicest people i have ever met. They always went for hand shakes even when I jsut said excuse me and were very friendly people. One thing kinda anoing was that they all thought I was either Chinese, Japanese, or Jacki Chan, but I liekd Jacky Chan so I just kept that name in the trip. but all in all it was an awesome weekend, and I am prety pumped for next weekend! shalom :)

TEL AVIV LA/NYC of Israel

weird yoga guy at the beach


street market

ironically had lunch here- a place in the mall

huge mall i was at



all soldiers


above photo courtesy of Erika

So last Thursday I left for Tel Aviv to meet up with some friends and to celebrate some birthdays. And man Tel Aviv was amazing, it was alot of fun and pretty insane as well haha.
I left for Tel Aviv on Thursday morning with 3 hours on Wed night because I had to finish up my work. So I was pretty low on sleep and tierd going to Tel Aviv, and also I didn't have a phone or anything on me, and my only plan I had was to meet up with a friend at the train station in Beer Sheba (which is 45 min bus ride from Sede Boker (where I am)) but when I got to the station I couldn't find him and he couldnt find me so I jist took the train by myself without knowing what to do when I got to Tel Aviv. So I got to Tel Aviv with nothing. I didn't have phone numbers, a phone, or anything. So I asked ppl where the mall was ( I was planning on going to a computer store to use internet to get some ppl at Tel Aviv's number, and I also had to get a phone) so I walked about 40 minutes and got to the mall went to a mac store got the number, and a phone, and made the call from a pay phone, (they couldn't get my phone done in one day because they had to jail break it, so I had to pick up my phone the next day) but my friend didn't get off from work tll 7 and i was there at 2 so i just chilled at the mall and walked around all over the place in Tel Aviv which ws pretty fun. I walked around alot alot. But the reason why I went to Tel Aviv with no plan, and I just travel and walk around isn't just because I am care free and chill, but it;s that i feel really safe here, because there are soldiers everrryyy where, with huge power weapons, and I saw maybe like 500 soldiers through out my whole trip, they are just every where in civilian places and etc. and some of these soldiers (they have mandatory draft here) looked like they were 15 or so, and girls, (girls also have to do service here) they looked like they were 17 lol(probably because they were around 19) but most of them didn't but it was just really weird to see these really gorgeous and good looking girls in an army uniform, carrying huge power weapons. Idk it was just kinda weird, maybe only a scene in the movies haha. but yeah moving on, so I made some rndm israeli friends while hanging out by myself, and then I met up with my friend, and we met up with more friends from all over israel. Then we went out for a nice dinner (we were celebrating 4 of our friends b-day) then after dinner we went out clubbing and bar hopping. And then at 3:30 am 3 of my friends and I got out of the club and went to the un official gay beach. (we thought it would be cool to go to a gay beach haha no worries there was a girl with us) Of course there was no one there and it was just us four, so we decided to go skinny dipping in the mediterenian sea lol. I mean I kinda wanted to do it because I never gone skinny dipping and there was no one around, so hey if i am gonna skinny dip why not in Isreal in the mediterenian sea at 4 am , so we did that, and then swam for a long time and watch the sun rise, it was really beautiful, then I took a quick jog on the beach to warm up. Then we went to a near by bar to watch the Celtics and Lakers game.. which disapointed me greatly :(. then we went back to take a shower and go out for breakfast (yeah we pulled an all nighter haha) After Breakfast we went to go shop in the street plazas and then went to the beach, where I got a horrible sun burn and we spent most of our day there and then went back to my friends place to get ready for dinner. But before leaving for dinner i realized i lost my friends i pod, so i ran all the way back and searched the beach for an hour. I looked really dumb as I was walking around the beach shoveling the sand with my feet. Many people saw me doing this and probably thought I was weird and asked me what I was doing. I explained to them that I lost my friend's Ipod, and many of them even helped me find the Ipod. So there was about 3 of us shoveling sand with our feet. They were very nice people. After a long search I gave up and went back. When I got back my friend told me that she found it lol(it was in some other girls purse I think I put it in there after i used it thikning it was her purse lol) so yeah i was relieved. and it was also a very good run and exercise for me so I didn't really mind. That night we went to a nice restaruant called chocolate bar, where they make all these crazy food with chocolate. the girls in our group wanted to go :( lol, and me not liking sweets ordered a fish dish haha while everyone ordered these crazy heart attack chocolate meals, and after that I was way too tierd, so I went to my different friend's place in a city few miles away from Tel Aviv and slept there. And then in the morning me and my friend decided to get back to Tel Aviv but didn't want to pay for the Taxi it was like $30(we are college students OK? :P), so we decided to hitch hike and we hitch hiked our way back to Tel Aviv and met up with other ppl and had a lil more fun hanging out at the beach and then I went to catch my bus back to Sede Boker. all in all this weekend was pretty insane and tierding but it was alot of fun.

Little Visit to the City

Desert behind the city





Alright so today I decided I would go visit the near by city Beer-Sheva a bit. Sede Boker (where I am) is really a country side with nothing around so I decided I go hangout and the city with some of the MIT friends that are there. My Israeli friend Lior and Solomon were driving up to Beer-Sheva for a graudation (Solomon was graduating, he's a genius, getting Phd and masters in 3 years, he invented a different form of calculus to solve the grid matching problem for solar pannels, yeah what a beast) but moving on, so I hitched a ride with them and went to Beer-Sheva, on my way there I saw some Camels and got lucky and had my camera ready to take some pictures. It was about 45 min drive and I met up with Pat and Jason there and we walked around the city, had a nice dinner, and talked about our possible Tel Aviv and Dead sea trip this weekend. Then I came back to Sed Boker around 11pm, and just kinda layed on the grass looking at the sky haha. The night sky here is gorgeous, not as beautiful as the night sky in New Mexico, but close. The stars look like art works as they dot the dark sky, and I just fell in love with the sky, mesmerized by it's beauty. And I think alot when I look at the sky, and I was thinking, how those stars have been there for thousands of years, histories were made under those stars, amazing fits were achieved, and it just made me think about all the things haha kinda wishing these stars could tell me their wisdom that have after seeing all the things that have happened. But moving on. :) haha it was a great time and I am loving Sed Boker. I actually really like and prefer the nature more than the city life. Beer_Sheba is like Cambridge and Boston, and I didn't really like it; because it's something I can experience every day. But being secluded, locked up in this natural beauty, just calms me and it's just very relaxing and nice haha. hard to word it, but it's just a soothing and a great feeling. And I get to concentrate alot more on my studies, so things are awesome here. But alrighty, I will keep you guys posted, Shalom.

my First Shabbat

Alright so today was my first Shabbat and it was pretty awesome. All you really do is just chilax, no one is working, all the stores are closed and people are all just relaxing and enjoying their time. So this morning I had breakfast with Chris (German engineer who is sharing the office with me) and met some of his friends. I hung out for a bit then went back to watch the world cup, or more accurately, to watch S. Korea kick Greece's ass. ;) but after that I cooked lunch, watch Argentina struggle with Nigeria. And then I went out for a run and took some pictures of the places around me. and man the nature's beauty that surrounds me just mesmerizes this suburban boy from Michigan. I think I like mountains and valley's a little too much, but it was awesome. And infact one of the valley's that I took a picture of is the Valley that is mentioned in the bible, and I thought that was really awesome. I Can't wait to go hiking!!!! :) but alright to end the night I also saw the USA game, man I just love world cup, but USA did alright so I give them props. But I better get to bed now, tmr is going to be my first day of work and I am pretty pumped for it. shalom! :)

first weekend at Israel

I arrived to Tel Aviv airport on the evening of June 10th, and right when I stepped out of the plane I got security checked by the air port (which I don't really blame them for because I was the only Asian person in that flight), but moving on I met with my Taxi driver name Yossi and I had to drive for 2 hours from Tel Aviv to Sed Boqer, (which is basically going from North or Israel to South of Israel). The taxi driver wasn't very good at English and I wasn't very, rather not good at all, in Hebrew so we had an interesting conversation... or it seemed like a conversation. I picked up some Hebrew from him and reviewed a little bit as well. I arrived to Professor Feiman's house (professor I will be working with) and had dinner at his house. His wife is a very nice person and she cooked up some delicious spinach pie and rice and more. Professor Feiman also got me some emergency supply in case I would go hungry , which consisted of 2 cans of Gold Star beer, apples, and tea. And Professor Feiman and I drank numerous cans of beer throughout dinner, which I kinda got an Asian glow from lol, and I think his wife was laughing at the fact that I was glowing. At the dinner I also met this pretty kick ass German Engineer who was working on the project as well and he's a real nice guy. In fact the next day he gave me a tour of the place and my surroundings, made me breakfast, took me grocery shopping, and introduced me to some of other friends whom we had lunch with. (I prepared the salad, I was proud) But man so far I have only eaten healthy food in Israel, I only had vegetables and cheese so far. But I actually kinda like this diet. I think I might stick to eat and get a little healthier. After lunch we went to flea market and checked that out. mm and then we hung out for a bit more and I went back to my dorm to sleep because I was way too jet legged. Then I woke up took a quick jog and took some pictures, then did some P90X haha. Then I took a shower and went to the bar night in which friends I met from the afternoon invited me to. We saw some soccer games, drank some gold star and had a good time. Now tmr is Saturday which is the last day of my weekend. Our weekends here are Friday night and Saturday, and then work starts on Sunday. Tmr morning I am having breakfast with Chris and some of his other friends, and then I may go hiking, or if not I am going to run around a bit more take some pictures, go to the pool or just chilax, till my work starts on Sunday. and I was suppose to go on a trip to Sea of Galleli this weekend, but I couldn't make it due to my late arrival and etc, I was kinda bumbed out, but I think figuring out where the hell I am, and knowing my surroundings is first and foremost lol. but after I am settled down, I am planning on traveling every weekend. Oh and sorry I don't have that many pictures, I am not really use to taking pictures lol but I will attach some of the scenery and my guest room (which by the way is really nice, almost like a holiday in, nice fridge, cable TV, room service) alright well Shalom