Day 5a - Jerusalem (Mt. of Olives and the Garden of Gethsemane)

Ok, I'm back to dividing the days into sections! Jerusalem is such a history-rich city!

Short Rant on the Mount of Olives
When I came to Jerusalem, one of the places that I really wanted to visit was the Mount of Olives.
In my mind, I pictured a beautiful hillside, studded with flourishing olives trees that the passers-by could just pick and eat. It was a serene place where I thought I would be able to contemplate on my walk with God, and on how God has intervened in my life.

Instead, I found a graveyard. :-(

See, the thing is, there's a verse in the Bible that mentions that Jesus will return on the Mt. of Olives... Since a lot of people want to see Him return, they've probably paid enormous amounts of money to be there. Hence, the Mt. of Olives is a graveyard :-(.

There's always a lot of tourists in Jerusalem... :)

The Dome of the Rock

The Mount of Olives. -.-... They made it into a graveyard... :(

Stuart	Mickey, our Guide for Jerusalem

From the (slightly disappointing) Mt. of Olives, we headed down, toward the Garden of Gethsemane.

The Front Door of the Garden of Gethsemane. Er... The Church that was built on top of the Garden of Gethsemane... :P
Here's the side entrance. (We had just come down this road from another direction) The sign says: "HaR HaZeITiM" (Har = Mountain; Ha = The; "Zeitim" (plural for Zeitoun), which is "Olive") Just some basic Hebrew :)
The side entrance to Gethsemane
Official Plaque: You are at the Garden of Olives	*Sigh*... Hat hair. :)
A hundred-year-old olive tree. Was this around during Jesus' time? No. The story goes that they built the church on top of the Garden of Gethsemane, and maybe a hundred years ago they planted nine olive trees here.
Fresco showing Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane
The "garden" within the Church of the Garden of Gethsemane
A Catholic tradition says that this is where Jesus sweated tears of blood. It basically fell on the stone and they cut it out and preserved it. I really thought His sweat had fallen on grass.

Here's a closeup of the engraving.

People come to Jerusalem for many reasons.

The Catholics come here to walk in the steps of Jesus, to touch everything He touched, and to pray and experience what He experienced.

The Protestants come here to see the historical setting of when Jesus lived.
Simply put though, almost every spot "where Jesus walked" has become a memorial, and there is a church on every single memorial. Seriously.

So from here, we actually went into the Church of the Garden of Gethsemane itself.

The door from the Garden of Gethsemane into the church itself.

And now for... the Via Dolorosa!!