Israeli ATMs

By all accounts, the place to get the best exchange rate in a foreign country is from an automatic teller machine (ATM). Thankfully, Israel doesn't lack for these though they do have some peculiarities that I thought I'd mention. First, I've found there will be usually 2 of the machines at the various banks. I don't know why they have 2 of them. Second, for some reason, my ATM card won't work in 1 of the machines. Thankfully, it always works in the other so if the first ATM you use doesn't work, try the second. Third, ATM fees in Israel are pretty reasonable. My first ATM withdrawal was for 200 shekels (approximately $50 U.S.) which cost me $1.42 U.S. Fourth, one drawback to the Israeli ATMs is the receipt you'll get back if you ask for one which I would recommend (makes it easier to keep track of your withdrawals). The receipt is entirely in Hebrew. Hebrew is a language that isn't remotely close to English. You can't remotely guess what the words mean and, it's written right to left vice left to right in English. This means you won't be able to figure out what your receipt says barring the amount you withdrew and the date/time of the transaction.

Overall, I'd recommend if you're traveling to Israel to use ATMs to get shekels vice foreign exchange service. The ATM fees are reasonable, ATMs are widely available in Israel as far as I know and, they offer very good exchange rates. Happy travels all!

Further Observations on Israel

These comments are various observations on things I've seen and experienced on my tour of Israel so far.

In the United States, you'll see lots of critters that are called squirrels. Israel's squirrels are cats apparently. They're every where. I've never seen so many. I suppose they are helpful in that they undoubtedly keep the rodent population down. Still, it is a trip to see so many.

Local country beers can be little better than piss water at times. One country I didn't expect to have a good beer was Israel. It isn't known for making a good brew. So, it was to my great surprise when I tried a large glass of Goldstar at the Kibbutz Lavi Hotel that it is a pretty good lager. I've had it 3 times now and, I wish I could get the stuff in the U.S. It is good beer.

For reasons I don't understand, Israelis won't serve meet with dairy products like cheese (fish is apparently not considered meat and is available in abundance) for breakfast. I've had 5 or 6 breakfasts in Israel and haven't seen hide or hair of a sausage or some bacon for breakfast. It made me wondered if they ate much meat here then, I had dinner at the Dan Carmel hotel in Haifa and, I found out Israelis do eat meat. There was chicken, stuffed eggplant and lamb. So, I guess there's something about breakfast.

In Jerusalem, they put on a great sound and light show at the Tower of David (hope that's the right place). It tells of the history of Jerusalem from David's time to modern times. I went to the show last night and, it was very good. I'd highly recommend it.

That's all for now. Happy travels all!

Tour Report on Israel

My tour of Israel continues. Yesterday, my tour group started in Galilee, visited the Shrine of the Beatitudes, the nine blessings Jesus preached of to people on the shore of the Sea of Galilee. After that, we drove to the close by Church of Peter's Primacy where Jesus commanded Peter to feed his sheep. It was also the site of his feeding 5,000 miracle. Then, to the ruins of Capernaum and the church that is built over the ruins of Peter and Andrew's home. Supposedly, it is the only church with a glass floor. The Jordan River is very famous though to honest, it isn't a very impressive river. It isn't terribly wide or deep. Still, it is the river John the Baptist baptized Jesus in. We visited a site that specializes in baptisms and makes it easy to get to the river. Supposedly mega-churches have baptized huge groups of people there. I wasn't super wiped out with the place though I did touch the water and my friend Harvey took a small bottle of it to take home. Bet She'an was next with a very interesting visit to the former Roman city. The city was the third largest Roman city in its time (Jerusalem was 1st and Caesarea was 2nd). Our group walked down the main street in town which showed the superb Roman engineering. The Roman's built the street with sloping sides that sloped up to a row of stones in the center of road. This helped carry water away when it rained. The city also hold some neat mosaics including one of the Goddess Tyche, the goddess of luck in a prostitution house. One last thing of note about Bet She'an is the tel located right next to the ruins of the city. The tel is over 7,000 years old and may hold all kinds on interesting archaeological finds but, apparently lack of funds has prevented any excavation though there has been funding for excavating the Roman city. Every thing our group saw was uncovered in the last 2 decades.

Our final destination of the day was the holy city of Jerusalem. For me, it'll be something to say I've been there. I wish the city still had a Hard Rock Cafe so I could buy a t-shirt and brag about to folks back home. We stopped at a place on the Mount of Olives that overlooked the old city. The views were awesome. It was something to see the walls built by Suleiman the Magnificent, the Al Aqsa Mosque (from a distance) and other points of interest. My tour director Jacob pointed many places we would visit today during a walk through the old city.

After our photo op, Asher our driver drove us to our hotel the Leonardo Plaza. It's a very nice hotel in a good location. We'll spend a total of 5 nights here. Stay tuned for more updates on my Israel tour.

Enchantment of the Seas Re-positioning

I think I posted recently that I didn't know where Royal Caribbean's Enchantment of the Seas was going to go once Grandeur of the Seas took its place in Baltimore, Maryland in April 2013. This morning, I received an email from Royal Caribbean's Crown & Anchor Society (their frequent cruiser program). As luck would have it, they let people know what new cruises will be available on the Enchantment of the Seas. On April 13, 2013, Enchantment of the Seas will do a special 12 day cruise where it departs Baltimore and makes port at Philipsburg, St. Maarten; Basseterre, St. Kitts; Oranjestad, Aruba; Willemstad, Curacao and Labadee, Haiti. At the end of the cruise, it'll arrive at its new home port of Port Canaveral, Florida. Once it arrives there, it'll do 3 and 4 day cruises to the Bahamas. Presumably, later in the year, it'll receive its refit though I haven't seen any word on that yet. That's the latest (for what its worth) per Royal Caribbean on the Enchantment of the Seas (Source: Royal Caribbean website). Happy travels all!

New Ship in Baltimore in 2013

About 3 weeks ago, Royal Caribbean posted its 2013-2014 cruises for Baltimore, Maryland. The information that surprised me about the posting was the changing of the ship they home port in Baltimore. Currently, it's Enchantment of the Seas. This will change in April 2013 when another Vision Class ship the Grandeur of the Seas will take over their cruises out of Baltimore. At this time, I know nothing about this ship barring the fact it's the same class as Enchantment of the Seas. Presumably, once Grandeur of the Seas takes over, Enchantment of the Seas will be free to get a refit. Royal Caribbean was planning to refit the ship sometime in 2012 or 2013 (source their website). Nothing specific has been announced about that as far as I know. Currently, Royal Caribbean isn't showing any further cruises for Enchantment of the Seas on its website http://www.royalcaribbean.com once it finishes its last cruise out of Baltimore. At this time, Grandeur of the Seas is running cruises out of Venice, Italy. In November 2012, it'll cross the Atlantic Ocean en-route to the Caribbean where it'll offer cruises Caribbean cruises out of Colon, Panama (source: Royal Caribbean website) until it re-positions to Baltimore in April 2013.

Kibbutz

Yesterday, I got to find out what a kibbutz is. As of this post, I'm staying at the Kibbutz Lavi Hotel which is run by a kibbutz. Globus, the company I'm touring Israel and Jordan with, booked our group in this hotel so we could learn about kibbutz which is a uniquely Israeli institution. The hotel kindly had a member named Esther (last name unknown) who spoke very fine English to tell those in our group who were interested what kibbutz is and how it works. As I understand it, kibbutz in a nutshell is socialism at the village level. Every one contributes to the kibbutz financial well being through various jobs in the kibbutz. The kibbutz in turn provides for all its members basic needs such as food, clothing, medical, housing, utilities etc. All who take part in kibbutz in Israel are Jewish and Zionist. There a very few non Jewish members. The kibbutz that runs the hotel is a bit unique among kibbutz in that it is orthodox (more devout). Approximately, 20 out of over 250 kibbutz's are orthodox. According to Esther, the Jewish religion is very family oriented and, this makes kibbutz very attractive to Jewish (there are Arab) Israelis as a kibbutz is basically one very big (there are 190 families involved in the hotel's kibbutz) family. The kibbutz is very democratic. The kibbutz is run by various committees (there isn't 1 set leader) whose members are elected by the entire kibbutz membership. I think Esther said there are 32 different committees running the different aspects of their kibbutz. Some of the committees are surprising such as one that decides if a new committee is needed to cover a particular issue or if a present committee can handle the issue. Another handles relationships and can give money to a member so they can court a future wife or husband. In my opinion, the biggest advantage of a kibbutz is the security you have. You have a huge extended family who watches out for you and, it takes care of your basic needs at all stages of your life. A downside I can see is that you wouldn't make enough money to do some expensive things you might really enjoy such as travel in my case. According to my tour director Jacob, the kibbutz may be dying out in Israel. Esther confirmed that there haven't been any new kibbutz's created in quite a while. So, this uniquely Israeli institution may be slowly dying out. It was interesting to learn of it during my tour.

First Impressions of Israel

I arrived at Ben Gurion International Airport today for the first time. A Globus rep met my travel friend and I there and arranged to have a taxi take us to our hotel. I looked out the taxi window the whole time to see what Israel looked like. Some parts look fertile while others are dirty and graffiti laden. I was surprised by how many scooters there are in this country. Later this evening, I had dinner at a restaurant within the former Jaffa train station complex. It was neat. Outside the complex there was a good size parking lot AND at least 15 scooters. I've seen someone zipping by on one repeatedly. Price wise, the country isn't cheap. I had a large Tuborg draft beer at the hotel bar and, it cost over $7. I was surprised that the local brews Maccabee and Goldstar were just as expensive as the imported brands.

That's all of my first impressions for now. Tomorrow, I get to meet my tour director and the other members of my tour group. I'm curious how many there'll be. The tour as far as I know is fully booked. Also, plan to try out the  hotel swimming pool. It looks really nice. And, I need to find out where I can buy postage stamps to mail postcards back to the U.S. Stay tuned for more observations on Israel. Happy travels all!!!!!

Toronto Pearson International Airport

I made it to Toronto. I arrived at Toronto's Pearson International Airport around 3:45 p.m. My flight was on Air Canada Jazz. The plane was a Bombardier Dash 8-100. It was a nice little plane. Once I arrived in Toronto, I had a long walk to customs. Apparently, if you're changing flights internationally, you can't go from one flight to another. I arrived at gate F85 got to a point where you would descend down escalators to get to customs where I saw a different customs section if you were going to E gates. As I was going to gate E70, I was a bit confused by this. I got in the line for the E gate customs folks and, it turned out that was the way to go. I discovered one BIG plus to the airport. They offer free WiFi. I was delighted. Some airports charge for it which creates a bit of a hassle. Overall, Toronto's Pearson International Airport seems like a nice airport. Stay tuned for more travel posts. Tomorrow, I arrive in Tel Aviv, Israel. Happy travels all!

Sakura Japanese Steak and Seafood House

It's been at least 2 years since I last visited the Laurel Sakura Japanese Steak and Seafood House. It isn't that I don't like the restaurant. It's just that I'd been cutting back on eating out. With my travel friend Harvey coming up for our flights to Toronto, Canada, I recommended the restaurant as something good and different for dinner. The drive to the restaurant is easy enough. You take Maryland 295 to the Maryland 197 exit toward Laurel. You drive to Contee Road and turn left onto Contee Road. You got to the 3rd stoplight (where Route 1, Baltimore Washington Boulevard is) and turn left heading toward Washington D.C. The restaurant is on the left side of the road just before the Academy Ford car dealership.

The restaurant is one of those Japanese restaurants where the cook puts on a show while preparing the food. He juggles eggs with his spatula, makes a smoking volcano out of onion rings, cracks jokes and basically entertains the customers while preparing their respective orders. It makes for an amusing and more enjoyable dining experience.

The prices are very reasonable in my opinion. I had Teppanyaki steak and shrimp for $21.95. My unlimited sodas cost $2.15. A choice of 1 starter (chicken livers, sauteed mushrooms or 2 shrimps), a bowl of some kind of very good onion soup, a salad with an unidentifiable salad dressing, vegetables (broccoli, onions, carrots, squash, bean sprouts), and either white rice or fried rice come with the main entree. If you go to the Sakura website http://sakurasteakhouse.com/, you'll find coupons that could save you an additional 10%. Hours wise, the Laurel restaurant starts serving dinner at 4:30 p.m. I don't remember how late it stays open. Also, they have lunch hours. I don't know what those are.

Overall, I was very pleased with my dinner at this Sakura restaurant. The food was plentiful and tasty. The cook was very amusing and skilled. My waiter did a great job of keeping my glass filled with soda and was very prompt in serving my appetizer, soup and salad (depending on the rice you want, the cook may provide that i.e. fried rice). I would heartily recommend this restaurant to anyone who likes Japanese food. I definitely plan on going back myself. Bon Appetit all!