Shalom.

Greetings from Tel Aviv, Israel.
Yup, that’s where I am now.
Took a midnight flight from Singapore, transit in Frankfurt.
The whole journey is a punishing 17 hours.
I am one of those who will never get a good sleep on the plane.
Maybe I am too excited.
Or maybe it’s a plus-sized woman who needs to visit the lavatory ever so often, when I am sitting in the aisle seat.

Flying nowadays is very safe. I was security-checked twice at Frankfurt airport.
Well, all for better.
And I do not trust the baggage control at the airports.
So I was lugging all my bags from one terminal to another.
Geez, I think I look like a clown.
A very tense, baggage heavy, untidy hair, travelling clown.

Reach Ben Gurion airport at around 4pm local time.
First thing I did when I reach my hotel room is to take a hot shower.
Imagine not having bathe in more than 24 hours!
Then we went to a quaint Chinese restaurant near the hotel.
The meal cost us 60 shekels (~S$21) each, but not as nice.

The people here love bread very much.
Bread for breakfast, bread for lunch, and bread for dinner.
I am lucky I have very good hosts.
They make sure that I am "fully fed" during my stay here!
So nights on the hotel bed are spent tossing and turning on a very very full stomach.

Another "delicacy" is the beanpaste, "Kormose" they called it.
(I am not sure I am spelling it right. Then again spelling is another thing here. Later.)
Beanpaste for breakfast, beanpaste for lunch, and beanpaste for dinner.
The locals loved it!
I think it tasted like bland cheese.

The fruits here are very nice. And cheap.
One big bag of oranges (think almost 12 pieces) cost only 2.5 shekels (~ S$1).

Downtown. Singapore’s equivalent of Orchard road.
Armed with a map, I walked from the hotel to Dizengoff.
It’s a short walk of about 20 mins.
The spelling of the road names does not really tally with that on the map.
I had to guess where I was.
In Dizengoff, individual shops selling clothes, shoes, wines, etc…
But there is a lot less people than in Singapore.
I managed to visit a bead shop, but more of that in another post.

Another thing I noticed is that the locals has very dirty cars. (No offence!)
I was told that is was due to a lack of rain here, and that they washed their cars like once a month?
I know someone who waxed his car in Singapore every 2 weeks!

I do not have any chances of taking good photographs of the place.
The sun sets here pretty early, around 5:30 pm.
So by the time I want to go "shopping", it already "feels" very late.

I just found out that my name (Fiona) in Hebrew means Pigeon.
And "nana" means mint.
Nana tea means mint tea.
Nana Fiona means Minty Pigeon? Wahahahaha!!!

Shalom!