Al Mutlaq Riyadh

... party. Anyhow, I thought Cathay Pacific was supposed to be a good airline. How the hell is someone who is flying across Asia to a new country supposed to pack under 20 kg? That's virtually impossible! Just my one week trip to Shanghai weighed in at 13 kg! I'm moving for a year dammit!<br><br>Find out my flight routes through Taipei, barely make the boarding. Airline hostesses are rude. Still discombobulated, I left my Korean cell phone on the ...

... outskirts of the Saudi capital, Riyadh. Diriyah was the original home of the Saudi royal family, and served as the capital of the first Saudi dynasty from 1744 to 1818. <br><br>Also, we visited the famous Kingdom Centre (and Tower) and went up to the Sky Bridge. is a supertall skyscraper located in the city of Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. It is the tallest skyscraper in Saudi Arabia and the 45th tallest building in the world with a height of 311 m ...

... Arabic. He had lived in Riyadh for the past ten years with his family and he was about 35 years old. As we took the main airport road he explained about the traffic in KSA, the accidents, the money and he pointed where I would be working as we passed what must have been one of the biggest buildings I&#8217;ve ever seen. It was the SABIC headquarters, and it is the second biggest employer in KSA (after Saudi-Aramco), with an excellent reputation internationally. As we glided ...

... arriving at that time of the evening means u are in for a long wait in line to get through customs....<br><br>My one and only bag got concertinered in the crush with other bags and the carosel...<br>and the heat once out the doors...amazing.<br><br>Met Glenns driver...Noor...call him Mr Noor. Very nice man from Pakistan.<br>Most expats that stay in Riyadh for any length of time apparently ...

... to repeat it several times. After visiting the "watercloset" we went to the abutions area to perform wudu'. My 4 year old daughter sat and played in the water and gave a constant commentary ("Mommy, this water is hot! Why is the water hose pink? What is that in the drain? Can I put soap on my nose? Can I clean the drain? Yuck, this soap tastes terrible!") while I finished my ablutions, and when I turned I saw that there was an entire half-circle of ...

When you are entering Riyadh from the east, you pass a lot of agricultural spots -- date farms, dairy farms, fields with modern irrigation equipment. Leaving the city heading west it's as if you have come to the edge of a vast cliff and are now headed down into an enormous valley. Our ears ...

... entered the bachelors' entrance -- I had forgotten about the separate entrances thing. In the Emirates restaurants will often have private seating for families (like booths with taller dividers around them) if you choose to use them, but everyone has the same entrance and you can sit in private or in an open public room, your choice. In Saudi you don't have a choice, which I had forgotten, but the counter staff kindly redirected me. So out I went, around ...

... their quarters. One room for the patient, with a lovely ensuite, then a separate room for the "sitter" (more about them in a sec) and then a separate kitchenette! All decked out with gold plating and marble... its like a luxury hotel. They often have their own private nurses in tow, and awaiting one the other day was these gigantic platters of exotic chocolate... Amazing. Then you have the "sitters". A sitter is a relative of the patient who is paid by the ...

... shopping, of course! :P) The other major tower here is Faisalliah, whish has this giant ball at the top, which is apparently a restaraunt. Apparently you can have high tea there for about 150 SR... Definitely on the "to do" list! I was invited to an embassy party the other day, which was pretty cool... Big BBQ, REAL alcohol served (yay) and a big dance floor and DJ. Really awesome night where I had the chance to meet lots of Aussies from all over Riyadh - not just from my hospital ...

... happy with our haul of "discards" (which still looked great!), we headed down a road leading (hopefully!) back to the highway via an easier route. This proved to be the case and we found ourselves on a road near the highway where we stopped to pump air back into our tires using James' air compressor. This took a while. We filled the tires on James' Explorer first. While filling the tires on the Trooper, James noticed his air conditioning was not working and took a few runs ...