I don't like shopping much, and I can travel for a year straight without buying anything to take home (with the exception of stamps -- I do collect stamps). But I love a good mall for the people watching it provides, and the bookstore browsing that often lies inside.

I also enjoy a good flea market for the oddities scattered across tables and hanging from walls. The photographs that follow are from the Israeli town of Jaffa, which has a flea market known around the country.

A visitor to Jaffa may begin his morning on the roof of the Old Jaffa Hostel, enjoying breakfast while looking at an old Ottoman clocktower in the distance.

After breakfasts the visitor may step out of his hostel and turn either left or right: it doesn't matter since the flea market stretches out in both directions.

It's not everyday (at least in the 21st century) that you see a typewriter; even less common to find one with hebrew keys.

Here a man inspects an old knife.

And here Kramer, that famous guy from Seinfeld, inspects passersby.

And here -- well, I have no idea what this is about. It was down the block from Kramer, though -- some of the plentiful graffiti and wall art in Jaffa.

Here is a book for sale, opened to page 34. I read this page, and I appreciated the simplicity of its sentences. There's something to be said for simplicity.

There's also something to be said for not spending all your time in the malls and flea markets of a city. And so after a while you meander about five minutes away from the flea market to this viewpoint overlooking Tel Aviv, Jaffa's big neighbor. You sip on a fruit drink and map out the rest of the days' walk. And then you head north.

Joel Carillet, chief editor of Wandering Educators, is a freelance writer and photographer based in Tennessee. He is the author of 30 Reasons to Travel: Photographs and Reflections from Southeast Asia. To learn more about him, follow his regular photoblog, or purchase prints, visit www.joelcarillet.com.