Monday = Shuk day

A shuk is an open market where local businessmen and farmers sell fruits, vegetables, bread, nuts, spices, etc. It's always crowded and chaotic with haggling shoppers and the loud competing shouts of the stand owners. Popular shuks in Israel are Machaneh Yehudah in Jerusalem and Shuk HaCarmel in Tel Aviv.

Here in Arad, the shuk is open once a week, which means Monday is shopping day!! Though we still get most of our food from the supermarket like in Bat Yam we now get all our produce from the shuk. Shuk shopping is so much fun!!

We each bring an empty backpack that very quickly get filled with 4 dozen apples, 2 dozen oranges, a dozen bananas, pomegranates, pamelos, kiwi, a dozen tomatoes, 2 dozen cucumber, eggplant, zuccini, onions, potatoes, celery and more.

In addition to hunting down the booth with the best combination of price and quality we also have fun picking out (and tasting) more unique tables such as the nuts and the olive buckets.

It's a really fun experience and one of those things about Israel that you can't really appreciate by just visiting for a week. It's one thing to buy a loaf of bread at the shuk for lunch and another thing entirely to but food for an apartment of seven people for the entire week.