Alhamdullillhah... the time has come... After an "outstanding" increase of 4 kg in my weight during my resignation from ExxonMobil /unemployment period ( thanks to all those nice durian + roti canai+ malaysian foods !!!) , I have safely landed in the land of the prophet Muhammad SAW ....
The journey was about 5 of us from Malaysia , ( Rizal, Taufik, Din, Abg Rahim and me) , who had travelled for almost 10 hours from KLIA to Dammam in KSA... Stopped over for 1.5 hr at Dubai Airport....I was really shocked to have been informed by the pilot that the outside temperature is 36C at 2.30am in the morning....!! Walla weyyy....I can't imagine how hot it wud be if it is at 12 noon...!
After a tiring flight, we were stranded at Dammam Airport's immigration for almost 2 hours, since we are entering the kingdom for the first time,well, all those finger print and picture taking stuffs you now..... I have noticed that there were a lot of Philipinos who came here to work....Man, they really look like Malays!!
The journey in the taxi from Dammam Airport took us about 1 hr 15 mins and I was surprised to see that Saudi is not as bad as I thought .... There were areas of developments, cities like dhahran and Khobar, and the place where I will work ( Jubail) is a developed city , which is much much bigger than seremban / bangi/kajang town....
The highways are super straight and wide open....But I could not see any camels on the dessert !! Where are these animals? My daughter would have asked me many times if she is tagging me along..!
Once we have arrived at the hotel , I was having a culture shock again...... (oh man, I really miss my luxury time with ExxonMobil, where I have been blessed with the luxury to stay in a 5 star hotels like the Ritz Carlton, Marriot, Grand Hyatt, etc) .....But one thing that I really like about this hotel and town is that there are about 13 mosques within 5km radius!!! I can hear all of azan when it is time for prayers....
Then I went on to SABIC HQ in Fanateer for registration for employment...Met these Pak Arab HR who likes Malaysian very much...There are about 200+ Malaysian families here in Jubail...The HQ building was like ...wow.... kalah ExxonMobil KL ... Apparently, these guys are rich... I felt like I was in Malibu Beach, florida (but without sexy girls of course)....The road are paved with carpet grass and nice palm trees ... Not so far away from the HQ, there is Fanateer Mall , which looks nice and quite big... Hmm....sounds like a plan sometime next week huh? Let's see whether I can find some cool gadgets there...!
On my way to enter the main building, saw many many fancy cars like GMC, cadillac, Ford and super luxury mercedes benz cars.... Hmmm... I wonder how much these Pak Arab guys are getting per month...!
This morning is a weekend (Thursday and Friday are off days here in saudi) where I got the chance to recover from jet lag and tiredness.. Oooh....I slept like a baby...I met my ex-Esso inspector, Fadly here... What a small world right... We had breakfast together and chit chat on his experience working here for almost a month...
Ar-Rahsyeed Mall, Al Khobar
Knowing that we must get ourselves equipped with high speed internet broadband and phone to call malaysia, we went over to one of the biggest mall in Northern East of saudi , Al Khobar Rasyeed Mall... It is a big one + carrefour inside , located about 1 hr drive from Jubail... Trust me, it's a big one...tak sempat nak pusing habis..
Then, I have noticed these as part of my observation....
The mall of Dhahran.... guess whut, it is bigger than Ar-Rashyeed Mall .. My princess will love this..!
There you go... Gigantic IKEA , which is next to Dhahran Mall... I bet that my lovely wife will want to go here every weekend ! Time for a nice sweedish meat balls again huh sweetie?
I can see that there is a lot of designer's stuffs that we can get it here at Al khobar mall... eg: Gucci, Mothercare, Sony, Krispe Creme, Starbucks , La Senza ( ooooh...), Guess, Gap, Givenchy, and belambak2 lagih...
A great day.....but it would have been much greater if my wife n kids are here with me ... I miss you all...!!
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