I went for a walk to do some shopping this morning. One of the cool benefits of our new city center is a convenient, short tunnel to the mall.
It was nice to be out, roaming around the city a little, even with a mask taped to my face (it stops fogging up my sunglasses!).
On a related note, straws should be a little longer to make drinking while masked a little easier. 
Tal Kravitz performed at one of our city’s annual Autumn music festival events in a neighbourhood park yesterday. According to his bio on his Facebook Page –
Tal Kravitz is a musician and a singer educated at Israel’s finest music institutions. He is also a traveler who journeyed on a personal search for original tribal music in far corners of the world not yet exposed to Western civilization. Tal plays piano, harp, guitar, a variety of bagpipes, the musical saw, African percussion instruments and more.
We really enjoyed the event. Kravitz is really engaging, and involves the audience (who loved him).
Fortunately we arrived early enough to find good seats. I took advantage of that for some photographs.
Kravitz used a range of musical instruments including an Irish harp, a saw (the kind you use to cut wood), bagpipes, and some sort of electromagnetic/sonic device.
Exploring our new city center
I’ve been watching the Modiin city centre slowly take shape over the last four years. I captured the development’s progress on and off in my photographs, many of which are on Flickr 
My favourite feature of this boulevard is the center section that runs from the top opposite the municipality, and extends all the way to the bottom where it intersects with another road. It’s a really comfortable space to walk along, and there are water features, seating, and smaller buildings for coffee shops, restaurants, and bars.
Even though the center section seems mostly complete, the buildings on either side are still very much under construction, and it will probably still be some time before those are completed, and occupied.
Although the boulevard seems to be open to pedestrians, it’s still closed to cars (although that didn’t stop a few people from taking a drive through this morning).
I like this sort of space in a city. It feels more open, comfortable, and I’m looking forward to seeing which stores open there. Mostly, I’m hopeful that we’ll have a few places open on Saturdays when stores are generally closed here in Israel.
I have a few more photos in my Flickr album, here:
The city adorned a path leading up to a local community center with a series of mosaics. I took a walk out there this morning, and took photos of them.
One of the concrete panels is blank, which is a little odd. Hopefully that will also be filled at some point.
Today is our 13th wedding anniversary, and we both took the day off (I’ve taken the rest of this week off – I feel like I’m due for a breather from work after a busy ±8 months). We did a repeat of our last anniversary, and went for a hike up Givat HaTitora just outside the city.
We started off with breakfast at Peppino (it was terrific), and then made our way to a path that led us up to the top of the hill.
One new attraction is this cheesy bench that apparently links to an Instagram campaign. We couldn’t resist.
The path at the top of the hill offers terrific views of the area, and the remnants of past settlements. I enjoy going up there, and looking around.
We have some cold, rainy weather this week, but today is a beautiful, warm day. It was a really nice day to be outdoors, and I enjoyed the quiet during the hike. Just us, and nature sounds. Some of the time at any rate.
If you’re interested in how the hill has changed in the last year, check out last year’s post:
There are many reasons why I’m glad I can work from home. Rainy, Winter days are definitely one of those reasons. Today is pretty cold (for Israel at any rate), and we have rain forecast for the whole day. We’ve had a small downpour already this morning:
A hailstorm arrived as our kids were about to walk to school. We waited a few minutes, and I took them out when the rain seemed to ease, somewhat. I returned home with pretty soaked jeans, so thank goodness for tumble dryers!
Featured image by Joy Stamp
My blood glucose has been really high lately, so I’ve made an effort to get as much exercise as I can. That’s mostly been going for longer walks, and getting my heart rate up.
I decided to go for a hike up Givat HaTitoria this afternoon as an alternative to parking off in front of the TV for the afternoon.
The hill is an archaelogical site, and recently renovated tourist area that’s also pretty popular with Modiin’s residents. There’s a path around the top of the hill, with spectacular views of the city, and the area around it.
I walked past one of the city’s new water features, that was pretty spectacular in the late afternoon light. I had some fun messing around with shutter speed, and perspectives.
It was a nice way to spend a beautiful Saturday afternoon.
Chanukah (aka Hanukkah) is my favourite festival on the Jewish calendar.
Hanukkah (/ˈhɑːnəkə/HAH-nə-kə; Hebrew: חֲנֻכָּה ḥanuká, Tiberian: ḥanuká, usually spelled חֲנוּכָּה, pronounced [χanuˈka] in Modern Hebrew, [ˈχanukə] or [ˈχanikə] in Yiddish; a transliteration also romanized as Chanukah or Ḥanukah) is a Jewish festival commemorating the rededication of the Second Temple in Jerusalem at the time of the Maccabean Revolt against the Seleucid Empire. It is also known as the Festival of Lights (Hebrew: חַג הַאוּרִים, ḥag ha’urim).
Wikipedia
There are a few reasons for this. One is that I just love the candles, and seeing my neighbours add candles each night, and these growing pools of light in Israeli winter evenings. I also love that stores and businesses also light candles, and display them in their windows. It’s like a thread of candlelight that links us all.
Another reason is that Chanukah usually takes place in December, which is around my birthday, which is always my favourite time of the year.
Yet another reason why I enjoy Chanukah is that we live in the city of the Maccabees who we remember in this festival, Modi’in. We also arrived in Israel on the first night of this festival, so that makes it even more special to us.
Each year, I take photos of our candles, and show our progression from the first candle, to the 8th. This year, I decided not to go with my standard view of our menorah with each day’s addition.
Our son was really into capturing each night’s candles with his phone. I noticed he was experimenting with ISO, and shutter speed on manual settings. Definitely some photographer Dad pride there! 
Of course it’s not just about the candles. This time of year is also a time for amazing donuts called sufganiot, and fried foods such as latkes. I especially enjoy my wife’s potato and sweet potato latkes!
