Riyadh: City of Malls, Pt. 1

We arrived in Riyadh on Sunday night, and after a painfully-slow customs experience that made the efficient and organized Canadian in me want to scream, found our driver, and made our way to our hotel.

The education fair didn't start until Tuesday, so Monday was our first day, and also our only free day, so my colleague and I decided to make the most of it. The Canadian embassy in Riyadh was hosting an event Monday evening that we had to be back for, so what was a pair of foreign women to do with a day free in Riyadh? Well, go to the mall. ( The historic city centre was also on our list, but the old souk closes at noon, so it wasn't an option.)

Riyadh is INTO its malls. You've combine a country with lots of money, a culture that loves finer things like luxury and foreign brands, and scorching hot climate where the air conditioner is king and the mall becomes the place to be. Also, in terms of gender roles, it's a place that's outside the house but is not the street, where women and can go and hang out. Although there are separate line-ups and seating areas in the food court for men and women, both genders co-exist in the mall.

Our first stop was a more everyday outdoor-style mall, which my colleague had been tipped off was a good place to buy gold. My colleague was after some rose-gold both for herself and her daughter. After a quick stop there (and realizing that the jewellery was serious bling with serious prices), we headed to Al Faisaliyah Centre. We got there just before prayer time, meaning everything was about to close. You can stay inside the mall, but can't buy anything, so I made sure to get a strong, cardamon-scented Turkish-style coffee before prayers started, and we sat in the food court people watching ( which was more of our reason for being at the mall than shopping in the first place.)

We were in the "Family" section, which in Saudi means women are allowed, as opposed to the "Singles" section, which refers to men only. So if a man is alone or with other men, he sits in the singles section, but if he's with his wife  and/or kids he sits in the family section, as do groups of women unaccompanied by men. We were surrounded by black-veiled women with their kids in strollers, or groups of teenage girls eating fast food, or pairs of women having dessert and coffee. Basically, the same thing you'd see in any mall food court, except the rowdy groups of teenage boys were nowhere to be seen.

Liverpool

I like Liverpool; well, the bits I've seen of it between conference sessions, anyway. My impression of the city is the following.  At some point in the last few decades, Liverpool, a traditionally industrial city based around shipping, realized that its industry was dying. So it decided to reinvent itself into a city attractive to tourists, and it did so quite successfully, managing to spruce up the city centre while preserving its historic character. The docks have all been renovated and a long promenade has been added along the water. Restaurants, hotels and shops have been tucked into the old-school brick facades of pumphouses and drydocks. Strikingly modern towers have gone up beside heritage buildings, adn they've even erected a ferris wheel! The city's easily walkable, there are maps and signage everywhere. It's a tourist's dream.

As I took a taxi to my hotel from the train station, the driver remarked on how I was going to be staying close to the mall, and I gave an ( internal, non-audible) groan. "Big deal," I thought, "so what if my hotel's close to some big disgusting big-box mall; that's not what I came to another continent to see." Now, Liverpool 1, the shopping centre to which he was referring,  is indeed a mall. But it's this neat, architecturally daring, open air shopping neighbourhood consisting of a bunch of pedestrian streets, parks, and shops on several levels interconnected by steps and escalators. The downtown core around the mall is a sprawling pedestrian zone, and so Liverpool 1 kind of blends into its surroundings. I am not a huge fan of malls, and I do acknowledge that this is just a bunch of chain stores, but that being said, it's really neat and a much more attractive way to bring chain stores to your downtown instead of just building a big box mall i the suburbs somewhere and gutting your inner city.

Edgeware Road and Pho Mile

Visiting a metropolitan city like London can in reality be a trip to several different countries for me. London, Toronto and Montreal, all cities of immigrants, have ethnic enclaves where you can eat the food, visit the stores and hear the language of the country of origin of those who live there. So not only do I get my cuppa strong English orange pekoe tea, but mint tea, spiced chai, jasmine tea and bubble tea...

My first morning in London I walked (through the snow) down Edgeware Road, home of a large Arab-speaking community from all over North Africa and the Middle East. Despite the unseasonably low temperatures, the dozens of restaurants and cafes I passed had their patios out, with those small tables and typical red and beige wicker chairs aligned so that everyone has a view of those passing by. Shisha pipes and pots of mint tea were being shared to help stave off the cold and humidity.

Later Thursday night I visited the "Pho Mile" on Kingsland Rd. in Shoreditch. It's not what you'd call a Vietnamese neighbourhood, but there are dozens of restaurants along this road serving pho noodle soup, grilled meats, nice noodles and other Vietnamese dishes. I love pho, but a good bowl is hard to come by in Halifax, so I headed straight to Song Que, at the end of Pho Mile, and ordered a bowl of rare beef pho and a pot of jasmine tea.

To make pho, they take rice vermicelli noodles, onions, mint and cilantro, top it with razor-thin slices of raw beef and pour boiling hot broth over it all. The broth cooks the meat. You top the soup with bean sprouts, basil leaves and a touch of lime before digging in. The broth is what differentiates pho from restaurant to restaurant, in my opinion; a mix of bones and herbs and spices and who-knows-what is simmered for hours on end, creating a subtle base for a soup that's seemingly simple, yet delicious. That's what's wonderful about Vietnamese food in general--the straightforward combination of fresh meat, rice, noodles and herbs.

This weekend I also had late-night Peking Duck in Chinatown,  a heaping plate of Turkish meze in Camden and a feast of curries and naan at a hole-in-the-wall Indian place near St. Pancras station. And of course a few full English breaksfasts. Good thing I'm doing so much walking around...

Underground

You have to hand it to Montreal for being so straightforward with how they've named their metro lines. You look at a Montreal metro map and ask yourself, "Am I on the green line, orange line or yellow line?" Colours. Then you come to London or Toronto or Madrid ( or like anywhere else) and are trying to find your way through the metro and have to remember some  line name or number in addition to the station.... COLOURS, people. Make it easy for your tourists.

London- Liverpool-London-Riyadh 2013

Aka. Working vacation. A conference in Liverpool and a recruitment trip to Riyadh broken up by two short spurts of vacation in London. The known and the unknown!