Tel Aviv and Vancouver may be ocean’s apart and very different cities in many respects, but they have something snazzy in common – both cracked the prestigious list of Top 10 beach cities in the world.

National Geographic Magazine selected Tel Aviv and Vancouver for number nine and 10 respectively on the flashy list.

Tel Aviv Beach

Vancouver Beach

Dubbing Tel Aviv ”Miami Beach on the Med(iterranean),” the magazine lauded the beautiful city for its seaside cafes, ravishing restaurants and open till dawn discos. It also extolled the virtues of Gordon Beach and encouraged travelers to visit.

Number 10 Vancouver got the lofty label of “Canada’s most adventurous metropolis” and special mention of Wreck Beach and the picturesque North Shore Mountains.

Atop the illustrious list is Spain’s Barcelona, with Cape Town, South Africa placing second and Hawaii’s Honolulu rounding out at number three.

To see the full list, please visit http://travel.nationalgeographic.com/travel/top-10/beach-cities-photos/.

Looking for a seniors tour that really let’s you live it up in the Holy Land?

Then the Young at Heart Mission to Israel is probably for you.

The odyssey, which runs from October 20 to November 3, is being spearheaded by Canadian Friends of Bar-Ilan University and serves up a great blend of action, education, relaxation and reflection.

You’ll see stunning sites and cities, like the Golan Heights, Jerusalem and Tiberias. Get your hands dirty while digging up treasures on an archeological quest. Meet the men and women who shape Israel’s political landscape during an engaging session with Knesset members. Kick back for some R & R at the Dead Sea Spa. And so much more.

Other trips for Canadians to Israel include: Israel Offers Trip of a Lifetime for Retirees, Unique Trip Gets you Fit, Cycling for Israel and Mission Celebrates Israel’s Ethnic Mosaic

If I were living in Canada, I wouldn’t normally think of the “Middle East” and “Gay Pride” in the same sentence. This region is known for its conservatism, and the headlines from here scream out about war, conflict, religion, heat, desert, politics. Every now and then little dribs and drabs of Canuckisms make it into the news like hockey in the Holy Land or the United Arab Emirates (and Morocco just joined the International Ice Hockey Federation), or maple syrup in a supermarket here or there.

I agree that most people don’t look at Israel as a “modern western country” (it definitely is), but rather as that location always in the headlines for something or other, and the ’something’ or the ‘other’ is usually not good – if you’re always on or near page one.

(Hey, don’t get me wrong! Israel has great stuff too like Nobel Prize winners, great food and sports and technology and medicine and culture and much much more, but like I said, the headlines are what most of you see. The great stuff of the day-to-day reality of the Holy Land is just not international newsworthy copy in Canada on a regular basis.)

So here’s a new angle for you – Tel Aviv just held its 13th annual Gay Pride Parade, where thousands of people turned out. Not only that, but Tel Aviv’s tourism department is pushing the city as a gay-friendly tourist destination. Even the holy city itself, Jerusalem, now has an official gay presence with its own parade – albeit it’s not a regular event like Tel Aviv’s due to the opposition from many sectors of the local population.

The scene from the Tel Aviv Gay Pride Parade 2010

Aside from the parade, news headlines were full of the recent story of a Tel Aviv gay man who had surrogate twins born in India. The government initially blocked his return to Israel with his babies until a paternity test showed that he was indeed the father. Newspapers and TV stations covered his happy return home as friends and family greeted him at the airport while he held his newborn twins.

At a tourism conference last month, Tel Aviv’s mayor and Israel’s Minister of Tourism heard proposals from all sectors including hotels, tour operators and airlines. Among those presenting proposals was the Gay community – re-inforcing a Tel Aviv effort to promote the city as a destination for gays and lesbians – especially Europeans. Closer than the far east or North America, very modern western standards yet exotic ambiance (heck, it’s the Middle East!), and homo-lesbian friendly, the mayor and minister weren’t just unphased by the proposal, they wanted more information to make it happen.

Less than a week after Pride, Sir Elton John, took the stage at the Ramat Gan Stadium outside of Tel Aviv. The date of his show, June 17, is exactly 17 years after his last show in Israel.

Elton John plays in Israel. Photo Source: YNet News

Move over Arizona and Florida – Israel is the hot place to be for retirees.

Such is the thinking of the Canadian-American Active Retirees in Israel (CAARI) initiative.

The unique program offers seniors the opportunity to spend as long as seven weeks in the Holy Land where they do everything from planting trees and community service, to adventurous tours and special events.

Launched in 1983, the program has had more than 2,000 participants over the years, most of whom are in their late 60s, although it is open to the 50-plus group.

The annual trip typically ranges from two to seven weeks and criss-crosses the nation.

The next CAARI odyssey is slated to run from January 9 to February 25, 2011.

To learn more, contact your local JNF office.

For other great travel opportunities to Israel check out: Unique trip gets you fit, and Israel is for the birds?

Want to get fit on a fun trip?

You may want to consider traveling on the Fitness Adventure to Israel in July.

This unique odyssey invites physical activity aficionados to head off on a 9-day sojourn to Israel where IDF soldiers guide you on a wide array of fun, challenging as well as relaxing initiatives.

Presented by Powerclub, a Toronto-based boutique personal training club and Egged Tours,  the trip includes everything from rock climbing, IDF led workouts and Krav Maga, to shooting range experiences, jeep driving and even a briefing provided by an IDF intelligence specialist.

The adventure also features stays at five star hotels and down time at the spa and on the beach.

To learn more, please call 416-780-0078 or visit http://powerclubtoronto.com/web/happenings/israel/

In San Diego for the weekend, I just took my first ever segway tour and loved it! The 2.5-hour tour of downtown San Diego would have felt much longer and duller on foot, but on the segway you got to enjoy the journey itself, coz these little machines are fun to operate. Lean forward and you pick up speed; lean backwards and you slow down. The only time you have to be cautious is when you’re going over uneven surfaces. The rest of the time, you have all the rights of a pedestrian – just an accelerated one.

Turns out, segway tours are mushrooming in cities all over the world, and Canada and Israel are no exception. In the home of the Maple Leaf, you can segway through the West Edmonton Mall (though I have to wonder why you would want to segway through a mall…), through Toronto’s distillery district downtown and through Ontario’s Horseshoe Valley, along the trails of the Copeland Forest.  In Israel you can take a segway across Jerusalem, through the botanical gardens, around the Knesset and rose gardens. You can also segway through Tel Aviv and Jaffa.

One place it appears you cannot segway is in my hometown of Vancouver, where these green machines are barred from the road and considered too wide for the sidewalk. That’s too bad, cuz with its sea wall and wonderfully distinct downtown neighbourhoods, segway tours would go down well in Vancouver.

For a directory listing of segway tours worldwide, check out this site. And if you ever have the choice of walking, biking or segwaying on a city tour, choose the segway, hands down. It really brings out the fun in the tour.

Ornithology was the last thing on my mind when I pulled into the parking lot at Kibbutz Yotvata’s highway oasis in the Arava desert. We were on our way home from a vacation in Eilat and with four kids under the age of 10, we definitely needed the pit stop.

It was around 11 pm, and the temperature was still over 30 degrees as we got ready to get back on the highway. We re-arranged the young ones and tried to get comfy for the 3 hours of driving ahead of us. Two vans suddenly pulled in to the empty parking spots near us, the doors slid open and almost a dozen burly, clean shaven and military looking guys emerged. They appeared European, I thought I detected something Scandinavian, but their Israeli guide spoke English to them as they began unloading bags of equipment.

These guys were serious. Fancy backpacks, climbing gear, tripods and other equipment I couldn’t figure out. What were these guys doing in the middle of the night in the middle of the desert at some tourist trap off the highway?

Military or not, they were already dripping sweat as the hot desert wind blew over us, whipping paper cups and other garbage past my vehicle and theirs. They were gearing up, preparing to move out.

Their guide called them together for a mission briefing and I serreptitiously listened in as he gave details on the mission: paths, the height they would climb, watch out for the cliff edges. From their serious demeanor, cropped haircuts, athletic builds and various technical trappings I started guessing that they were on some private paramilitary training program.

Hah! Never more wrong was I!

Their guide suddenly woke me up to reality: he said he hoped to get them a few metres above the nest of some rare winged predator where they would all have enough room to creep up silently and set their cameras to catch the birds as the sun came up.

Bird watchers!!! And not just your ordinary “oh look, dear, there’s a robin!” type. These dudes were serious heavy duty birders, in pursuit of something rare, had travelled thousands of kilometres, and were packing out into the desert wilderness in the middle of the sweltering night where they were guaranteed to sweat buckets and turn their clothes into candidates for a detergent commercial.

Welcome to the other Israel you didn’t know about: the Holy Land is one of the world’s major bird watching capitals. It ranks in the top 100 places in the world for bird watching, and this time of year is why – all those birds from Europe and Asia who flew south to Africa for the winter are returning home, and the skies are sometimes full of clouds of migrating birds.

Not just a few, but half a billion birds twice a year. They head south in the fall, and back north in the spring. The most impressive are the pelicans, who fly in giant circular clouds of several thousand birds at a time – winding their way through the sky like some slow motion speckled tornado. Yikes 500 million birds… glad they generally fly on a path that’s not where my car is parked…

Have a look at the map and it’s pretty clear to see that Israel is the tiny wasp-waist of land joining Africa to Asia/Europe, and if you have wings and don’t like the cold then unless you like landing on water they only way to go is via Israel.

Bird watchers from all over the world include Israel on their hit list of places to go, and I had no idea bird watching was such a big industry in Israel, let alone the world over (check out Wikipedia, that says birdwatching is a multi-billion dollar industry).

And birds in Israel are photographed and written up constantly, like the apparently rare Oriental Skylark Alauda gulgula that was featured in the latest edition of the UK’s largest bird watching magazine.

Of course there are several bird watching organizations in Israel including the Kibbutz Lotan Center for Birdwatching, and the Israeli Birding Site located in Latrun, about half way between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. Although their site is in Hebrew, for birdwatching fans out there you can download and read their latest newsletter in English.

Me? I’m still impressed that there is a type of Blue Jay in Israel. No, not as colourful as the Blue Jays in the Great White North, but definitely their distant cousin. It’s a Eurasian Jay, known locally as an Orvani (pronounced OR-vah-knee). Now if only we had maple trees here for them to chirp on…

Do you remember the funny flick from the early 90’s entitled Cool Runnings?

Starring the late Canadian iconic actor John Candy, the film loosely portrayed the real-life comedic tale of Jamaica’s national bobsled team and their odyssey at the 1988 Calgary Olympics.

Well, a new version of this funny and somewhat fascinating story is playing itself out and this time, all of the cool runnings are being done on behalf of Israel.

That’s right, Israel has its own national bobsled team and a key member of the group, who happens to be a Winnipegger, will be in Vancouver as part of the run-up to the 2010 Winter Games.

David Greaves, the team’s loan Canuck, is slated to appear at the Vancouver chapter of Magen David Adom Canada to be a keynote speaker.

The pre-Olympics event will take place on February 11 and attendees will include the Israeli Olympic team, as well as several dignitaries.

The so-called Frozen Chosen won’t be competing at this year’s Olympics, but they will share their special story, which dates back to 2002 when the Israeli Bobsled Federation officially formed.

Since then, the athletes, who proudly race in a bobsled sporting Israel’s colours, have competed at two world championships, endured countless crashes, became Israeli citizens(none are originally from Israel) and have proudly shown their devotion both to Israel and this fast-paced sport.

Although they won’t be racing down the track in Whistler, they are surely cool runners for all of us to admire.

Canada's Ambassador to Israel drops the puck at the official faceoff for the Roger Nielson Recreational Hockey Tournament at the Canada Centre in Metulla. From left to right: Bob Wener, captain of the Ottawa team, Paul Henderson, Ambassador Jon Allen, Darryl Sittler, Joe Bazes, captain of one of the Israeli teams. Photo Credit: Nim Gluckman worldview.co.il

What was better, them visiting or us hosting?

An impossible call since we were in hockey heaven with two of the greatest hockey icons of the Maple Leafs, and even Montreal and Edmonton fans look at Henderson as a national treausre.

So it’s an easy call to make – ice hockey and Canada-Israel relations were the winners.

There is no doubt that all Israelis who met Paul Henderson and Darryl Sittler during their visit here were impressed. How couldn’t you be?

These two mensches (not Hebrew, but a Yiddish term meaning an upright and exemplary person) exemplify everything that is great about hockey and Canada. They were attentive to stories and questions. They were patient posing and signing and posing and signing. They were graceful. They were dignified. They were charitable. They shared with one and all, and everybody who met them came away impressed.

Those immigrants from Canada and ex-pat Canucks who work in the Holy Land were more than impressed… we were awestruck.

HENDERSON AND SITTLER WERE HERE!

Wow.

They watched the 72 Summit Series and 76 Canada Cup highlights with us. They shared their thoughts on what transpired, and what their lives have been like.

They’ve been out of uniform for decades, but they’re still superstars.

Henderson and his wife Eleanor said they’ve traveled to 55 countries, but there was always a scheduling conflict when they wanted to join groups going to Israel.

Henderson, a devoutly religious Christian had high expectations since he “knows the bible like the back of my hand.”

He said the trip for him was the best he’s ever taken.

I’m not going to edit… here’s exactly what he said: “I was absolutely blown away. I’m such an idiot why I waited so long to get to the Holy Land. It was so educational and very emotional too.”

Darryl Sittler and his wife Luba were both ecstatic. His long golden curls are now shorter and grey, but Sittler still has the commanding presence of the team captain responsible to the millions of fans who want the Leafs to finally win the Cup again.

“You hear about Israel and the political problems that go on the Middle East and it’s kind of there, but when you’re visiting here you understand the complexity of it,” Sittler said.

The Sittlers had the standard worries about security and a land they identified only with news headlines. But they checked with friends who told them that if they had the opportunity they should go.

After a week of hockey and holy sites, Sittler was adamant. “If people ask me – is it a worthwhile trip to go on? In a heartbeat,” was his answer.

Hockey tournaments are great, and we finished off the week in a great Canadian hockey way: having some beers in a pub watching the Habs-Senators game live on a big screen. It was Hockey Day in Canada last week and CBC was there not just at the tournament, but at the Dancing Camel Brewery in Tel Aviv where players, fans, the Sittlers and Hendersons and Canada’s Ambassador Jon Allen and his better half Clara came to celebrate hockey in the Holy Land.

Tournament organizer Danny Spodek summed it up perfectly: “Hockey is simply a great way to promote relations between Canada and Israel.”

Oh and here’s a video of TSN’s Rod Black, who also attended the tournament:

When there’s no place like home, this Canadian-Israeli clicks her ruby red slippers and heads on over to Puah Cafe in Jaffa. Built with finds from the local flea market (Shuk ha Pish Pisheem), all the items at the cafe are also for sale. This place reminds me of any number of dives, and hangouts I used to visit as a student in Toronto. On Bloor, at the Green Room, or at any hip cafe in Kensington Market. I like that the place invites visitors to buy old furniture, dishes and decor, while munching on a scrumptious chunk of cheesecake just like your grandma might have made. The food is great, the atmosphere unique.

The service isn’t the greatest in town, but it’s a great place to be if you are tourist from Canada, or just happen to be stationed here in the Middle East for a few months or more. There are good vegetarian options as well.

More on what to do in Jaffa for cheap, over on the Big Falafel blog.

Puah
Open: Sun-Wed 10:00-1:00, Thu-Sat 24h
Address: 3 Rabbi Yohanan, Jaffa
Tel: (03) 682-3821

Photos by Karin Klooosterman.