Trade-offs

Spiderman constantly grapples with his Uncle Ben's dying words: "with great power comes great responsibility." I kind of feel the same way: "with a short trip comes constant trade-offs regarding what to do and what to see." These are the politics of dancing, metaphorically speaking, while on the road. As for physical dance, there's been a bit of that too, but we'll get there yet.

I suppose I have to back up here, a number of days at that, as I've not been in Tel Aviv (means: Hill of Spring). The story starts with my walk/exploration of the Tel Aviv from the center of the city heading south along King George V street a few days back. I got it into my head that I really wanted to see the waters of the med. The last time I saw them, I think, I was four years old and we were emigrating from Russia with a stop in Ladispole, Italia. Or maybe, the last time my skin actually felt the waters of the med it was in the form of the black sea when I was about the same age. That goofy picture of me knee deep in black sea relaxating... yeah, I think that's probably more accurate.

King George st. is a hodge podge of clothing stores that range from trendy to fetish. There's a sense that you're walking down Telegraph ave in Berkeley and heading for the great unknown, which in this case is the Yemmenite quarter. One reaches King George st. from Ibn Gvirol just after Rabin Square. Its actually a lovely walk, I wish I had taken it a little slower and explored more of the shops. When I started the day I had been dead set on seeing the markets and bazars of the Yemmenite quarter, but that changed as I went along... anyway I'm digressing as I just woke up and should probably go shower, except for the fact it's 1 in the afternoon and I'm loathe to move off this couch.

After a number of blocks along King George, one reaches the market at the intersection of five streets. The stalls of the market jut out from both sides of the street and crowd the space some like some tropical rain forest. The canopies above the stalls quite thoroughly blot out the sun providing shelter for shoppers during less favorable seasons, like the two main ones, hot and cold. The first few blocks are tend to be kitch stalls selling fake bling and clothing. I saw another market, the Carmel market, a few blocks before reaching the narrow streets of the quarter that sold clothing, but the clothing stalls with their authentic armani replicas appeared as I pressed on through the thick swell of humanity haggling in at least 3 languages. Clothing gives way to food and the mountains of fresh produce where cantors are screaming "banann" which is very much "banana" but the guy screaming is Israeli and trying to pronounce it in the Russian: "ananas" and so it goes on and on. Some are more sullen, they almost seem like prisoners surrounded on three sides by the commodities of their existence, like the man who was manning the sweets, giant trays of backlava, birds nests and other delicacies of honey with pistachio accents. I don't know why, there were others near him, but I chose to buy from him knowing that of all the sellers he probably was the least likely to speak any English. Go figure... go figure I tell you.

There was one stall, which if I had a real kitchen here, I would've spent a fortune at:



The bins on the left are filled with mixtures of rice and spices. The proprieter of the stall grabbed a scooper and filled it with goodness and shoved it right under my nose for my to smell it, damn him and his wily mercantile ways. A few stalls down I saw an aluminum table and fish, fresh from a bucket or tank of water, tossed onto the mortician's slab flopping around gasping for air. It doesn't get much fresher than that. They looked pained, their mouths sucking air instead of water. I walked over to take their photo. The fish monger shook an angry finger at me and his head in tempo with his disdain for me and my western ways. Sorry folks, no dying fish pics, but I swear I saw a great composition on that table, slightly morbid but great nonetheless.

I kept on walking until I stopped at a small line. A man on a raised dais was squeecing pomegranates in a large sturdy press. Along with the sweet red pits he would blend in orange or carrot juice, or the juice of any other fleshy fruit he had in a glass counter. I opted for a pom and orange mixture, fresh squeezed there in front of me. This was truly a pleasure, I highly recommend you try it, in whatever country you may be. Bottled Pom is nice, but as you can imagine, there's nothing quite like fresh squeezed and this goes doulbe and triple true when walking through such a market.

The end of the stalls were near at this point, quite near. I steppd out of the mess. There was a large parking lot to the right with more stalls on the left heading west toward the Sea. I parked myself against a wall smoking a cigarette while changing out my lenses. There was a man selling flowers at the very end of the row of stalls. He had these tightly wrapped bouquets of roses, very small buds, I wanted to take a macro of the colorful collections. I switched out for my old macro lens, walked up and he gave me that waving finger back and forth. I really wanted to go right ahead and take the photo anyway to spite him. I don't understand this, I really don't, but if you keep me from taking this photo, what chance do you think you have of me actually buying some of your wares? Hm? Seems like bad business sense, but then again what the hell do I actually know, I'm just a westerner, "these are not the droids you're looking for."

The Med was just a few blocks down from here, I could smell salt in the air, it could've been from some barrel of pickled herring, which I had passed just a few stalls before the the flower man and his verboten finger, but no, this was the sea. I gave Erez a call to find out what the neighborhood was like in this part of town... Yes, paranoid as always, I mean I had thousands of dollars of camera gear on me and, well, I'd like to come with it... er... um... something... If New York is "The Big Apple" then Tel Aviv is "The Little Apple" as they call it, and all apples have a rotten worm hole here and there, so it's probably wise to take some basic precautions.

I hoofed it across the sea-side road. To the North of me were large hotels which do booming business in the summer with travelers that come far and wide to enjoy the sand and surf of those waters. Some kind of current must've kicked up the silt near the beach as the water was quite brown... a little dissapointing as I was expecting blue blue and maybe some more blue along with turquoise pools of glittering midertaneanism... not so, I saw that later. To the south of me was a finger of land that jutted out into the water. I began to walk along the beach stopping for the occasional picture project. The blasted remnants of the old walls of the Gidi museum presnted themselves as a fascinating attraction. The broken stones had an inner core of steel and glass that wore the skin of the past as decoration/commemoration. I walked inside, openned my bag, confirmed that I didn't have a gun, and then began to read the placards of how a handful of troops took old Yaffo, "old Tel Aviv" and the resistance in 1947/48 before the formation of the state. There was a bit to read, but as far as exhibits, not too too much, other than old sten guns, thompsons mortars and rockets now quite defunct and impotent in their glass cases. I asked the girl working the counter, a pretty sandy blonde in fatigues if she had ever been to Yaffo, as it's a stone's throw from the Gidi house, she said, no but I hear it's quite nice. I marvelled at this statement, when a country is this small, you figure you'd go everywhere, but I don't have room to talk as I'm constantly finding new nooks and places to eat in San Francisco, but still, this isn't a nook Yaffo, this is a sizeable chunk of history.



From here it was furhter south along the coast and to the hill of Yaffo. The rest of the afternoon I can only describe as near misses. There's a syrian synagogue on the grounds, along with orthodox churches and several mosques and a center for memorizing the Qu'ran. Yaffo is a remnant of what can be described as the relative peace and harmony pre-zionism, that existed before the state. The walls and steps of the tell date back to before Jesus. This was an ancient port City and the name of Jaffa or Yafo is attributed to Noah's son Japheth who legend has built the city... there's more of such claims and history on Wikipedia if you're so inclined. I wandered around through the narrows and straights of the rising and falling stone corridors exploring the small galleries and artists shops. It really is quite a charming experience to be in a place like this. I bent down to scratch a small cat that wound up following me around as I followed the ancient sea wall, with its collar of razor wire around and back up the hill to a small shop with sketches and old roman coins that were retasked as jewelery with their certificates of authentecity from the Israeli Archaeological society.



Ok, I'm going to have to cut this short... I have a half naked Israeli standing here telling me I have one minute to go into the shower or I will be shot, as we didn't wake up till 1 this afternoon and its time for food and to visit with people while there's still a spot of daylight.

Shalom for now...