Next stop: Taipei

Hope y'all had a good Christmas, I got a fair few presents but only gave one, which made it kind of awkward、but thankfully the Japanese aren't too bothered about Christmas so I didn't ruffle any feathers. We also had heaps of snow every day this December, but on Christmas evening we got sleet, which made a mess of the local festivities.

Heh. Anyway, off to Taiwan in an hour, for Chinese-style celebrations and tasty delicacies.

Happy New Year one and all!

お正月良い～！

New Library

Hushed; but bustling with hundreds of people. Light and airy, dozens of high-speed internet terminals, browsing galleries of magazines and comics, free rentals for two weeks on CDs, DVDs and books, over half-a-dozen check-out counters.

This is the new central library, and it feels totally different from anything I've experienced in the UK.

Israel #6: The Wailing Wall

The Wailing Wall. Imposing, wall-like, worshipped in a way that seems to jar quite badly with my pre-conceived notions of God-worship. No idols, right? Anyway, it's impressive enough, and it amused me that I could enter where Tamar couldn't (women get a small screened-off section of wall to the far right).


These pious-looking types will just spontaneously gather and when they reach a quorum all sorts of murmuring and head-nodding will kick off, in orders of magnitude greater than they can achieve alone.


So the idea is that whatever you write on a scrap of paper and stuff into the wall will be read by God. I figured I might as well do so, and wedged my slip of paper in amongst all the others. Much later an Israeli said to me "So what did you ask for?" to which I replied "Wait. What? I was supposed to ask for something?".


This is the closest I got to the amazing mosque in Jerusalem, as just a little futher down the road there were eight soldiers with big guns who informed me that only muslims were permitted to go any further. Note that all these folk are men, and all are headed away from the mosque.