We visited the Tower of David in the Old City of Jerusalem. The tower is named after David, the former King of Israel (from David and Goliath fame). It was built around 200 BCE, but has been successively replaced/built on over the years.
The following are more parallel 3D images.
To view the 3D photos, look through the page and merge the two images into one.
When I found out I was going to Jerusalem I emailed my online friend Miriam Schwab for advice about what to do and see in the area (Miriam lives in Jerusalem). She gave us heaps of advice and invited us to join her family for a traditional Jewish dinner during the Shabatt (Jewish sabbath).
Miriam and her children. Thanks to Victoria Argyle for the photo.
After arriving in Jerusalem, we made our way on foot (in 35°C heat!) to Miriams place. It hadn’t dawned on me that we wouldn’t be able to contact Miriam due to Jews not being allowed to use electrical devices on the Shabatt and I hadn’t bothered getting particularly accurate directions on how to find her place. All we had we her address, but only a teeny tourist map to find her on. We asked the locals for directions, but only a few seemed to know the housing area she lived in. A few suggested we walked up a hill, in the opposite direction to where we should have been going, to a Mosque on the top of the Mount of Olives. We found out later that the locals simply didn’t want us finding her housing complex as they are unhappy that there is a single Jewish housing complex in an otherwise entirely arab area of Jerusalem.
Two hours after we left the hotel, we were eventually met by an abrupt confrontation with guards armed with machine guns outside Miriams place. Once we convinced them that we were indeed supposed to be there, we were served a scrumptious meal of middle eastern style food 🙂 It was great to see an inside view of a typical Israeli family. The concept of having armed guards outside my house is certainly a very foreign concept though!
A panoramic image from Miriam’s place. On the right is Miriam and slightly to her left is Vicki. In the background you can see the wall seperating Palestine from the rest of Israel and you can faintly see the mountains of Jordan in the distance.
Photo of the wall seperating Palestine from the rest of the Israel as seen from Miriam’s place.
View of the mountains of Jordan as seen from Miriam’s place
For those of you who aren’t aware, Vicki Agyle and I have recently returned from a whirlwind tour of Hong Kong, Israel, England, Germany, Belgium, Netherlands and Japan.
Despite everyone’s insistence that we would be blown up the moment we reached Tel Aviv, we ‘braved’ it anyway to make our way to the ICCC38 (International Coordination Chemistry Conference 38) in Jerusalem.
The heat walking off the plane was extreme. We quickly noticed that there was no air conditioning in the airport, so we headed outside to enjoy the sunny weather … except it turned out that there was air conditioning in the airport afterall! The heat and humidity outside was incredible. Our attempts to take photos of the scenery failed, as the lenses fogged up immediately due to the extreme humidity.
The only reasonable photos I managed to take were from inside the terminal. Below is my first real attempt at creating a 3D parallel view image. If you look through the page and merge the two images into one, you will see the view in 3D. Don’t go straining your eyes too hard though :p
Our trip to Hong Kong was short and sharp, just a brief stopover before heading to Amsterdam for what was supposed to be another short visit in transit. Except it turns out we got confused and in fact had a day and a half there, so had to quickly arrange accomodation! The photo below is another 3D image, this time of a random Amsterdam canal (they have lots of them). More photos of the Netherlands will be coming later as we went back there for a proper visit later on.
Thanks to Dars for the photos 🙂
Dell have released a new high tech pedestrian safety device. They are calling it the “Dell Inspiron 6000”. It features a hard outer casing and a protective LCD screen to take the brunt of any impacts pedestrians may face due to vehicular collisions.
I tested out this new device this morning. I placed it in my backpack and headed off to work, then whilst crossing the road a crazy women crashed into me from behind, sending me tumbling across her bonnet. I landed splat on my back on the road. My trusty Dell took the brunt of the impact and I was able to stand up unscathed 🙂 The only injury I have is a sprained ankle which wasn’t protected by my computer. And guess what! The computer is still working and I’m posting this message on it right now 🙂
Apparently the little green man was indeed flashing when I crossed and the lady who hit me is in a whole lot of trouble. She will probably be charged with careless driving or careless driving causing injury. My computer will live for another day – and thankfully so will I!
EDIT: Thanks to my cousin Alison Petrie for the following photos (she saw it happen).
There were two ambulances, a fire truck and two police cars. Kinda overkill for an itty bitty test of a new safety device, but anyhows …
The woman on the right is the one who drove into me.
EDIT: It also turned out that I was badly bruised behind my knee. The woman who hit me lost her drivers license for six months and was fined for $250 for her failed efforts to remove me from the gene pool.
EDIT 2: It happened again! Lightning strikes twice.
My blog was being over run by various softwares, themes etc. I’d written. Plus the blog format of this site didn’t lend itself too well to replying to support questions, so I’ve moved all of my web development posts over to a new site called PixoPoint Web Development. It features a forum instead of blog comments to allow for better organisation of questions, suggestions and advice.
I’ll eventually remove all of the old posts here (which now redirect to the new site), but I’ve left them here for the mean time in case someone comes looking for them.