"Taxi to the Holy Land please."

We realise that this is quite a sensitive subject for some people so before we go on, we just wanted to say that this is purely the view of the Holy Land Experience from our perspective. We did not go there to mock Christianity or its beliefs, we went purely out of intrigue because we are both fascinated by religion in all its forms. On with our day...

Oh my Christ. Where do we begin?! We were up at 7.15 this morning in eager anticipation of our day with Jesus. We got in a taxi with the most friendly driver. He engaged us in excellent religious banter all the way there, asking us questions about why we were going and telling us his own views on God, heaven and hell etc.

We were so eager to get there that we arrived an hour before it was even open and spent the time floating around the 'Garden of Eden', i.e. the elaborately decorated entrance and garden which contained the whole nativity scene and every pair of animals from Noah's ark. It also featured background music.

We were not alone for long and were surprised how busy it got before actual opening time, although it was a Saturday to be fair. Eventually we were let in and the fun really began! Especially after the guy on the door thought Kitty was a celebrity...

One of the first people we spoke to was a man dressed as some kind of apostle who was actually from Bath in England and had attended Bible school somewhere in America and wound up working at the Holy Land Experience. Small world! We went for a wander around, admiring how neat and clean everything was, with such attention to detail, and accidentally came across the morning prayer session. It was quite a sight!! Several Holy Land employees were stood on on a replica of the Temple of Jerusalem singing away, encouraging their audience to join in. The audience were incredibly passionate, lots of arms in the air-eyes closed-hallelujahs going on, nothing like either Kitty or my experience of church at home. It was pretty intense.

After that little welcome we then attended a Last Supper, where we were greeted with a piece of cracker and a tiny shot glass of what was meant to be wine. The table was set up for the last supper and Jesus and one of his disciples came in to lead the ritual. It was less creepy than I'm making it sound and actually quite relaxing, albeit a bit surreal.

Kitty was adamant she was purchasing a turkey leg for lunch after seeing it on the leaflet. I'm not sure whether this was because she couldn't eat much else or because she wanted to feel like she was really experiencing the Holy Land. Either way, watching her eat it was highly entertaining (picture included!!).

It was getting ridiculously hot by this time (32-36 degrees!!) so we sought out shade by attending the parables with Jesus for children show, which was like a primary school RE lesson but much more amusing!!

In between all this we checked out each of the gift shops, collecting postcards and trinkets. Some of the more entertaining items for sale are included in the photos for your entertainment.

To conclude the day, we attended the ultimate show down: 'The Passion/We Shall Behold Him- His Agony, Death, Resurrection & Glorious Return!' Oh boy. First of all, the show was held in a building called the Church of All Nations. Well... The entrance foyer alone was made entirely of mirrors, gold and silver. The auditorium seated 2000. Huge and impressive doesn't cover it! The show itself was incredibly dramatic, starting off as the basic story of Jesus (virgin birth, miracles etc), but seemed to skim over alot of important details, for example how Judas came to betray Jesus, even though they showed this happening.

The crucifixion scene was pretty graphic, and Kitty and I were shocked at how violent it was considering a large part of the audience were under 10. Watching a man being whipped, beaten and nailed to a cross whilst sat next to a 3 year old felt kind of wrong. One thing that was quite striking about the whole thing was the level of audience participation, joining in with the singing, clapping, cheering, crying even. The performers interacted with the audience nearest them, making them a part of the show.

The guy playing Jesus was recognisable to Kitty and I straight away; we knew him from one of our favourite documentaries, 'Religulous'. He was really very good, but we found it strange that he as a Christian wanted to play Jesus and then, even when out of role, appeared to accept the idolisation from people and the leadership the role entailed. We know this because we stayed for half an hour after the show and watched him lead a prayer session where he literally had people knelt on the floor below him, surrounding him and wanting to touch him whilst he sang hymns.

We did capture quite a lot of this show on camera so please prepared for a full Holy Land Experience for yourself at some stage!!!

Our friendly taxi driver had given us his card so we called him to take us back to our hotel. He was very excited to hear about our experience and very ready to continue our religious banter from the morning. What a lad! (picture also included).

Just got back from a dinner of ribs at TGI Fridays and undecided on what to do tomorrow. We all know how bad we are at making decisions... Not sure anything will top the excitement of today for a while!!!