Image credit: mharrsch

A Meaningful Christmas to everyone here in Israel, Hag Sameach!

I feel so guilty about neglecting my ‘baby’. Has it really been more than a month since my last post at my Tel Aviv Yafo Israel Sun blog? Perhaps, I was too busy monetizing my other blogger and word press blogs that I did not realize my Israel blog is terribly wanting of even a short post. Is it really that hard for me to write even just a snippet of anything about Israel?

If the intention of writing one is just to make my blog breathing, updated and sound, SEO wise, then short passages can be easily churned out. Indeed, it is not that difficult to write a post of 200 to 500 words, even without saying anything meaningful. Which brings me to the point – I actually have nothing relevant to say.



My past weeks and months have been dull, bland, colorless, lifeless as far as personal goings-on are concerned, except like I said earlier, I am fiercely focused on my other blogs. I continuously do some tweaks here and there, replacing website themes and templates with supposedly better ones, implementing various SEO techniques, hoping all these would do wonders as far as adsense earnings are concerned.

In the case of my Israel blog, I did not include it in my blog monetization, being a journal-type blog. Still, I intended my Israel blog as that – my day-to-day personal journal of sorts of my stay here. Easily my bad for not having updated it as often as I can. Hopefully, this will be the start of a more regular updating of this blog.



By the way, a great number of unused Tel Aviv Yafo photos stored on my computer was gone – lost forever. The pc turned haywire, then went kaput! The reformatting done on it meant losing all my nice pictures forever. Such as waste. And so bear with me if I resort for the meantime to borrowing great Tel Aviv Israel photos (like what you see inserted on this post) from flickr.com. For those who need amazing pictures on anything, this site is indeed a great source. Just remember to take pictures from the Creative Commons Attribution – Share-Alike license category of Flickr.com. And acknowledging the owner of the picture is a must. This is done by placing the owner’s URL anywhere in the post on which his photo is used.
Image credit for all the Tel Aviv Yafo photos: EagleXDV

To Kuya Boy and Shalom, Weng, S. Matt and Ineng, S. Chito and Mean, here is a picture of the Philippine Embassy peeps on their latest trip to Jerusalem. Such a great shot, don’t you think? It should be, as a copy costs 20 shekels.



You can say most in it are old familiar faces (Gin, T. Lulu and the kids had their last chance to visit Jerusalem). Anyway, I am sure this Jerusalem photo with the Dome of the Rock at the background will make you hop on a plane and fly back here to Israel in a heartbeat, if given the chance. Kuya Boy and Ate Shalom, I thought you have plans of visiting. I hope you can still make it happen – Jaffa, Pishpeshim and the Tel Aviv Beach are all waiting for you.

The RP Embassy here in Tel Aviv, Israel announces the start of issuance of Machine Readable Passports (MRP) starting June, 2008. This is in compliance with the standards of the International Civil Aviation Organization. The use of MRP facilitates and greatly eases the entry and exit of the passport holders at international airports.

However, 30 days is needed before the release of new passports as all MRP’s will be processed at the Central Bank in Manila. Applicants will have to return to the Embassy (18 Bnei Dan Street, Tel Aviv) to claim their passports.

I myself have already applied for a new passport. I learned that there are new MRP features, the most important of which are the advanced security features. Likewise, the passport color is changed from green to maroon. Everyone concerned is advised to call or visit the Embassy for more detailed information on the MRP’s.