Blessed Christmas from the Holy Land

Blessed Christmas to everyone from Joeanne, Joelle and me in the Land of birth of our Lord Jesus Christ!

It's great to be on the same piece of land where Jesus was born over 2000 years ago. Yet at the same time it's sad to know that this joyous day is not celebrated in this land. His own people dun acknowledge Him.

For those who unsure where in the world are we staying now, I attached a map of israel. We are staying in a city beside Tel Aviv and it's called Ramat Gan. Click on picture to see enlarged map and look for Tel Aviv. Ramat Gan is just beside it. Jerusalem is to the east.

Our small christmas eve celebration in an Asian food restaurent.
Joelle is exactly 9 months old this Christmas and it's her 1st Christmas!

2 months away from home

Time flies and we are already 2 months here in the Holy Land. Weather is really cold. Yesterday morning when we go to the market, it was 11 degrees and raining! More cold days to come in january.

Our shipment arrived 10 days ago. So we have almost everything we need for a home. Most importantly, Joeanne's baking stuffs are here and so she can start to bake cakes and cookies. Baking is what she didn't have time to do in spore when she was working. Now that she can bake here, she can start to better enjoy life here.















Joelle is still having a bit running nose when the weather gets cold. We keep her warm by letting her wear thicker clothes and also turning on the heater every day and night. She just past her 9 months 'birthday'! She was so small when she was born and now she's 8kg and 70cm long (or tall?). It's such a joy to watch her laugh and baby-talk and clap her hands as we sing to her. She's so talkative. Teaching her how to wave goodbye and also call pa-pa and ma-ma.



Last weekend we were invited to a friend's housewarming. They have a very nice and cosy place. Something like a cottage. Would be nice to stay there but it's quite far from work place.




















How is everyone in spore? Would be glad if everyone who view our blog can also leave some updates and prayer requests of themselves.

We are going back very soon! Thinking of all the food i wanna eat back in spore makes me drool.... Joeanne only has a few food she wanna eat: KFC, Coffee Bean's cheesecake and teh si. And of cos her mother's cooking. I have a whole list: wantan mee, roti prata, chicken rice, fried bee hoon, sushi, fried kway tiao, fried carrot cake, oyster ommelete, satay, otah, egg tart, kway chap, durain etc etc etc.... looks like i will need to drink lots of herbal tea to prevent heating liao...

There is this Emmanuel Lutheran Church in Haifa which we wanna go and see. But because the weather is not very good and may rain, we decided to postpone it. Hope that weather next saturday is good.

Winter is here!

For last week, most of the days were really cold. Heavy rains came and temperature range were 14-22 degrees. At night the temperature can reach 13-14 degrees. We turn on our heater every night and also most of the day time. Electricity bill is going to escalate but no choice. (electricity here is very expensive, US$0.20 per unit)

As a result of the cold weather, I was down with cold. Now have recovered. But Joelle caught the cold from me and her nose is blocked and running. Hence at night she did not sleep well. Poor girl.... we see her like that, very heartpain.... Thank God that the weather has turned better with the rain stopping and sun coming out for this week. Joelle's cold is also drying.

2 weekends ago before the rain came, we went to HaYarkon Park to see where we can have a picnic next time. This park stretches almost 10km from Tel Aviv to Ramat Gan. We are staying in Ramat Gan and this park is 5-10 min drive away from our place. Every weekend, lots of families go there for picnics and BBQ. BBQ is the national pasttime of Israelis here especially in summer.

Our shipment wil be coming tomorrow. Last week we went to Ashdod to settle the admin stuffs for the custom clearance. Over at Ashdod there is a famous restaurent Idi Fish and Seafood Restaurent. We went for lunch there. Our 1st expensive meal here in Israel! The set lunch costs NIS95 per pax. (around S$40). The starters for the lunch were so much that one can be full by just finishing them.

I ordered Denise fish and Joeanne ordered Salmon. 2 most expensive fishes here in israel when we go Carmel Market. around NIS60 per kg (S$24/kg)

We are still looking for a church here. Seems like no church near our place. There are churches in Jaffa which is a bit north of Tel Aviv but from our place it takes more than 30 minutes drive. If we really can't find any here, we will have to go Jaffa. I emailed to the Israel Bible Society to ask them of church recommendations and a pastor called me back. There's no baptist church around here. He recommended Immanuel Lutheran Church which is in Jaffa. We will most probably be going this saturday morning for its 11am service, unless the weather turns rainy again.

Prayer requests:

1. our health esp Joelle. Quick recovery from her flu

2. We can adapt to this winter

3. Finding a suitable church

4. Joeanne's role as a housewife and mother

5. my work is smooth

Winter is coming!!!

sorry for not being able to update our blog last weekend.

brrr........ it's getting colder every day. Last few days started to shower a few drops of rain here and this is the sign that winter is coming. When winter eventually comes, the rain will be bigger and longer and colder.

We shifted to our new apartment last monday (5th nov) and went to buy pillows and blankets because our shipment will only arrive at end nov. Also went to buy a heater because the blankets were not enough. Right now our apartment is quite empty except for the sofas, tv, washing machine, fridge provided by the owner. When our shipment comes, we will be fully equipped to look more like a house.

Joelle was not familiar with the new place for first few days and kept on crying and wanting joeanne to carry her. Joeanne was real tired the first day. Thank God that she has now become familiar and is roaming freely on her baby walker. Her two teeth are definitely growing and can be seen clearer. She's getting very interested in whatever we are eating. But we only feed her 2 meals of porridge with either carrots or potatoes or egg york or salmon or chicken. Our weighing machine is not here yet, so we can't weigh her. but i think she is getting much heavier. last month was 7kg, so now should be 7.5kg? We'll see...

God's grace has been with us all these time we are here. Joeanne is getting used to being a housewife. Now we are waiting for her baking appliances to come in the shipment and then she can start to bake cakes and cookies and enjoy herself here. For now, she enjoys our weekly trip to the Carmel Market for groceries and also pastries.

Time flies. We have been here for slightly over a month. Next march will come very soon and we can go back singapore for a visit!

Thank God that we finally found our apartment!

Praises to God for His grace upon us!

Finding an apartment here is really hard! We didn't want to involve agent because we need to pay 1 month rent to the agent. So next option is to go internet to search for it. But the portals here for renting apartments is in hebrew and so we need to seek help from our local friends here. But they are very busy and can only help us when they come to our room.

In the end I went to memorise the important hebrew characters such as furnished, number of rooms, budget, refridgerator, elevator and a few neighbourhood names etc and went to search myself. Faster this way than to wait for the local colleagues.

At first I thought finding the apartment is the difficult part. We went to a few apartments to view and realised that right now, it's the owner's market because there are much more tenants looking for apartments. So good apartments are snatched up very fast. Furthermore owners nowadays don't rent furnished apartments because it's too troublesome to maintain for the tenants. So a lot of apartments listed are empty ones!

I found one in a quiet neighbourhood and the rent was cheap at USD700. I brought Joeanne down to take a look and she likes it too because the kitchen was newly renovated and comes with oven. But after we begin to talk to the owner, we found out that this owner is very unreasonable in his terms and conditions. Maybe it's his first time renting out his apartment. He wanted a lot of guarantees deposit. Also wanted open cheques with the utilities companies name in case we run off. Also wanted me to paint his apartment at the end of the lease! Also said that he can give me 3 months notice and ask me to go. I argued with him over many of his terms and we almost reached conclusion. But my friend told me not to sign the contract with him because he will be difficult to deal with in future. Didn't realise that negotiating the contract is even harder!

We were really getting desperate! We need to find a place before 8th nov and hence left more than a weeks time. But no good news from any of the apartments we saw. A lot of time was spent onhe internet looking for newly posted apartments or on the phone asking about the apartments. We prayed real hard. I even cried because I didn't want my family to suffer with me.

Thank God that last thur I found another apartment in a neigbourhood next to my office location and when we went over there on friday morning after our usual market trip, we quite like the place but the rent was USD950. The owner is a boss of a company and so his english is good. He's been to Singapore and he likes it so he quite likes us. We tried to negotiate the price to USD900 but he said if so, he won't be responsible for the appliances. After discussing with Joeanne, we decided to take it at USD950. I called him and told him we want the place. He said ok and will cancel all appointments with others to view.

Now comes the difficult part of the contract.... He said his contract is in hebrew and will email to me so that I can show to my local colleagues. After discussing with Joeanne, we felt it was safer that the contract is in english. I called him but he said he don't have english contract. I told him I have a contract template in english which I took from my colleague who came with us. If he's okay with it after reading, then we sign that one. Thank God that he was willing to look at it and he agreed to use it after we discussed some details of the contract he wanted to amend.

Finally this afternoon at 4pm we signed the contract and i paid 3 months rent and a guarantee sum. He gave me the key and said i can come anytime although the contract stated my lease starts on 7th nov. He promised to repair some of the stuffs I saw and told me to email him the list to repair before thursday. So tomorrow night after i come back from work, i will bring joeanne and joelle over to check the place thoroughly and email him the list. Hope that he keeps his word.

Finally tonight I can sleep in peace.

Sorry for the long story! Now an interesting annoucement!
Joelle has started teething! can see 2 lower teeth coming out of her gums! We were so excited! See photo below.



















Also attached photos of a local food called falefel we ate last night for dinner. It's bread wrapped with salad and deep-fried vegetable balls. Costs NIS14 each which is roughly S$5.60. It's the cheapest outside food you can find here. In Israel they don't have hawker centres or kopitiam where there's lots of choices and cheap too. That's why it's much cheaper to buy and cook
ourselves.

Baby Joelle

Miss her?
Must be lah....
never miss me and joeanne right.... it's ok... We're used to it....

Here's photos of her while asleep.

Grown fatter? This we dunno bcos we see her everyday and we also dun have weighing scale.
But she has definitely grown active and more playful. She can roll over easily. She can sit on the baby walker and 'walk' to places she wanna go in the apartment. She still can't sit by herself. Only can balance 5 seconds and tumbling down she goes. Very talkative as before. Any stranger also can carry her. That night we went to a gathering and she was passed by one to another person. Wonder if it's good or bad....

Shabbat Shalom!!

Hi all,

Sorry for not being able to update since coming here. Need to settle down at home and at work. Accomodation-wise, we are staying at a service apartment in tel aviv. Here's a few photo of the place.

View from entrance

Bedroom

Living Room

Reverse angle of living room

Kitchen

Outside view of the Mediterranean sea in the far view

We are still looking for apartments. Our constraint is that we need 3 apartments nearby to each other and when the agents heard this, there was a minute of silence over their end of the phone. But I guess the 3 big fat commissions will be attractive for them to work harder.

Last night we went to a gathering. Anyway, we managed to find out that there's 1 apartment confirm going to be free next jan which is very suitable for families with children and another apartment with 50% chance because the owner may wanna sell it off. Thank God for opening this window. We will be going there later today to view the place and discuss how to coordinate the timing.

Every friday morning we will go to the Carmel Market to buy our grocery. It's cheaper than in supermarkets. Here's the photo I took last friday.