Dinner and shopping in Riyadh....

Just got back from shopping at the Saudi equivalent of a mall....visited two stores (Hyper Panda and Best). Hyper Panda is like a Super Walmart, with more emphasis on the supermarket aspect. Visiting on a Friday afternoon before the last prayer (about 6:15 PM), the store was busy, but not packed. Best is a Best Buy type store, but expensive compared to Electro (another electronics/appliance store).

ATM's are usually found at gas stations here (off on their own small island). Using a ATM card here to pull Rials (Saudi currency) is pretty easy - it asks you if your want English or Arabic menu for getting money. Little kids seem attracted to the units, one actually watched me pull money out of the machine (must have thought is was some sort of XBox or Wii). After the transaction was finished, it gave me my balance in dollars instead of Rials. 200 Rials was about $60.00 dollars (exchange rate is about $1.00=3.75 Rials).

I've eaten out at two resturaunts (Fudruckers and Applebees) in the last couple of days. Prices for the meals are about equal to what I paid back home (I had the Fiesta Chicken and Iced Tea for about 60 rials). Final bill for meals also have a 15% gratuity, regardles of the number in the party, figured in. Waiters in the resturaunt are all foriegn workers (usually filipino males), and seating is segregated (males only in the front of the resturaunt, families seating in an isolated area in the back). Smoking is still allowed indoors here, but there is a push to ban it in certain areas.

One last thing - gasoline prices (and this will piss off alot of people). Gas prices here run about $0.20 to $0.30 per gallon (yes, that is right)...gas is cheaper here than water. Stations are run by Bagledeshi or Pakistani workers that do full service (check under the hood, ful up all fluids, etc...), but they look like death traps from the outside.

BTW - thanks to my internet friend over at "The Loose Cannon on the Right" for traffic that comes over to my blog...PCD was more than happy to allow me to let you know about life in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, from a "infadel's" point of view.