Of food, Pesach and riots

Spinach and eggs/tomatoes

The past few days have seen good fare at Mandarin's restaurant. Xiao Yang the new cook did up fried eggs with tomatoes, white rice and garlic spinach on Tuesday evening. Then Wednesday evening Ah Ling boiled herbal soup with pork ribs, mushrooms and mu er. It was all very yummy.

After the Pesach ended, all restaurants were packed with Jews who could finally eat normal food after 8 days of unleavened bread and boiled food. Tuesday saw restaurants working overtime to serve all the customers. Practically every place had a queue lining up outside the door.

Herbal soup on Wednesday

An upset was caused during the 8 day Pesach holidays. As leavened bread is forbidden, there was an unprecedented raid on arab hawkers selling bread at Jaffa Gate. It has never happened before as non-Jews were always allowed to continue their business. This time police raided their wares, carts and making the hawkers pay fines. Then it was leaked in a social media that orthodox jewish sector was behind this move to "judaize" Jerusalem. Now that's a frightening thought ... a precedent that bodes badly for us non-Jews in future Jewish holidays. No more freedom to express religion.  http://www.haaretz.com/news/national/.premium-1.586432

Riot police storming Herod's Gate

Yesterday evening saw another riot ... one of a series this week. The Al Aqsa Mosque compound had been closed several times and tensions have been rising. Yesterday's altercation however did not take place inside the Old City. It happened outside the City at the plaza in front of Herod's Gate. I was coming home from Mandarin's after the herbal soup dinner and took a rest at Damascus Gate's Palm Plaza when several police vans and ambulance sped down to Herod's Gate. Sensing something was wrong, i walked down and there at the Gate was a huge crowd of arabs confronting a squad of riot police. Stun grenades were fired, arbas ran inside the City, police chased. Lots of grenades fired inside the City. I sat outside taking photos with a group of arab spectators. But the riot police came to chase us away. We moved up a few metres under the trees, just in case we were fired upon, but continued to watch. After half an hour, it was all over and life was back to normal.