Category Saudi Arabia

Shopping Experience

If you are in Riyadh and thinking in shopping, you would probably be guided to the two most famous shopping malls, Kingdom Mall and Faisaliah Mall.

Both of them are fancy and classy. The time interval between the openings of the two malls was short due to the skyscrapers race between Kingdom Group and Faisaliah Group, which you may also call it the “royal race” between Prince Al-Waleed Bin Talal and the sons of King Faisal, to build Riyadh’s most recognizable landmark.

When it comes to shopping experience, I would recommend Faisaliah Mall over Kingdom Mall. Even though it has more brands and shops, Faisaliah feels much cozier than Kingdom. The restaurants arena at Faisaliah is bigger and it offers more choices. Moreover, if you feel like eating in the sky, you can try the 360° Restaurant inside the golden ball at the top of the tower.

Kingdom also offers a nice view to the capital through its bridge. It will cost you SR 25 (US$ 6.66) to buy a ticket for going up there. However, you are not allowed to take food or camera with you.

Finally, here’s a little secret tip. There is a little gift shop at Faisaliah mall which offers a special service. Buy your gift, and then go to this shop to wrap it and keep it in its “saves.” Take the number of the save and tell the salesman the name and phone number of the person that you want to give the gift. Tell the person the number of the save or just SMS it, and he can go there, tells the salesman his name, phone number, and number of save, and the salesman will give him the gift. Most boys in Riyadh use this way to give gifts to their secret girlfriends. “Just leave it there, and anytime she comes to the mall, she can pick it up!”

Riyadh Times (A Day in My Life)

I finished my really early analytical chemistry class on 09:00 and immediately called my friends to confirm an already-planed visit to Al-Mamlaka Mall. By 09:30 we were there, me, my good friend Mo, and two other guys I would rather not to talk about.

One could wonder why would four college boys sneak the classes and go to the mall? The answer is because all malls in Riyadh are restricted to families almost all the time and single men are only allowed in the morning! However, don’t be surprised if you see some girls hanging out in the mall at morning all by themselves. For some reasons that I cannot understand, females can enter the mall anytime they want.



I did not go there just to hang out. I went there to look for a new pair of shoes to go with the grey uniform the college asked us to wear starting form this semester. I’m not usually lucky at shopping, but this time I was lucky enough to find this gorgeous silver pair from Nike at Max Active. I started to feel like it’s my Lucky Day, so I went to Debenhams and purchased a nice red sweater to fight back the unexpected cold weather in the capital these days.

Before leaving the mall, we had to stop by at Rotana Music Factory to check out the new releases. I couldn’t find anything interesting, so I got Green Day‘s American Idiot, which just arrived to the store few hours ago.

While we were at Music Factory, we ran into two sluts who tired their best to show their sunglasses, overdone faces and sexy bodies underneath the black robes. It was bizarre to see an Abaya that reveals much more than what it covers, and as Mo puts it “it’s like she is calling me to grab her boobies!” Never mind, some doctors say it’s healthy to see some boobies in the morning and some before going to bed! ;-p

I went back from the mall and directly headed to attend my Arabic Writing class, a course that I really don’t need. However, Arabic classes used to be all fun to me. I spent the afternoon with Mo, who is also my roommate, at our place watching Mean Girls on his PC.

Early in the evening, we went out again. This time to Prince Faisal Stadium to attend a football match between the local team Al-Hilal, and Al-Afriqi from Tunisia. My favourites, Al-Hilal, were winning the Tunisian side 3-1 at the end, but we did not enjoy the match because the weather was very, very cold. I was expecting a regular night, so I was wearing my favourite jeans and a basic T-shirt, and when I was watching the match, I was actually freezing!

It’s almost midnight and I had a class on 08:00. I better go to bed. Oops, I totally forgot, I got a medicinal chemistry exam tomorrow morning. What am I gonna do? I think I’ll fail! 8′-(

Update, 24/11/04, 21:29: A new item was added to the collection today. A beautiful pair of blue jeans from Zara was irresistible to me. I’m almost out of money now, any suggestions to make some?