Aside from all the politics and turmoil, there were many opportunities for picture-taking, and many pictures were taken. Here are some of the best. (It’ll be a long post.) Because of the narrative nature of this one, I’ll be turning on captions, as well.

Enjoy!

Mount Zion is situated just off the southwest corner of the Old City, which is bounded by nearly three miles of walls dating back to 1538, and this is a glimpse of the historic Hagia Maria Sion Abbey.

Looking up at the inside of the dome at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in the Old City. Many Christians believe the hill where this church stands is where Christ was crucified, also known as Golgotha.

I spotted this cross on top of a gate in the Christian quarter. There was neat stuff like this to shoot everywhere I turned.

Another one from Mt. Zion. In the courtyard between the Hagia Maria abbey and the room where Catholic tradition holds Jesus presided over the Last Supper, this tree was in full bloom.

Orthodox Jews walking to Shabbat services in the Old City. This was taken on our first night in Israel, a couple of hours after our plane landed. Shabbat, or Sabbath, is celebrated beginning at sundown on Friday, and this family was approaching the Damascus gate of the Old City. Hundreds of Orthodox believers were using this raised median to walk to services through a predominantly Muslim neighborhood, which led me to believe that the sidewalk was there specifically for the observant on their way into the Old City every Friday.

And then there are the Texans. Lots and lots and lots of them.

Some common sights in the Old City (left to right): Hats for sale in the marketplace; a road sign on the side of a who-knows-how-old building; Hebrew writing; the evening sun breaking through into the market.

Before leaving Los Angeles, everyone in the class had to identify a story we would report while in Jerusalem. Mine focused on the Mamilla cemetery, an old Muslim graveyard adjacent to a construction site where the Wiesenthal Center is building a museum of tolerance.

Muslims are concerned that the museum encroaches on sacred space, but Jewish supporters of the project point out that the site held a parking garage for decades. The blue fence separates the construction site from the cemetery.

The old gravestones engraved with old Arabic were amazing to see.

I took most of these on our last day in Jerusalem, after doing an interview at the nearby Independence Park. It was cold, windy and overcast, making a stroll through the cemetery an appropriately somber experience.

Another grave marker bearing Arabic. Some of these dated back hundreds of years.

From Jerusalem, we traveled about 10 miles north to Ramallah, which is a Palestinian city in the West Bank. I was surprised at how severe the topography was in Israel and Palestine -- rocky hills like this one were the norm in and around Jerusalem.

Things are pretty beat-up in Ramallah, after decades of conflict. Here, a pair of Palestinian flags are in need of replacement. I'm sure they'll still be there for a while, though.

While we were in Ramallah, we visited a refugee camp. The UN had been there at some point.

There were a lot of children in the camp. This little guy came into the doorway of a tiny convenience store as our group was passing.

The refugee camp was a truly unique place. Many of the streets were too narrow for cars, and power lines jumped from building to building with no apparent order. Many of the buildings were permanent, making the place feel like more of a fixed community than a transitional place, like we usually think of when we hear "refugee." But most -- if not all -- of the people there are waiting to return to their ancestral land, which for many lies beyond the Israeli border.

This boy followed us for a few blocks.

A few more scenes from the camp.

We also visited Hebron, a historic city torn by conflict and division. There were some remarkable images there, including this concertina wire in a closed-off alley in a shuttered marketplace.

Our last stop was Tel Aviv, where we stayed for three nights before flying home. Most of the photos I took while there were in the old port city of Jaffa, because it was far more photogenic (Tel Aviv is a modern metropolis, not too different from San Diego in many ways.) Jaffa is known in the English Bible as "Joppa," and is cited as early as 2 Chronicles 2:16 (it's also where Jonah found a ship leaving for Tarshish).

The bell tower of St. Peter's Church in Jaffa. As you can see, we enjoyed beautiful weather during our stay by the Mediterranean.

There's a beautiful seaside park in Jaffa that rivals anything San Diego has to offer. It's like they built this little dock specifically for photographers. :)

There was also a boardwalk by the water that was being absolutely pounded by surf that day.

You always look for good light as a photographer. You have a really good day when it follows you around instead. That's what it was like shooting in Israel and Palestine.

I don't know what this says. Probably something important, like, "No photography, or else!"

Israel is a fascinating place; you should definitely go if you get the opportunity. Comments are always welcome and appreciated! :)

We arrived just before sunset, and if you’ve ever been to Seaport, you know what a magnificent thing a sunset over San Diego harbor can be.

I only got a few shots in before dusk, so the rest are pretty dark.

There is so much that could be said about The Philippines, but I’ve already covered most of the basics over at our other blog, which we kept updated during our trip. Basically, the people were great, the food was sooo tasty, and it was the best feeling to spend a week with Justin and Erin McDonald, who will be back in California for the month of March, incidentally.

Photographically speaking, I’ve never encountered a better place to click the shutter than the tropical island region of Bicol, which is where the first half of this post is from.

I hope you enjoy the images.

island

This picture pretty much sums it up. Mt. Mayon is an 8,000-foot-tall, perfectly-shaped cone volcano that rises straight up out of the ocean. It is an imposing backdrop everywhere you go in Bicol, a region that encompasses a chain of small, lush islands.

We walked everywhere during our island visit, but with scenery like this, we didn’t mind…

True to the island theme, there were plenty of interesting creatures, such as this water monitor lizard, which became dinner. It’s called “Bayawak” in Tagalog. Chewy is what I’d call it.

But not all the creatures were exotic…

Where we stayed, there was a miniature zoo with four monkeys and assorted other animals. Three of the monkeys were mean and one was sweet-natured, but shy. He loved crackers.

Justin shredding coconut for dinner.

Dori is actually riding on the front of a boat here.

The construction site.

No cars, just water buffalo.

…and ornery goats with sweet beards.

city

So our first night in The Philippines, less than an hour after my flight landed, Justin and Erin took us around the corner to this amazing little restaurant, where we had barbecued chicken, garlic rice and iced tea. Our waiter brought us a small plate with several small limes — actually called “Calamondin” or “Kalamansi” — and a handful of little peppers, along with a bottle of soy sauce. These became this:

View from the top of Justin and Erin’s condo building.

A typical knees-to-knees, shoulder-to-shoulder jeepnie ride.

The jeepnie drivers have these signs posted in the windshield to let potential riders know where they’re headed.

One of the highlights of our time in Manila was the Passion concert we attended. The armbands they handed out said “Manila” on one side, and “Kuala Lumpur” on the other, to remind us to pray for the next city where Chris Tomlin and company were going to be playing.

The Philippines is a country saturated with Christian symbolism, and yet there is a lot of crime in Manila. (Dori’s camera was stolen right after the Passion show, as we were in line to buy CDs.) One afternoon, we visited the Manila Cathedral, also known as the Basilica Minore de la Nuestra Señora de la Immaculada Concepcion — whew! That’s not what I’d call it if I lived in Manila. Anyways, it’s the sixth Catholic cathedral to be built in Manila — the first was constructed in 1581 — and I strongly encourage you to go read about the series of calamaties that befell the five previous structures. What I liked the most were the carvings on the doors out front, each with a Latin inscription that’s fairly decipherable.

From the cathedral, we hailed a couple of bicycle cabs and headed to Luneta Park.

This is Jon, an orphan who Justin and Erin were taking care of on the weekends. He hung out with us for a couple of days while we were there, and we got to visit his orphanage.

On Sunday, the day before we left, we visited a shelter for abused women and children. It was a bittersweet way to conclude our trip, but fitting. I wasn’t allowed to take any pictures of the women and children, however, so their faces are preserved only in our memories.

Justin and Jon.

Aside from a weeklong detour to see our good friends Justin and Erin McDonald in The Philippines (see my next post for previously unseen pictures from that island nation), we spent all our time with Bring Me Hope in China. There were four major destinations for me in China: Nanchang, Zhengzhou, Chengdu, and Beijing. I have split this first post up into Nanchang and Chengdu.

Our first afternoon in Nanchang.

Nate was our fearless, fast-talking, funny, all-knowing, all-seeing and sarcastic leader. One day, I saw him perched on the roof of the hotel, two-liter of orange juice within reach, probably listening to John Piper. Am I right, Nate?

There was an upstairs conference room where we held our goodbye sessions. Executive chairs crammed between narrow rows of desks made it difficult for the, ahem, husky kids to walk, but the orphans seemed to like playing boss.

We spent a portion of every weekday at a public pool in downtown Nanchang. Shoes were removed before entering the pool periphery, and when it was time to leave, there was inevitably at least one orphan looking down at his feet, only one sporting a sandal, wondering where in the world the other one went.

The pool was walled in with apartment buildings like this one:

On the way into the dense inner city — where Wal-Mart and McDonald’s were situated — was this ferris wheel, once the largest in the world at 525 feet tall. It’s called the Star of Nanchang, and you can read more about it here.

On to Chengdu. This was one of my last stops in China during 2008 — the capital of Sichuan province, where the massive May 2008 earthquake killed nearly 100,000 people and caused untold billions of dollars’ worth of destruction. One of Bring Me Hope’s translators was from a village in Sichuan that was wiped out, so my good friend (and personal bodyguard for the weekend) Adam and I flew to Chengdu.

Riding through beautiful, lush countryside laced with rivers, destruction still hung in the air. It was the most beautiful place I’ve seen in China, tragically ripped apart and nowhere near being put back together. Aftershocks were happening on a daily basis, although we didn’t feel any big ones during our brief visit. Authorities were warning that another big one could be on the way.

At the refugee shelter we visited, we saw only a handful of children. Schools had been hardest hit when the quake struck at mid-day. One particular little girl followed us around for a good part of the afternoon. She was beautiful and tragic. Just where had she been when the dying started? What had she seen?

We spent most of that first day walking around the camp and exploring the nearby river valley.

Lush rice paddies and bamboo forests covered the hillsides.

Once we reached the river, Adam went for a swim. More like a wade. Now you see why I called him my personal bodyguard. (Sorry, Adam, if you didn’t want the world to see what a stud you are.)

Last up on our agenda for the day was a ride up the mountain to visit a tobacco farmer somehow related to our host. Six of us jumped in a rickshaw powered by what looked like a small dirtbike. Miraculously, it carried us all the way up and back.

The small hamlet where our friendly, aged tobacco farmer resided was filled with fields and trees and this baby (yes, he’s gnawing on a raw squash):

One thing that intrigued me was how the tobacco was processed and smoked. First, fresh leaves were hung to dry.

Next, dried leaves were bundled with rope to cure.

Then a pinch of cured leaf was rolled into a crude cigar. Like so:

Said cigar was then jammed into the business end of a small pipe and lit. Not so different from a good smoke here in the States.

There’s a riveting story about how we got from the tobacco fields back to camp, then kicked out to a hotel where no white folks had ever stayed, then high-tailed it back to Chengdu, but this post is already running way too long. Ask me about it some time.

Our last stop before returning to the rest of the Bring Me Hope contingent was a hostel in Chengdu. If you’re ever stuck in that particular city, look it up. It’s called The Loft.

If you’re still with me at this point… Wow… Thanks for reading. I hope the pictures have been worth your time. I have another thirty or so images from our Asia adventure last summer that I will be uploading over the next few weeks.

Until next time…

This is our niece, Lorelai. She didn’t seem to mind the cold.

Probably the coolest thing I saw all weekend was the sunset on Sunday evening. My mom knew of a beach near where we were staying, and people had thrown debris onto the lake ice.

We have a ton of photos to blog, so please check back often. Until next time…