Today is Labor Day in Singapore. Happy holidays to all my friends and readers. Not as lucky though, I still have to work. But in a relax mode, because tomorrow going on a trip!! So you won’t see any updates for 2-3 days but hopefully will have something nice to show when I get back. Although not a national holiday, today is Holocaust memorial day in Israel. A siren sounds at 10 a.m. in the morning throughout Israel and everybody will stand and be silent for 2 minutes to commemorate all the Jews who were exterminated during World War II by Hitler and co.
Before I forget, this is my address in Hebrew I think.
סילבר 15/11 נווה שאנן חיפה 32693 ישראלOh, you can put my hebrew name as well, I got my name translated into Hebrew when applying for a bank account. Now my name is
יינג אינצ’נ
(This literally translates to Wang Yingquan if you read from right to left).
Hebrew is very difficult to learn. There are 2 versions of alphabets which is around. The printed version is very different from the handwritten version. If you look at my name in the handwritten version below, it is quite different from the typewritten one which I wrote above.
I will be pasting the above sticker on my mail box, so hopefully I can receive my fan mails properly now. If you write my address in both languages, then I should be able to receive the mails ba ha.
I also got a credit card (students have a 500 ILS credit). The design is quite nice, its from the National bank of Israel which has a branch inside the Technion (leumi = national). My name is on the bottom left hand corner.
I got a cheque book too. Needed one cheque of 10000 NIS to give a guarantee for my landlord. A bit silly since I wont have so much inside anyway.
My name and address is printed on the cheque book too. Second line is the name, 3rd line is the address.
Learning Hebrew is tougher than expected. There is kiddy hebrew found in children’s books and in dictionaries. Then there is adult hebrew which is found everywhere else. Adult hebrew = kiddy hebrew with all the vowels removed + some consonants undifferentiated as some parts are removed. Hence you cant pronounce words you see everyday on the streets and in the supermarkets or anywhere unless you know what the words are beforehand as the vowels are not included in the printed material. Guess I will know the critical words first before slowly knowing more. Then there is handwritten hebrew which I won’t even bother about unless I stay here permanently.
Finally, show you all some Israeli currency, its very colorful and nice. First up are the notes, from the top we have the 200, 100, 50 and 20 new shekels. ( 1 Sing $ ~ 2.5 Shekels). Very nice notes. When you draw $$$ out from the ATM, they give you a variety of notes too, different from in Singapore. E.g. when you draw 1000 shekels, they will come out a mixture of 200, 100 and 50 shekel notes. Useful when the grocery store nearby has no small change or when you want to take the bus.
The back of the notes have different portraits of some people who are pretty important probably.
The bad advantage is that they don’t have notes for smaller currency. I end up having a lot of coins in my wallet usually. From the left down, are the 10, 5 and 1 shekel coins. Right down are the agarots (the cents), 1/2 representing 50 agarots and the 10 agarots below it.
Ok, so if anyone bothers to visit me, don’t get cheated by any fake $$ k, although I havent hear of any counterfeits as of now. Now I will have to prepare my trip to Jerusalem and dead sea. 2 day trip budget hoping not to bust S$ 500. I have to go though, you cant consider yourself to ever been into Israel unless you visit Jerusalem.
Man in Haifa 