Holiday Inn Riyadh-Al Qasr

... 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 ...

... 020 ft). It is also host to the highest mosque in the world. The Tower Contains a total of 43 floors excluding the 4 levels of basement. The Kingdom Centre is owned by Alwaleed bin Talal bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, a prince of the Saudi royal family. It is also the headquarters of his holding company: Kingdom Holding Company. The total cost of the project was US$ 1 billion and the contract was taken by Saudi Arabian Al-Saif and The Italian Impregilo.<br>

... gets very blurred and not really any good. And then secondly, after much to-ing and fro-ing, I was informed that I can't get a little USB 'Connect&#8217; device until I have received my residency permit (iqamah). This device would be similar to a flash drive and has a little sim-card which connects to a mobile network and gives me internet (3G) wherever there is a signal. I will have to see if there is a way around this as I don&#8217;t really think that I need to wait for ...

28th...bought an abaya in Dubai. The young woman at the shop showed me how to put on the sheelah (the head scarf)...an hour later i asked another nice young Saudi lady in the waiting area to show me again, because i took it off and couldn't get it back on properly...there is a knack to it. Met her family while waiting...really lovely people. Her mother said not to worry about putting on the ...

... ladies behind us, clearly delighted. One was trying to translate what my daughter was saying and they were all smiling and giggling. As we left they were trying to engage my daughter, asking her name, etc., but she is a woman who knows her own mind and isn't given to small talk no matter how much you try, so she kept walking without a glance back.<br><br>We decided not to stop in Riyadh but drive straight through, and we hit Kharj just before sunrise.

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 ...

We crossed the border without major incident. The Saudis have stepped up their procedures (like they needed more), now you have to be fingerprinted when you enter the Kingdom. We pulled up to the immigration kiosk, they handed forms we had to fill out for each traveler. We then had to pull forward and park to get out the the way while we filled out the forms. Seriously, is there not some way to streamline this? Do they not already have all this ...

Well, this time I thought I might write a little about the hospital that Im working at... I've finally begun work in recovery, after 3 long weeks of extensive orientation. It was tiring, as a lot of the stuff they covered wasn't all that relevant, but they did run workshops and lectures about settling into life in Saudi as well, which I found really helpful for easing my way into living and working here. The recovery is pretty big, has 16 bays for 11 theatres ...

... difficult as this flight is off by more than 40 mins as of this writing, which should put me at the mercy of the two yet unknown faces in Cairo to still make it - the immigration and the cabbie. Was told by the enthusiastic lady (:Hannan) of sleepingtrains.com, that it takes at least an hour to do the 45km from the airport to Giza station which Train No 83 will ...

... working at Kinkos in Kuwait. We had a great conversation until finally the border agents came back out. All during this time and after, people were trying to cut their cars into line. Well SHOCK OF SHOCKS, the agents came out and told the people who cut the line that they had to go and get in line AT THE BACK! One guy in particular really had trouble with this concept. He went into the booth to rant and rave at the agent, then came around and tried to cut into line ...