So I redid the Tour Life Day 5 post and added the rest of the Day 5 stuff, so make sure you go back and read that one! : )
We got up very early in the morning to see some things before the crowds got bad, and OHHHH was it worth it. Mike is the MAN…he knows his stuff. Shout out to the Dan Panorama too, they opened 15 minutes early for breakfast just for us too. So we head over to the Dung Gate and walk up to the security checkpoint with all the guards with the big guns. We can’t take laptops or iPads into the Temple area, but phones and cameras were ok. We were the only ones in line so essentially walked right through the checkpoint and on we went. We walked past the Western/Wailing Wall (which I will refer to as WW) and instead went straight for the tunnel tour. 
This is really one amazing tour. One of our group members said “Vacations always have something that’s a dud…there have been ZERO duds.” She was right, everything is so neat, you wonder if anything could ever top it, and then, it does! Each stop is so incredible. This was really cool.
There are still tons of excavations and archeological digs going on all over the place on the Temple Mount. There is now a tunnel down below the surface along the length of the WW. We walked, underground in this tunnel from the WW to the northwest corner of the temple, to a cistern under where the Antonio Fortress was. Check this out.
Here’s Mike pointing down the tunnel, you can’t remotely see it all.
Here’s the cistern. 
Still has rain water in it today from the housing above. There are 2000 yr old steps down to it. Whoa. Speaking of 2000 yr old stuff, on the way to this spot, we also got to see a master stone weighing some 600 tons that Solomon and his workers moved into place to support the temple. How did they do that, you ask? Dunno. The thing is HUGE. Here’s like half of it.
And there were more people lined up like this on the other half. This is a Solomon-aged stone. It’s absolutely incredible.
Here’s the other half. Guessing they needed these holes in it to move it. That is up there on the list of the most AWESOME things I’ve ever seen.
Evan had to do quite a bit of ducking…me too. There were some narrow spots and not a fun place for claustrophobics. Then we resurfaced, and went to see the WW that is above ground.
It wasn’t overly crowded, and the side for the women had been enlarged from previous years, they said. I didn’t take pictures close, disrespectful, but I can say that it was emotionally powerful to be there. For me, the big takeaway, and this has been for me at multiple places, is that I am not alone. There are God-fearing Christians all over the place. We have been around groups of Christians from Russia, Nigeria, Japan, China, European countries, Singapore (tell you more about that tomorrow), not counting all the folks that live here in Israel. Like in the church at the Shepherd’s Field…the familiar tune for us that the folks were singing in Latin. Then our song in English speaking to the people that came in after us. It’s so humbling and I feel the universal love of God in the faces of all the cultures here who love Him, and all the remnants of the cultures here who loved Him when they were alive, too. That is what brings me to tears every time I feel it or think about it, including now.
If there is such a thing as prime real estate for pigeons, the WW would be it. What an amazing feel to this place. So many people praying. Next we went to the south side of the Temple Mount.