A little trip to the Mall of Dhahran

Today seemed like a good day to go to the mall for some shoe laces. My good office shoes have a brand new pair of laces waiting for them on the shelf in my closet at home, which doesn’t do me any good here when the old ones break. You’d think that was a pretty simple thing to come up with no matter where you are – we all wear shoes, right? Maybe that’s not always true, cause I’ve had a tough time finding some. Got some at a different mall last weekend, but they are boot laces and are about 15 inches too long.

My company, Saudi Aramco (Aramco for short) goes to great lengths to take care of the people it brings in from around the world to help them. One nice thing they do is keep a fleet of new, gleaming, spotless Mercedes Benz buses. Think Greyhound buses on steroids. These buses run a regular schedule from Dhahran to other Aramco facilities in the area, to four different malls, to a hospital, etc. 

Today my target was the Mall of Dhahran, less than 10 minutes away. First stop, though, was the massive Ikea store across the street from the mall – maybe I’ll see it next weekend!  The bus then pulled around to the southernmost entry to the Mall of Dhahran, gate 6. This mall was unlike any I’d ever seen, and actually pretty cool. It’s essentially a big hollow donut. There are a dozen “gates” facing outward all around this thing, so you could park close to your destination, wherever it was, and come in near your store. In the center of the mall is a kids amusement park – this seems to be a popular feature around here, but I didn’t explore it any closer. I did get a look around, though, as I walked the entire circumference.

What an amazing variety of shops and stores! Some signs were only in Arabic – beautifully ornate calligraphy that so far means nothing to me. There were at least a dozen coffee shops, some simple stands, some entire sit down cafes.  There are dress shops that most of you ladies would swoon at because they were, essentially, ball gown shops. I’m talking off the shoulder, plunging neckline, low back affairs covered in glitter and sparkles and belts and sashes, etc. Some very sexy, intriguing numbers that would look right at home at a big, formal, high society event at home. 

I don’t mean to go on about this, but now picture who was in the mall. Mostly men in thobes (long white robe and Arab head dress) with their wives and children. The children are like kids anywhere – run, play, duck, ignore their parents, etc. The women are all in abiyah (long black all-covering robe) and head scarf, many of them veiled as well, with nothing but their eyes visible. Sometimes there were clusters of 5-10 women, all covered head to toe.

Who wears these extravagant gowns, and when? One must wonder!

There were shops with leather handbags. There were dozens of shoe stores, with high heels and wedges in every shape and color – these are not shoes for the desert, folks. These are ball gown shoes. I saw a candy store the size of a Circuit City store.  Lots of jewelry shops, many of them very specialized. One place was only men’s Swiss watches, one was only earrings. One was Swarovski Crystal! Many many many clothing stores, but one was only belts, another was all scarves.

Here are some of the recognizable name brands I saw and jotted down in my iPhone; this is not even close to a complete list, but you’ll get the idea: Pottery Barn, Clark’s,, Timberland, Guess, Cinnabon, Sony, Gap, Hushpuppy, Aldo, Sephora, Godiva, Pizza Hut, Tony Roma’s, Outback, Olive Garden, Versace, Carolina Herrera. There were shops with “of London” and “from New York” in the names.  Pretty eye catching assembly of snappy stores, really. And full of people going in all directions. It made for an interesting navigation job to figure out where I was, where I was going, power walk as I went, make notes in my phone, see the shops without looking at anyone, and above all don’t touch anyone! This is a very non-contact society.

Quite an interesting excursion, all in all. FYI, in my circuit around this giant donut I saw only one store selling thobes for men. And I found my shoe laces, exactly what I needed and hadn’t found in 8 other stores, in the first 10 minutes I was there, and the Ecco shoe store. I’ll have to go back, because they were very nice, had what I wanted, and had some great looking shoes I wouldn’t mind trying!  BTW, this is the low-end mall around here.  Can’t wait to get a good look at some others!!