Day Trip to Jerusalem

On October 23, we went to Jerusalem for the day (leaving in the morning and returning just before midnight).

We took a taxi to the 'slow train' station, took a slow train to the Ben Gurion Station and then the new 'fast train' to the Jerusalem Station. 
 
The fast train is to eventually hit 100 mph but the day we took it, the maximum was probably more like 65 mph. We were, at our peak speed, traveling faster than the cars on a nearby highway but not much faster. We also accelerated pretty slowly after we boarded as only half the power stations were operating. 

The first image shows one of the bridges that carries the fast train. 

About 25% of the distance between Ben Gurion and Jerusalem is underground. The Jerusalem station (second image) is about 120 feet underground and connected via a short tunnel (after you go up 3 long escalators), to the Jerusalem Central Bus Station.  Overall the trip from the Ben Gurion Station to the Jerusalem Station took about 40 minutes. It is to eventually be reduced to 20 minutes or less. 

Once we got to the Central Bus station we got a cab to the Jewish Quarter of the old city. The cab driver was an Elvis Presley fan who had been to Graceland and told us about the large increase in Chinese (China-Israel trade has boomed recently per article here) and East European visitors to Jerusalem in the past year or two.  We visited the plaza in front of the Western Wall for a while. At the western edge of the Kotel Plaza, a visitor's center was under construction (or that's what it seems to be as per my guess when I saw it and also an article on line here.) We started ascending the steps to the upper Jewish Quarter but then decided against it.

We departed the Jewish Quarter and took a cab to Ramot, which is one of the Ring neighborhoods of Jerusalem.  We went to the Mall there and ate at a food court (the image shows a large poster of the Grace after Meals in front of one of the vendors). 

The mall is, apparently, also a place where parents can rent little cars for their kids.

I would really have loved to do this when I was  that age. I would have even put up with clothes shopping in return for 10 minutes in that car.

We then walked to the apartment of some people we know in Ramot (the next image was taken on the way to the apartment).

We had supper with them at a nearby restaurant (for some reason I forgot to take a picture of us with our friends).

By the time we finished eating and talking it was pretty late (almost 11:00pm) so we got a cab from Ramot to Ramat Gan. It didn't take particularly long since by then the traffic had decreased quite a bit.