We were lucky to find a fairly good flight itinerary to Tel Aviv by flying first to Portland where we met my sister. Then we hopped a 10 hour direct flight to Frankfurt, a quick layover, and then on to Tel Aviv in 3.5 hours. The only hitch was that we started with a sick child. Anh had managed to contract hand, foot, and mouth disease, a common childhood virus, the day before we left. He had sores in his mouth which made it painful for him to eat and caused him to be VERY cranky. There was a point when I questioned whether we would be able to travel at all, but we toughed it out, and thanks to my sister's help, made it to Israel in OK shape.
Within the first two days we reunited with family, visited Old Jaffa, went to an Israeli play at the theater that my uncle manges, and ate tons of hummus and pita. Anh was a little cranky all of the time, but it didn't stop us from enjoying ourselves. One memorable meal we had at Itzak HaGadol, where they brought us about 30 little salads, fresh pita, a tray of grilled meats, and pitchers of lemonade. Our first "Israeli" meal and it was delicious.
On our second full day in Tel Aviv, Patrick and I spent the day at Ethrog, Invitrogen's Israel R&D site. A day of work during a vacation sounds like a dull prospect, but it was actually quite interesting and hopefully will lead to some good collaborative projects.
Early the following morning, we were off to Eilat, the southern resort town on the Red Sea coast. My family had previously traveled here 20 years ago and had a fantastic time snorkeling and relaxing. We were in for quite a surprise when we arrived and discovered that Eilat has turned into a small scale cross between Las Vegas and Atlantic City. Not exactly our idea of a great time, but we made the best of it by walking the board walk, eating fantastic sea food, snorkeling at the coral reserve and visiting the aquarium. Things have definitely changed for the worse and it is unlikely that any of us will want to return. Some highs and lows were:
The hotel, Edomit, was a bit crummy for the price. The breakfast and the cleanliness were pretty bad, but at least it was close to downtown.
The aquarium was fantastic, with really nice coral tanks and an underwater observatory. While we were there, a group of young teenagers saw Anh and were facinated to see an asian child. They all wanted to play with him and have their pictures taken with him. None of them had heard of Vietnam, but they understood that it is near China and Thailand.
To be continued....
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