Still Touring in Riyadh

   

We spent our first full day driving around and seeing more sights and Jesse wanted to take me to the old market souks which he found without too much difficulty. Unfortunately with it being the Eid holiday, the gold selling stalls weren’t open, but most of the other shops were and they were packed tightly all next to each other selling fabrics, curtains, really ornate giftware, fake pot plants, and even baby furnishings.

The items in the picture below really caught my eye and I thought I must snap this for a nursery/mother decorating idea for Anne :P – It’s a bit hard to see because of the glass reflection but it was all in pink satin & lace with tassels all round the edge of cot comforter – but wait for it……. there was also a queen sized comforter in same fabric to complete the ensemble for Mum’s & Dad’s bed, as well as a matching dressing gown & nightie. I’m sure that Paul’s heart would melt at walking in and seeing the room decorated in such exquisite style :P

MAIDS UNIFORMS AT SOUK :D – Lots of different styles and many stands that had these lovely stylish uniforms for your live-in Phillipino  maid – and these were the nicer ones.

For some reason (must be his European heritage & culture background coming out), Jesse has really taken a shine to the obscene as far as decorating goes and it has become a MUST HAVE on his list for decorating. He keeps asking me which I like and which would I pick, but I find it hard to choose :P – Maybe you can all help me in deciding…….lol. I have weakened and am buying him one from our local shopping centre for Christmas and will post the picture once it comes home so I won’t spoil the surprise by describing it, but just let it be known that it will be jugs and bowls decorated with plastic jewel inserts on them – alas they don’t have tassels like the lager one below if they have jewels, but tassels are cheap here so I might yet add to it.

Well our second night in a really SOFT bed was just as good as the first, and with check out not being until between 2-4pm and nothing else opening until 4pm we didn’t feel too guilty having a late sleep in.

After checkout we started to drive around for a last look at Riyadh and came across some tumbling down mud brick houses from the original settlements, but unfortunately they don’t have heritage listing on things here and really don’t appreciate or like the history of these old buildings, so they have just fallen into ruins and will probably be gone in a few more years.

We then found by accident after a wrong turn to get back to freeway a really nice water park attached to King Abdulaziz Museum. It was really strange that we were the tourists but I was the one that everyone was staring at as we were the only white people to be seen. It was a very nice walk around looking at the old fort and through the paved walkways alongside little man made streams all through it. This is one of the main paths and YES I have my hat on – the one that everyone is laughing at me for wearing on Facebook.

 

 

We decided after a visit here that we had better start on our way back home, so after a few wrong turns and being on the wrong highway, we found our way to a guarded checkpoint on the road to somewhere (we could see the freeway we wanted just a few streets over) and after going past and doing a u turn and coming back on wrong side of road Jesse asked them how to get back to Al Khobar. They were most helpful and pointed us in right direction and after a few more wrong turns we found our way back on the road to our home away from home.

We stopped about 20 km up at one of the carnival type servo’s to fill up and went in to see what they had – It was more like, what didn’t they have. Tents, gun holsters, knives, it was like an army disposal store cum supermarket – you name it they had it. We weren’t quite game to eat from the truckie Indian type “restaurant” so Jesse contented himself with a couple of rolls, I wasn’t quite that game so got a sealed packet of nuts and once again were on our way to arrive back home about 10’ish.

All in all it was a fabulous trip and I thoroughly enjoyed seeing all the new sights, and and even coming back being whizzed by on the shoulder wasn’t quite as scary as what it was going – mmmmmm am I becoming used to no road rules????