Things of highlight for the week:
Went to the first (but not the last) Indian food place in Old Jubail. The waiter didn't understand us, we didn't understand him, and we ordered eggrolls. We told him to order something good after that, and he hooked us up with some very good stuff. Curry was very very good, but SPICY. Not the your mouth hurts type of spicy, but the I'm sweating onto the food kind. The funny part is that the restaurant only had cocktail napkins for napkins. Between the 4 of us, we used everything they had. We ordered iced tea. Waiter did not know what we were talking about. We got hot tea, and a bowl of ice cubes. It worked out ok. The next morning, my stomach and I were not on talking terms. My stomach was talking alot of crap. (HAHA, eww)
So we went to Applebee's for dinner one night. Yeah, really roughing it out here. Everything was very similar to what you'd see. Food was pretty good, they actually had Iced Tea, A few of differences though. I had a "bacon" hamburger. Tasty. The bacon itself is just odd. It's beef obviously, and has the texture of bacon, but is not bacon in flavor. You ever eat a burger at McDonalds, specifically the cheap 99c quarter pounder with cheese? You ever notice that the burger tastes too much like beef? I figured it was the grease in the burger. Maybe they rub essence of beef on the bacon or something. I'll pass on it next time. Some people like it though. Like the Canadians.
http://beefbacon.net/
Double Entrance:
In KSA, there are two sections, family and single sections. Family sections are for groups of women, or a woman and her husband, kids etc. Guys in a group, or those who go by themselves get their own section. Just the way it is, there's no judging, or anything like that, and you all get treated the same. It just makes it that much more difficult to hit on women. Maybe it's a good thing that they separate us.
Closing during prayer time.
Prayer time happens 6 times a day here in KSA, and all businesses will close their doors. Now how much the store closes depends on where you are. There are some that will kick you out, and not allow you to come in, there are some that will let you stay, but the workers will not help you. That definitely is a little different to get used to. Not awful though, it just requires a bit of pre-planning. We happened to show up during prayer time, and just went through the back entrance, and they let us in. Most of the places I went to did not have any announcement or warning, you just kinda have to know.
Let's go to the mall!
About an hour away from Jubail is the city of Khobar. Khobar, Dhahran, and Dammam are all kind next to each other, it kind looks like a giant city from google maps. It's a bigger city than Jubail is, and everyone goes there for the western flavor that is there. There's a great deal of US type of things there, food wise, there's Chilis, Outback, Johnny Rockets, Fatburger, Starbucks. There are grocery stores that are more American too. One of them looks just like Safeway (Randalls for all the Texas people). Place called Tamimi's. The mall itself reminds me of a Galleria type of mall, only one floor. It was big. Took about an hour and a half to walk around, let alone go into the stores. Apparently the clothing that's on sale was really cheap, nothing that I needed was on sale, so I didn't get anything. There's also a store with a great name. Panda is the name of one of the grocery store chains over here, and there's a large version at the mall. You would expect Super Panda. Nope, Hyper Panda. Awesome. Went to the Rolex store. Yup still pricey over there. Although, there is no tax there, so that's almost like a discount.
The neat thing over here is the fact that gold is strictly regulated here. As a result, the prices for jewelry is for the most part fixed. All the gold is usually 18 karat and up. Very nicely decorated all around. I might just buy it and hope it maintains value, if not increase in value. Everything can be negotiated too. I'm an awful negotiator, but the guy I went with, definitely was a good one, and was able to haggle quite a bit. Which makes me wonder a little bit, since the price of gold is fixed. I guess they markup the gems? Eh, I don't have to worry about that till I find a girlfriend. Have to find something for my sister, and mom though.
We ate a a Churrascaria while in Khobar. Super good, not quite as good as home, but a close third. They had some more exotic meats, venison, fish, shrimp, ostrich, and baby camel. Honestly, not that great. Ostrich was dark in color, and I could have confused it with beef if no one told me. The camel tasted like dry roast beef. Not so great. Overall though, awesome experience. I couldn't help but crack up at all the Indian waiters in cowboy hats. Just ridiculous. Needless to say, after that, no one ate dinner that night.
Went to a place called Desert Designs which had a great deal of arts, tables, with Saudi influences. Some very beautiful looking stuff. There was a glass table with an old Saudi Door built into it.
http://www.desertdesigns.com/index.php
Went to the Souq in Khobar also. Basically a flea market of sorts. Not tents, but more like a bunch of small small stores right next to each other, for blocks on end. Once again, a great deal of jewelry. Make sure to ask for the discount once, and then leave, and see if they have a second discount. Which of course is "just for you." Lots of gift stuff, furniture nick-knack stuff too. Tables, and decorative stuff everywhere. Also a clothing mall. One of the people selling watches in there, obviously cheap knock-off stuff. I could have bought a rolex over there for 120 riyals. 32 bucks. I could have haggled that down too. I don't think the watch was working when I looked at it. Traffic was insane. I might have mentioned this before, but people drive crazy in KSA. Everyone is on their cell phones, and if you honk, you have full rights to do whatever you feel. My favorite is the left hand lane, screw it I changed my mind i'm going to take a right turn maneuver.
We also went to Ikea. Yes, there is an Ikea. Nope, there is no difference. It's just as big. Only they close during prayer time also, but they're nice enough to announce it in English, so we had time to get out.
The best part of the night I think was coming back from the drive, and playing basketball in one of the common areas. One of the guys I went with bought a little kiddy basketball net and ball, and we played horse while drinking. Soda. I mean. With some luck I'll have my Iqama next week (permanent resident card) and I'll be able to leave the country. First stop, Bahrain. That should be an interesting weekend. Plus I'll get paid for the first time by then. Woohoo!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Letter to ******
Sup. We were talking about you during our "basketball game." I can't remember who brought you up first. Probably me. Nothing too crazy said, same stuff that you're used to hearing. Some of it made ME blush when I heard it, which is pretty impressive. Hope you're doing well over there, and that you're not taking work too seriously. Something tells me that you are, especially with some of the distribution lists i'm still on. You gotta spend money to make money, but man, don't max out the credit card when your doing it. I could tell you a million things, but I won't, too tired. Writing all that crap up there kinda wore me out. I'm kinda bummed out that I'll miss the wedding. Start-up appears to be the exact same time as that, so you gotta do what you gotta do. The good thing is that I'll be able to take a long trip after that. Get the journey too allt eh continents started. You should check out the link below, and pick a country. I'm game for any of those places.
http://incubushq.com/events/event/listUpcoming?page=2
Oh, and I just realized something today. So here's how vacation works out:
4 weeks vacation
4 weeks r&r
3 days travel each r&r week
2 weeks floating holiday.
SUM(All above) = 12 weeks off each year. My vacations end up being 3 weeks every 2 months. How can you complain about that? Oh yeah, not getting to see awesome people like you everyday. Hm, I'll get over it some how. Especially if you killed my Aloe Vera plant. Those things are desert plants. They survive very intense conditions. You haven't been feeding them Gatorade have you? Hope all is well, I'll try to keep my sentiments to myself, and cry on Chris' shoulders.
السلام عليكم
-Huy
Went to the first (but not the last) Indian food place in Old Jubail. The waiter didn't understand us, we didn't understand him, and we ordered eggrolls. We told him to order something good after that, and he hooked us up with some very good stuff. Curry was very very good, but SPICY. Not the your mouth hurts type of spicy, but the I'm sweating onto the food kind. The funny part is that the restaurant only had cocktail napkins for napkins. Between the 4 of us, we used everything they had. We ordered iced tea. Waiter did not know what we were talking about. We got hot tea, and a bowl of ice cubes. It worked out ok. The next morning, my stomach and I were not on talking terms. My stomach was talking alot of crap. (HAHA, eww)
So we went to Applebee's for dinner one night. Yeah, really roughing it out here. Everything was very similar to what you'd see. Food was pretty good, they actually had Iced Tea, A few of differences though. I had a "bacon" hamburger. Tasty. The bacon itself is just odd. It's beef obviously, and has the texture of bacon, but is not bacon in flavor. You ever eat a burger at McDonalds, specifically the cheap 99c quarter pounder with cheese? You ever notice that the burger tastes too much like beef? I figured it was the grease in the burger. Maybe they rub essence of beef on the bacon or something. I'll pass on it next time. Some people like it though. Like the Canadians.
http://beefbacon.net/
Double Entrance:
In KSA, there are two sections, family and single sections. Family sections are for groups of women, or a woman and her husband, kids etc. Guys in a group, or those who go by themselves get their own section. Just the way it is, there's no judging, or anything like that, and you all get treated the same. It just makes it that much more difficult to hit on women. Maybe it's a good thing that they separate us.
Closing during prayer time.
Prayer time happens 6 times a day here in KSA, and all businesses will close their doors. Now how much the store closes depends on where you are. There are some that will kick you out, and not allow you to come in, there are some that will let you stay, but the workers will not help you. That definitely is a little different to get used to. Not awful though, it just requires a bit of pre-planning. We happened to show up during prayer time, and just went through the back entrance, and they let us in. Most of the places I went to did not have any announcement or warning, you just kinda have to know.
Let's go to the mall!
About an hour away from Jubail is the city of Khobar. Khobar, Dhahran, and Dammam are all kind next to each other, it kind looks like a giant city from google maps. It's a bigger city than Jubail is, and everyone goes there for the western flavor that is there. There's a great deal of US type of things there, food wise, there's Chilis, Outback, Johnny Rockets, Fatburger, Starbucks. There are grocery stores that are more American too. One of them looks just like Safeway (Randalls for all the Texas people). Place called Tamimi's. The mall itself reminds me of a Galleria type of mall, only one floor. It was big. Took about an hour and a half to walk around, let alone go into the stores. Apparently the clothing that's on sale was really cheap, nothing that I needed was on sale, so I didn't get anything. There's also a store with a great name. Panda is the name of one of the grocery store chains over here, and there's a large version at the mall. You would expect Super Panda. Nope, Hyper Panda. Awesome. Went to the Rolex store. Yup still pricey over there. Although, there is no tax there, so that's almost like a discount.
The neat thing over here is the fact that gold is strictly regulated here. As a result, the prices for jewelry is for the most part fixed. All the gold is usually 18 karat and up. Very nicely decorated all around. I might just buy it and hope it maintains value, if not increase in value. Everything can be negotiated too. I'm an awful negotiator, but the guy I went with, definitely was a good one, and was able to haggle quite a bit. Which makes me wonder a little bit, since the price of gold is fixed. I guess they markup the gems? Eh, I don't have to worry about that till I find a girlfriend. Have to find something for my sister, and mom though.
We ate a a Churrascaria while in Khobar. Super good, not quite as good as home, but a close third. They had some more exotic meats, venison, fish, shrimp, ostrich, and baby camel. Honestly, not that great. Ostrich was dark in color, and I could have confused it with beef if no one told me. The camel tasted like dry roast beef. Not so great. Overall though, awesome experience. I couldn't help but crack up at all the Indian waiters in cowboy hats. Just ridiculous. Needless to say, after that, no one ate dinner that night.
Went to a place called Desert Designs which had a great deal of arts, tables, with Saudi influences. Some very beautiful looking stuff. There was a glass table with an old Saudi Door built into it.
http://www.desertdesigns.com/index.php
Went to the Souq in Khobar also. Basically a flea market of sorts. Not tents, but more like a bunch of small small stores right next to each other, for blocks on end. Once again, a great deal of jewelry. Make sure to ask for the discount once, and then leave, and see if they have a second discount. Which of course is "just for you." Lots of gift stuff, furniture nick-knack stuff too. Tables, and decorative stuff everywhere. Also a clothing mall. One of the people selling watches in there, obviously cheap knock-off stuff. I could have bought a rolex over there for 120 riyals. 32 bucks. I could have haggled that down too. I don't think the watch was working when I looked at it. Traffic was insane. I might have mentioned this before, but people drive crazy in KSA. Everyone is on their cell phones, and if you honk, you have full rights to do whatever you feel. My favorite is the left hand lane, screw it I changed my mind i'm going to take a right turn maneuver.
We also went to Ikea. Yes, there is an Ikea. Nope, there is no difference. It's just as big. Only they close during prayer time also, but they're nice enough to announce it in English, so we had time to get out.
The best part of the night I think was coming back from the drive, and playing basketball in one of the common areas. One of the guys I went with bought a little kiddy basketball net and ball, and we played horse while drinking. Soda. I mean. With some luck I'll have my Iqama next week (permanent resident card) and I'll be able to leave the country. First stop, Bahrain. That should be an interesting weekend. Plus I'll get paid for the first time by then. Woohoo!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Letter to ******
Sup. We were talking about you during our "basketball game." I can't remember who brought you up first. Probably me. Nothing too crazy said, same stuff that you're used to hearing. Some of it made ME blush when I heard it, which is pretty impressive. Hope you're doing well over there, and that you're not taking work too seriously. Something tells me that you are, especially with some of the distribution lists i'm still on. You gotta spend money to make money, but man, don't max out the credit card when your doing it. I could tell you a million things, but I won't, too tired. Writing all that crap up there kinda wore me out. I'm kinda bummed out that I'll miss the wedding. Start-up appears to be the exact same time as that, so you gotta do what you gotta do. The good thing is that I'll be able to take a long trip after that. Get the journey too allt eh continents started. You should check out the link below, and pick a country. I'm game for any of those places.
http://incubushq.com/events/event/listUpcoming?page=2
Oh, and I just realized something today. So here's how vacation works out:
4 weeks vacation
4 weeks r&r
3 days travel each r&r week
2 weeks floating holiday.
SUM(All above) = 12 weeks off each year. My vacations end up being 3 weeks every 2 months. How can you complain about that? Oh yeah, not getting to see awesome people like you everyday. Hm, I'll get over it some how. Especially if you killed my Aloe Vera plant. Those things are desert plants. They survive very intense conditions. You haven't been feeding them Gatorade have you? Hope all is well, I'll try to keep my sentiments to myself, and cry on Chris' shoulders.
السلام عليكم
-Huy
