The room day

Yesterday I hadn't bothered setting an alarm, not going to sleep until the early hours of the morning and definately not having anything to do apart from browse the mall and eat. I eventually woke up at half 11 (roughly the same time as the day before - must be a pattern emerging). After a shower and texting John and Serban I sat typing away until John was ready and the pair of us headed over to the mall, agreeing to meet Serban in Starbucks. 

As we went outside we noticed there was a distinct lack of traffic. Being a Friday and therefore holy day in Islam I suppose it made some sense but unlike back in the UK the difference here was vast. We walked straight across the road which we had never managed to do before. The car park, in which there were usually cars queued up back onto the road at all times was only about a quarter full. Pondering the implications for what we might find inside we ventured in. There were a few people around but not many. Everywhere was already closed with thankfully the exception of the food court. As we approached Starbucks it was in darkness though. Next door to it was a Cinnabon, a different variation on the coffee shop theme that was open. It seemed strange that one of them should be open yet not the other but we just wanted coffee and a seat to wait for Serban. We figured he'd find us there with the lack of other people around and proceeded. 

Eventually he did, but by which time Starbucks had re-opened again as if just being on temporary hiatus during prayers. We hadn't heard the call at all so had already ruled that out a potential reason for its closure but evidence now suggested we were wrong. John and I were finished anyway and Serban preferred Starbucks and wanted to go there so moved across to what were admittedly far more confortable seats at least.

Following another trip to the food hall which, on this occasion led to me giving up and going for KFC, I wanted to head to Carrefour. We'd been to another two malls the previous night prior to dinner (which I forgot to mention yesterday) and both John and I had bought 'Arabic for Dummies' so I wanted a legal pad to make notes with. 

[Just to fill you in, the first mall we went to was about 500 yards away at the end of the street but required a detour of an additional 500 in order to cross the main road in a safe place with crossings and turned out to be a ladies mall full of dress shops, shoe shops, handbag shops and jewellery shops. No one was standing at the entrance and there were no signs to say we weren't allowed to enter so we'd just entered having assumed from the outside it was something similar to the Rashid mall. Obviously we soon left upon realising our error... 

To get to the other mall we'd had to get a taxi, much to Serbans disappointment. It was only $30SAR Riyals but he'd bartered the driver down to $25SAR (a saving of about 90p) just to make hinself feel better more than anything. He hadn't considered the implications of this on splitting the fare three ways. The driver who took us there asked us how long we would be and gave John (who had jumped in the front seat) his number, insisting on taking Johns also, and telling us to ring him when we wanted picking up. As we approached we began to appreciate the sheer size of it. We'd noticed it on the trip to the ARAMCO ID centre, but only took a cursory glance making a mental note in case we'd wanted to go there. Now we were paying attention we could barely believe this was a single entity. We pulled up to gate 5, agreeing to ring the taxi driver whe we were done and wandered in - John actually got a phone call from him later after we'd already returned with one of the many taxis outside the mall anyway wondering why we hadn't called. Being Thursday evening it was pretty busy compared but the size of it dispersed it's population quite well. The outlets were obviously more varied here than the Rashid mall but strangely, whereas elsewhere the high end brands had all been grouped in the same area, these were intermingled. There were still no 'cheap' places of course. Names likle Next, Claires, Accessorise, Monsoon, Hugo Boss, Calvin Klein, M&S were the run of the mill with more than a fair few fancy jewellery stores thrown into the mix. We wandered in and out of the maze of corridors doing our best not to miss too much out, stopping in a couple of shops just for a browse as you do. I bought a new cap for $50SAR but that was it. Serban had become obsessed with tracking down a place that would have Sony speakers for his tablet and ended up asking someone, only to find the place he was told was about 200 yards away, requiring us to cross the main road with no crossing point. 

I'm still not sure about the do's and dont's when it comes to crossing roads to be honest. You see very few people on the street anyway, everyone drives probably doe to the price of fuel at 55 halalas (8p) a litre, but those that are just jump across wherever suit no matter what. Given the driving around here I'm nervous of being wiped out when walking on the pavement, let alone crossing the road. In America (on which the road system here is obviously based) it's illegal in a lot of places to cross without a crossing. Unfortunately here there seem to be very few crossings and I assume that if the driving doesn't particularly concern the police here then a few people running across the road wont either.

We made it across alive, though it took Serban a few minutes longer. We realised at that point that the huge mall we had already been in was only one half of it and we had now reached the other. This side was less clothes etc and more electronics and a massive Panda hypermarket. The Jarir bookstore Serban was in search of was right in front of and wen went in. John and I decided to let Serban go and play while we browsed all the usual products we had no intention of buying. John had been on about learning Arabic too so I suggested we go upstairs where the books where to see if there was one for him. Having located 'Arabic for Dummies' we both decided to purchase a copy and headed for the till. By this time we were a bit fed up of wandering around and decided to wait for Serban outside the store. After coming out empty handed complaining about the lack of things he wanted and the price of the ones he didn't anyway we headed back...]

After Carrefour I headed back to the hotel. I had arranged to speak to the Grandparents on facetime and spent a few hours catching up with them and filling them in on what I'd been doing as they hadn't been shown yet how to access the blog. It was nice to catch up and see them all again and made the distance between here and home seem inconsequential for a while. 

John had decided he wanted to go swimming at the Crown Plaza hotel which we had passed on the way to the ladies mall but I decided to pass, preferring instead to stay in the room and catch up with my tales on here (it is quite time consuming). I finished and read a couple of chapters of the Arabic for Dummies before he rang me on his way back to arrange dinner plans in the mall. I text Serban to let him know and we met up half an hour later in the lobby. 

Another wander around the mall which was now packed led to me deciding to go and look at the Tag watches and Serban looking at a smaller version of the Jarir bookstore we had been to in the other mall. John and Serban even stopped to try on several pairs of designer sunglasses in one shop while I watched from outside. Eventually and reluctantly we headed for the food court. I wasn't particularly hungry after my KFC earlier but knew if I didn't have anything I'd regret it later on so ended up getting another lasagne. John couldn't make up his mind and delayed so long that Serban (who had gone for Burger King) and I were finished before his was ready. He ended up taking it back to the hotel to eat in his room while Serban and I grabbed coffees from Starbucks again and headed back. Having no reason not to really, we ended up going back to our rooms where I continued a bit with my Arabic studies before eventually calling it a night...