Sunday, August 24, 2008

Shopping in the Kingdom

Last week, my man and I took a trip to IKEA and grabbed dinner there. IKEA food is the same around the world, though not every IKEA has family sections set up like this:


All malls have family sections organized in a similar way to IKEA where tables are sectioned off with screens so that families can eat in privacy and women can take off their head coverings. At one mall last week the food court was full at dinner time and there were not enough screens, so I watched a saudi woman eat her meal with her veil on and it was awkward to say the least.

Yesterday I was taken on a shopping trip by my new asian friend. We visited the Kingdom mall, which is supposed to be one of the ritziest malls here in Riyadh, with Tiffany's, Dolce & Gabbana, LV, etc. etc. inside. August is a great time to be shopping here as everything is on sale, and though I thought I couldn't afford anything in this mall, I was soon proven wrong. I should have known that asians all over the world are the same: we are all looking for those $10 pants.


For the record, these pants were $7

Well enough bragging - onto other issues, like where to get camel meat for dinner. Yum yum! No problem - your local grocery store has some in stock:


And it comes ground as well for camelburgers:


Oh by the way, they do indeed have ketchup chips here, and basil as well, as well as 110v kettles. Someone said to me the other day that you can find anything you need here in the Kingdom, you just have to know where to look for it. I am discovering every day that Riyadh is totally livable.

3 comments:

likklegal said...

Hey Nic,
It's nice to read your blog, so far things sound veeerrrry interesting. I think that you should give the camel burger a try, you might like it- and when in Rome etc. etc. Hey, I had some raindeer jerky in Sweden and once I got over the thought of it (took me 6 days), it was actually okay... :)
I look forward to reading more...
Hugs,
Nayida

Steve said...

For some reason I feel as though you should have goat cheese on your camel burger!!

I would love to try a camel burger nic! I think you should try one (or split one with Stefan if you're really hesitant) so that you can tell me how it tastes!!!

Orchidthief said...

I still haven't convinced myself yet that I'm going to like this whole camel meat business. Guess what, I also found Ostrich meat! No kidding!