From the previous passage you can gather that the morning didn't feel so great for most of the group. We did manage to get on the bus ad were all accounted for just half an hour behind schedule which i think all in all was pretty good. The morning was to be spent in tzfat, the home of Kabbalah, Jewish mysticism. I had pretty much written off Kabbalah as a bunch of hocus pocus and a scam, after all Madonna is a kabbalist. I had also heard that the basis of Kabbalah was something that should only be practiced and studied by very learned rabbis.

Well, we wandered down the quaint streets towards an unknown destination, our guide most likely mentioned it, but i wasn't much paying attention so early. However, upon entering what turned out to be an art gallery, I was blown away. There was psychedelic art lining all the walls that drew my eyes and blew my mind. The next hour was spent listening to the artist David Friedman introduce some of his pieces and in doing so give us an introduction to Kabbalah. I will preface my excitement for what i heard by saying that i don't think i could ever study or practice Kabbalah and the many of its deeper concepts including numerology and cosmology fall well out of my range of interest. However, the base line principles of it were fascinating to me because they fall in line with the eastern philosophy that in am very interested in. It speaks of opposites, oneness and infiniteness as complementary forces and the spirituality and power of nature and family. That is drastically oversimplifying things, but the point is that hearing some of these ideas coming from a Jewish basis was exciting. It also didn't hurt that the colors and shapes in my fragile state put me in another world.

After that we visited the most famous synagogues in tzvat, one Sephardi (Jews of middle east and African decent) and the other Ashkenazim (Jews from Europe). Frankly that whole split concept doesn't make sense to me because all Jews gotta come from the same place, right? Regardless, they were contrasting styles and were both interesting, but that is not the value I found in that couple of hours walking around. I intended up in a interesting philosophical discussion with one of the leaders of the trip who was my age about the merits of ritual as it relates to religion and spirituality. I won't get into the details at the moment, but it was really interesting for me to attempt to verbalize some of the ideas I have been kicking around with someone who comes from an equally right, but opposite viewpoint.

The ride to Tel Aviv provided us with ample napping opportunities and we also threw in a long lunch stop. When we arrived in Tel Aviv we had said an emotional goodbye to our soldier friends and then we were allowed to have a free night. This was the first time on the trip we were allowed out of the group supervision. Luckily for the guides, we were all still pretty lame from the night before so there wasn't to be a giant party. I ended up having a nice dinner with a bunch of people from the trip and my sister. We had a leisurely meal and then went back to the hotel.

I was well rested in the morning which was great because the last day was jam packed with seeing Tel Aviv. We started off the day with the independence hall, the site where David Ben Gurion declared the establishment of a Jewish state in the land of Israel. I wasn't expecting much out of it and maybe it was just the guide we had, but it was a very powerful story. The guide spoke for over one hour about the day the declaration was signed and the major players. I was riveted the entire time, I am still uncertain how biased it was, but am determined to go back and read more about it.
After that we wandered a bit before heading to the old Arab port of Jaffa(Yafo) where we ate lunch and spent some time in the market haggling for clothes and assorted junk. The old seafront part of Jaffa is beautiful and it would be nice to go there in the summer to sit and have a coffee.

From there we went back into Tel Aviv proper and saw the seat of government there (real austere and ugly) and the site of Rabin's assassination. The rest of the time until dinner was spent at another market in Tel Aviv where i felt like i had returned to China, because i recognized 75% of the goods being sold which was mostly fake crap along with some foods and vegetables. I proved to be quite useful at this market as I helped my sister and a few others make some good purchases(it helps when you now how much they paid for it).

For dinner, we returned to old jaffa to a place called Dr. Shakshuka, where we ate Shashuka (chunky tomatoes and veggies topped with sunny side up eggs) and cous cous Morracan style with vegetable soup. It was really delicious and there was an added bonus because it was family style and aside from my sister and I, no one at our table liked it.

This was the last night of the trip after all and after we returned to the hotel to rest and refresh we met to have a goodbye session where we reminisced mostly and then we set out to a bar/club together as a group. It was a great time, we danced, drank and laughed until the wee hours of the morning. It was a fitting end to an all in all great 10 days.