Dhahran Shopping Mall on a Friday Night

Let me tell you about a shopping nightmare. Imagine a hugh shopping mall - with a Super Walmart (called Geant here) as an anchor store. And it's the Friday after Thanksgiving or the heaviest shopping day before Christmas - except more crowded. And except that:

• Everyone has shopping carts - not just in stores, but in the mall itself - everywhere
• They have mini-shopping carts with tall flags on them for the kids - I think they are designed for racing.
• The kids can also rollerblade and skate inside the mall.
• There are bicycles with training wheels for the kids too.
• There is a skating rink - and on it all the kids wear helments and knee, elbow and wrist pads - but they don't have to wear those in rest of mall or inside the stores.

It was like thousands of Caleigh's in one small space!

I was there from 6:30pm to 8pm, and all the stores closed twice, for 15 minute prayer times. The Saudi men went to prayer, somewhere, but the women and kids stayed in the hallways and common areas of the mall talking on cellphones, drinking coffee and racing bikes and carts. You are not allowed to take pictures or else I'd have some good ones. Everyone's phone does have a camera on it though - but they can't use them indoors I guess.

I bought some water, some almonds and some bananas from the Geant store and some chicken from Popeyes. I got a SR 5 (about $2) coupon from Popeyes, so I may have to go back. But this time, if my hotel driver had not showed up and taken me away when he did, I might have been arrested for abusing some kid.