Day 2: Jerusalem Old City, Israel

It is crazy hot in Jerusalem in July. Nonetheless, it was worth the sweat to see the Jerusalem Old City (See 15). Either book a tour online or touring the city yourself. Jerusalem is very convenient to get around. The nearest light rail station to the Old City is City Hall Station (Others 8). Get off the light rail at City Hall and walk toward Jaffa Gate (See 16). Along the way, you will be greeted with the "I heart JLM" sign. Make use of the Google map and Moovit app to find the way. So, getting data on your phone is important. Get e-sim on your phone, so you won't have to physically change the sim card. Plenty of esim options online.

It's just a 5 minutes walk toward the Jaffa Gate, but it's uncovered under the burning sun.

My skin was hurting after staying under the sun for 5 minutes. I had sunscreen on.

There are tours that you can sign up. Some are "free" and you just tip the tour guide however much at the end of the tour. The guy in the red shirt with a red umbrella is a tour guide. Occasionally, if the group is small, you may hear tour guides asking around if anyone wants to join their "free" tour.

Right after going through the Jaffa Gate, it's the Tower of David (See 13). For a non Christian and no knowledge in history, seeing the Old City would be quite boring as everything is just bricks and stones. With a tour guide, we learned more about the history of the different religions and stories of how the city came to be. Got to really appreciate what we saw.

Entrance to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre (See 12)

The inside of the church was beautiful!

Many alleys full of shops. The owners will try everything they can to get you inside. They can probably greet in a dozen different languages.

The city is like a maze. Without the guide, we probably get lost and take much longer to find the places we wanted to see.

Online, people say you need to dress conservatively, as in no showing your collar bone and elbows and no dress above your knee. Turns out people there are relatively more open. We did see women wearing tank tops. I guess it's not socially favored and they probably won't like people wearing tank top and shorts in the church, but if just to walk around the city, it's OK.