Another Discovery Day @ Al- Jubail

Alhamdulillah, today is another great day full of discoveries and observation.... I came to realise that observation has become my second hobby in this kingdom ! Unlike those time when I was studying in the US, I will take the chance given here to really explore, observe , compare and more importantly, reflect what I observe to the true meaning of life.... Maybe I was just a naive student back then in the US.... Or maybe tengah bercinta dulu, my focus was just to that beautiful awek Sheffield (Alhamdulillah, which is now my wonderful wife + mother to my 3 adorable kids) ...

Many thanks to Brader Muslisham from Ibn Zahr, a.k.a Mr Secretary of Kelab Rakyat Malaysia Jubail (KRMJ) for spending the time with us this morning... He picked us from the hotel for the Jumaat Prayers at Jubail Industrial City... The mosque is situated at the heart of the industrial city at Fanateer. The mosque was like wow... superb one... so many people and you can feel the Nur inside...Subhanallah... Each mosque here in Jubail are fully air conditioned and packed with jemaah each time of the prayers, 5 times a day... wow.. I pray so that one day, Malaysian mosque will be like this..

We then anchored down at a nice Arabic restaurant, where Brader Muslisham ordered a really nice nasik Arab.... Perggghhh.... The lamb + chicken was super juicy, fresh , succulent and tender...( did I just make you feel hungry now : ) ? I have tried nasik arab with my in laws at Shah Alam, but this is 10x better..! I bet Abah + Mama will love this place if they are here...

Noticed that they put a layer of plastic as the safrah... All we need to do is to take whatever that is in the big plate and put in on the plastic safrah and take it all the way into ur tummy. Lots of chit chat and sharing stories, we have managed to complete the meal.... I was shocked to see that there was this one small and thin arab guy, who was having a full big plate all by himself ... It took 6 malaysian to hardly finish the meal, but this guy was a hero, eating all by himself... Amazingly, he is not a fat guy...

This is Brader Muslisham and me... Ibn Zahr Process Engineer... very Friendly and helpful guy...

This is Sector Al-Huwaylat Medical Center

Then Brader Muslisham was sort of giving us an orientation to the city... We were told that there were two cities in Jubail...

Jubail Industrial City – Splendid town, designed by UK consultant and managed by Royal Commission. This is where we found very nice and very very well planned town. This is one beautiful, amazing big town. I must say that this I have fallen in love with this town and I bet my wife n my princess Lana will surely do!

Jubail Industrial Town features:
· Divided into sectors, and each sector has got its one mosque
· Royal commission is the home for SABIC family housing, whereby there are a few sectors here- Ferdaus ( hey, that’s the same as my name do I get to stay free? ), Al Huwayyat, and a few more that I could not recall. Each sectors of housing contains a lot of bungalow houses ( some 2 stories and some just 1 story), fully furnished with a nice US style + while maintain the elements of Arabic House architecture.... Oh yes, it comes with a garage for 2 cars as well ok? You can enjoy these with the amount of housing allowance deducted from my salary. I was told by brader Muslisham that I can never find that kind of housing elsewhere in Jubail town (old town), with that price...
· It is greeeeen...with lots and lots of trees , flowers and filled with landscape.. It becomes more beautiful in winter and spring time
· carpet grass, nice palm trees, beach, playground,
· wide roads
· Each sector has got its on Panda (like tesco or Giant), hospital, gym, sports center, Mall !! ... Here is Al Huwaylat Mall at Huwaylat sector. We stopped by the mall to take a look inside... Nice....GNC store, mothercare, kids stuffs apparel, toy shops, Apple Store for macbook lovers, etc2 can be found here.... These Arab guys are super rich...They have many shopping malls.... For a moment, I felt like I was in the US !! Because everything is just like US... Take this Applebee’s picture for example..

Applebee's huh ? This reminds me my good old Minnesota days

Al Huwaylat Mall....many shops inside.... there is a big bookstore inside...

Can't wait to bring Lana here

Again, it is from the friendly and helpful Brader Muslisham ...We then we went over to hunt for a temporary houses in Jubail Old Town, near the areas where most Malaysians live there..... Quite a nice place... this is an example of the house for 2500SAR per month with non fully furnished..... It is a clustered of 4 houses for 4 families with different entrances .. Like Country house in Malaysia...

This is a sample of the clustered house in Jubail Old Town...

...Found one at westwind service apartments, 2 bedded room, with kitchen, living hall, internet, air cond, fridge, washer, dryer, 1 bathroom , TV with 400+ international channels... All for 250SAR per day... x 30 days / 5 of us = SAR 2500 each... reasonable..

West Wind Service Apartment.

Sporty Honda Accord 3.5 Racing Type... Oooooo sweet mama!

Chevrolet Tahoe .. 5.7 litres.... Mmg power...

Jubail Town – Old town, designed and managed by local municipal/Saudi authority here... You can find a lot of things here in the shops... Everything is organized in block system, just like US....Lots of restaurants and Filipinos and Indians workers here... I was told by Brader Muslisham that about 80% of Malaysian who lives outside of family housing, lives at Water Tank are, which is at the outskirt of this old town ... Much better , less people and all shops within reach.

Noticed that there is a big Fish and Meat market, A few car showroom like GMC, Mitsubishi, Toyota, car service center,etc2...... I also noticed that there is a big dakwah center and we were shown where to get a rental car for 1500-200 riyals per mth , for a car like Toyota Altis...

Speaking of cars, we were told that cars here are damn cheap, since there is no tax involved, no road tax renewal every year, no insurance renewal every year... The insurance is every 5 years and it is included with the price of the car when you buy it... Isn’t that amazing?
Here is a sneak preview of the price of a few cars from Brader Muslisham for my consideration and for my dream to aim and work for!!

-New GMC –Chevrolet Tahoe (This is brader Muslisham’s nice car) ... 5.7 litres ! - 120k Riyals

- New Mazda CX-9 luxury SUV – 110k riyals
-New Toyota Camry- 70k riyals
-New Honda Accord – 70k riyals
- New Mitsubishi Grandis – 80k riyals
- New version of Honda Accord Race Type sporty 3.5liters - 140k riyals
- New Toyota Estima ACR 50 model – 110k !!! >> My wife will love this... Kat Malaysia

punyalah mahal sampai 240k, no wonder those AP Datuk is damn rich...

- 2nd hand Ford Expedition – 40k riyals
- 2nd hand Toyota Camry , 2006 model – 30k riyals
- New HUMMER H3 ( macam Sultan Brunei pakai) – 160k riyals !!! crazy cheap...So far,

brader Muslisham said there is no Malaysian who uses this car yet... Maybe I am the 1st

one ? ....hehehheh :P .. Who knows, insyallah...

Then, we surveyed another house at Jubail old Town, near the dakwah center, where Brader Muslisham stayed during his first 3 mths here in Jubaill... Unfortunately, no rooms are available so we cud not have a look at it....

According to Brader Muslisham, this house is bigger that the west wind service apartments and it is only 1500SAR per person per mth...All equipped....

What a nice and interesting day! Can’t wait to bring my wife and kids here..!
Tomorrow, we gotta do another round of medical check up for the Iqama... Hopefully, everything is OK Insyallah..!