Tel Aviv, the tastes of.

It is very hard to be in Israel and not to eat good. It is simply impossible not to eat. Israeli culture swivels around eating and even if you land at an average restaurant, you will not be disappointed.  Though I had a long list of places I wanted to visit, I reached to only part of them. Below are my quick impressions. 

24/7 breakfasts at Benedikt from around the world. Rothschild blvd 29,+972 3 6868657

Galilee the Wine County

During this trip I have been reminded again and again that Israel is truly a beautiful and a magnificent country. It has it all. Beautiful nature, people, food, art, attraction of all sorts and mostly brain. Everybody here loves to say, that Israeli brain works all the time and will manage everywhere. So, it manages very well in the upper Galilee, creating one of the best wines in the world. Not many of you know, but Israel has a very substantial wine making market and Galilee is the heart and soul of it. Situated 1000 meters above the sea level, Galilee has a rich history of cultivating grapes and making wine as long as 2000 years ago. It has the climate, the soils, the slopes, the elevations and everything necessary to create the unique tastes and qualities that can easily compete with Napa or France. Dalton, Yarden, Gamla, Barkan etc., are the famous commercial  brands, that export millions of bottles every year world wide. Among them there are also medium size wineries and the boutique ones. You will need at least a month to visit all of them, we had only one day.
I was lucky to find a map of all Israeli wineries in the blog of somebody called Yossi. Comes out Yossi is a wine lover, who made an outstanding job of mapping all the wineries of Israel with their websites, addresses and phone numbers, on one simple Google map. "What a great man this Yossi"- I thought thanking him from the bottom of my heart for doing this. From now on I'm faithful Yossi's blog subscriber. Consequently, based on the map we started to head North to the Upper Galilee.

As expected the panorama was absolutely stunning. We couldn't help, but to stop every 20 minute to photograph again and again. Just breathing the air and enjoying this nature alone was already worth the trip. All I wanted was to pull out a blanket ,to lay down on the hill, to watch the sky and to get lost in it.

One Day or Tel-AvivILoveYou#1

This weekend has started with a sunny shishi boker* at Kerem haTaimanim (vineyards of yemenites), in Tel-Aviv with my dear newly married friends Debbi and Yonnatan(whose few wedding pictures you can see here). We sat at a lovely hole in the wall eatery "Shimon Melech haMarakim"(Shimon the king of soups) and ate an authentic Yemenite zoharaim* with Lahoh, Hilbe and Yemenite chicken soup. 

Morimoto

One of the best spent evenings of last January was our 3rd anniversary dinner at Morimoto restaurant in meatpacking district.Since our beautiful Galia came out into this world, this type of nights became rare and therefore much more appreciated. The restaurant is run by the famous Iron Chef Masaharu Morimoto and Stephen Starr and designed by not less famous architect Tadao Ando. So eating deliciously in style was a given.

We have ordered an Omakase, "i'll leave it to you" from Japanese, with a tasting of Sake and of course some rose champagne, that for some reason wasn't rose at all.

The dishes were arriving one by one, and even that I didn't bring my D90 in order not to look touristy and bloggish, I couldn't help myself, but snap pictures with iPhone. Overall impression: highly recommended ,but don't order rolls, surprise yourself...

Enjoy the reportage below:

                      Rose which didn't look like Rose...

TOKYO SAUDADE-Asakusa Temples

Asakusa is one of the old districts in Tokyo, famous for its temples and more of a traditional atmosphere then any other neighborhood in Tokyo. It is considered that this district existed during edo period. This is as well the oldest geisha district, where you can still find about 40 working Geishas,as well as old kimono stores with new and vintage kimonos just off nakamise shopping street.

Kaminarimon ('Thunder Gate) leading to the temples through Nakamise shopping raw

Koh Samui in One Day

One of the days on Koh Samui, we took a scooter and went to explore the island on our own. Being one of the biggest islands in Thailand, Koh Samui is much more natural in its character then Phuket and can be circumnavigated by car or bike in just couple of hours. We didn't have any particular plan, and went where ever the road would bring us :)

 Early morning, looking at the Big Budda from Bang Rak beach.

some more on Phuket- Pa Tong

Life on Phuket island burts at Pa Tong beach- the Cancun of Thailand, over commercialized tourist trap, but still a place you should see. This is a place where you find everyone and everything: bars, parties, deafening music from every corner, lady boys and girls dancing on bar's counter-tops to attract tourists; galleries, cheap stalls and travel agencies, street massages and more.
We came out here one of the evenings for some nightlife action-we saw it all in its beauty and ugliness.  Unfortunately not all the pictures survived and below is all i've got for today, however some basic guidance in words:
Most of the bars and action is concentrated on Soi Bangla. Few of the famous bars are Soi Katoey(famous for its lady boy stage, if any of you is interested :)), Soi Eric and Soi Easy(mostly australian crowd). Here you are likely see a lot of white men in their 50s with young Thai women, a lot of Israelis out of army guys looking for a free hook up and Russian tourist looking for a good bargain.

massages in the mall approx 12$ for 65 mins.

The real deal!

Hold on! Hold on! I almost forgot! If you are in Chiang Mai, and your pockets burst with green, please stay in Dahara Dhevi (from Mandarin Oriental). Here is...

Eat whatever floats....or all the roads lead to falafel

Our next day was well spent at the Damnoen Saduak -floating market outside Bangkok. The market operates on the weekends only and accumulates the most delicious thai food you could possibly crave. All the food is being cooked on the boats by locals and sold to the wondering tourists and thais as well.
Observation:
it is really hard to express the colors and the vibe with an amateur camera, Nikon d90 would be more then appropriate here.
 

The land of smiles makes you smile

On the first day of our arrival to the "City of Angels" the Fabulous Journey decided to do nothing but indulge in a nice spa and rest. And since honeymooners usually get all the possible upgrades, treats and amenities, indeed, everything was fabulous.

few observations:

It is winter and it is 85F- how do u people, live through summer??
Everybody is smiling at us -is that because we are so white and tall? :)
Fruits are delicious, kinds are endless, we don't know them all - our pick: Passion fruit
We start to see our friend Jintana in every second thai person we look at ..!

Sawadeeka!

Fly Nippon if u can

While boarding on ANA airplane we didn't expect anything, but a horrible 25 hour flight to Bangkok. And we were pleasantly surprised-this was the best flight of our lives. Space-huge, Food-awesome! Technology-Japanese!!Chairs-the Most Comfortable! Staff couldn't be better!!! The stewardesses were so sweet that we couldn't help but smile and even laugh back at them for the whole flight-they also changed outfits while serving food!!
This wasn't the end of our Japanese adoration- the Narita airport in Tokio with 3 hour flight connection, was a trip in itself. Super clean, super polite, super efficient, super tasty. From this moment on , we can't wait to go back there for a longer trip!Origato, Irashimaya!!