Friday, May 05, 2017

Pishers' Guide to Jerusalem #17, At Least It was Clean

This is a continuation in my ongoing series about public toilets in Jerusalem. See #16,  #15,  #14#13#12#11#10#9,  #8#7,  #6,  #5, Saved by The First Station aka #4a#4#3#2 and #1

The other day I had to leave from my home in Shiloh to get to Matan, and thank Gd I ended up with a fantastic ride that took me not too far away from there with plenty of time to walk. But as you can guess I had to find a public toilet, which isn't all that easy in a residential neighborhood, especially very early in the morning.

As lovely and holy as Jerusalem may be, it can be a very confusing place to walk around in. It's very "suburban" with winding streets and no easy way to know where you're going or how to get any place, especially deep in the Old Katamon neighborhood with its tall trees which block the low buildings. I couldn't find any landmarks to help me out. I was pretty sure that I wasn't far from Shai Agnon Street and the small supermarket I'd been to a number of times after staying at my daughter's who lives near there. So, I tried to get assistance from "Google Maps." But for some strange reason, I couldn't follow their instructions and "estimated time to arrival" always kept getting longer rather than shorter. So I typed in a different location, and the same thing happened. And then it happened a third time! Am I the only person who can't follow their directions? But suddenly I saw a street name that looked familiar. It davka goes to the very street I had originally searched for, Shai Agnon. And after just a couple of minutes of walking, I saw the supermarket just across the street!


I walked in and cased the joint looking for the usual easy to follow signs to a WC, but there weren't any. Nu, that was strange, since supermarkets are supposed to have some public facilities.

Then I walked over to a female employee to ask. She told me that they were downstairs.
"How do I find the stairs?" I asked, since I hadn't noticed any when walking around.
"Near the Dairy Section, through the storage room." She politely replied.
It's not a large supermarket, so I easily found my way. And since I had worked for almost six years in Yafiz-Rami Levy, Sha'ar Binyamin, I've gotten pretty used to walking through supermarket storage areas.


Even though there aren't any signs, I did find the public toilet pretty easily. It has the same awful superficial aesthetic ambiance of many other Jerusalem supermarkets. But in this case, it was sparkling clean and didn't smell at all! That was a great relief.

The bottom line is that the toilet is usable and far superior to many others, but the downside is that it isn't handicapped accessible. I presume that it suits whatever bylaws there are for employees, but customers may find it problematic. There is a bank next to the supermarket, but that wasn't open early in the morning.

From there I had a lovely and relaxed walk to Matan. I know the way and didn't need Google Maps, thank Gd!



2 comments:

JoJo said...

Thanks for this! (And all the reviews.) I've stopped in that grocery many times and have to run home as quick as possible because I thought they don't have a restroom. Good to know where it is for next time.

Batya said...

Wonderful, thanks. Glad to be of service.