HAPPY RAMADAN

A happy and blessed ramadan to all the muslims sisters and brothers of the world.

Please Remember the people affected by floods in Pakistan in your prayers in this holy month. May Allah take away their pain and sufferin. Ameen

Pakistan Floods

image taken from vancouversun

My country is in need of help and prayers. There has a been flood in the most part of the country. Officials have stated almost 1500 people have died and around 2.5 million people have lost their homes and livelihood. There is also a fear of the spread of water borne diseases such as cholera and malaria.

Please my only request from you is remeber these people in your prayers. May Allah have mercy on us.

Jeddah Part 4, RED SEA MALL

One of the many mnay new malls in Jeddah, the one i Love to go to is RED SEA MALL. Its beautifully made, caters to everybody's need in every department and is fun to roam around.

It has a food court, Danube, designer shops local and international. A very beautiful aqurium, a place for your kids to have a little fun. A water show as well.

This time there was a tower on the ground floor. I couldnt find the details of the tower, Like how tall it was and all that but it sure was nice.


What was different about this tower was the material out of which it was made of. Here is a closer look

All used pepsi cans. Isnt it cool. I wish they would have put a board up explainin how many tins were used and all that. Oh well, maybe next time.

This time around there was another new thing there. On the third floor there was a new part opened up, ANDULSIA. worth a visit. It was beautiful. A little old city glamour in the middle of a modern 21 century mall.

It had all thoes lanterns, beautiful tiles, fountains. Most of the shop were selling local dresses, spices, jewellery. I found one shop that was selling handcrafted turkish thing. WOuld ahve loved to buy the whole lot. But it was kind of expensive. But it is worth a look. Colorful and pretty.

The fountians i was talking about. It even has a tea house. Lovely really.

My pictures actually dont do justice to how beautiful the place looks. But when in town do give it a visit.

That's called negative journalism

I wasnt going to post anything in between my Jeddah posting, but i just had to. I really really get angry when I see the media trying to play with our minds with negative journalism. I hate it actually. I mean this is the second time I have seen MSN reporting news in kind of a really bad light. The first time was here. I dont even know if the news about KSA was even true or not. I mean in journalism its all about the headline insnt it?? (not a journalist so i dont know for sure) . Most of us read the headlines. Some of us will go on to read the news and but just a few of us willl actaully understand that their actually is no relation of the heaadline to the story.o So most of us will make an opinion based on that headline. For example. today i saw this headline on my MSN page WHAT'S IT'S LIKE TO HAVE CHILD IMPRISONED IN IRAN? what would be your first thought about this. OH! they really are barbarians, imprisoning children , OH GOD!!! or something on the same lines. But indulge me and click here to read the full story about the CHILD aging 31, 28, 28. Since when are we calling middle aged people CHILD. yes the story is a little sad as these hickers were captured for no apparent or told reasons but please have the headline say what the story actually is.

Jeddah, Part 3 Fantasy Stationery

When we were growing up Jeddah and Ksa in general were also growing up. So we didnt have much to go around. Yes we had the Abhur and the cornich and AL-Baik ( cant forget that ). But Jeddah has definetly come a LOOOONNG way now. With the BIG malls, Great eatery, fun cafe's the list is endless.

Among one of these places is Fantasy Stationary (rawail Maktabat). It basically is for kids. From 3 to maybe 12. When I first visited the place i was sooooooo jealous of the kids now enjoying in Jeddah. I mean we didnt have anything like that growing up. It actually is a fun place. Its Beautiful to look at. For adults, There is a Boutique, Very nice clothes may i tell but with hefty price tags. There is a furniture shop. And of course a Stationery.


The buiding has three floors. You will find the stationery in the basement. The boutique, furniture shope and gift wrapping center at the ground level. On the First floor there are many activity rooms, 2 party halls.





The First Floor activites are mostly fro children 3 to 6. They have an art room, Craft room, Sand room, Kitchen ( childern were actually cooking with helpers ofcourse), Profession Center with fire engine, an ambulance. Each activity was individually priced ( ver very reasonable). parents or nany were not allowed inside the activity room but the rooms were visibly by glass walls. so you can actually see what your little ones are upto. What i liked about these rooms were that eevrything was child sized. like the frniture in the arts room, craft room and kitchen was small. realy small so the kids could handle them themselve.really nice.

NO good photographs of the rooms because taking pics was not allowed. sorry






The top floor has Activites for a little Older kids. The activites includes fishing, Go carting, somekind of a shooting gallery, which looked awesome.

Apart from these Great activites The Place has some Water fun as well. Well some is an understatement. It has a BIG water park with it. It has seperate pools for the kiddies, A wav maker. BIG slide. and lots lots of FUN. Good way to cool off in the summmer.

My kid was a little small to try any of these activities. But if your kids fall in the age range please do go and enjoy, Its fun, Educational and fun again.

Jeddah, Part 2 AL-Feroze

We LOVE to eat. and more than anything i LOOVE to eat out. One of the places i always go to when in Jeddah is FEROZE. Its a Turkish restaurant. Its not expensive. And its really reall good.
It has three branches in Jeddah that i know of. One of them is on Heraa Street towards cornich.
Other restautrants i love to go which caters to my Labanese and Turkish taste buds are

AL-Wazzan (available in Khobar as well)
Khayal (Labanese)

All these restaurants are reasonably priced and lovely to eat at. They taste good and are light on the wallet as well.


Feroze has a long list to choose from.
I love the bread they serve, But ask them to bring it fresh.

I am a Kabab lover, but their grill is equally tasty.

If you ever visit, do try their sizzler.

Iron, they used to serve bigger glasses. But maybe the recession is getting to them as well.

Anyways, Its a fun and fullfilling expereince. Do enjoy with your family.

Jeddah, Love it!!!! Part 1

My first time around in KSA was spent in Riyadh and Jeddah. The part in Riyadh was not that much and we were too young to remember. But i do remember Jeddah. I Love Jeddah. I dont know why??? Maybe because i spent my happy childhood there. Maybe because all my memories are from Jeddah. or just simply put Jeddah is the best. I mean the BEST. dont get me wrong I really like Khobar as well. But I am IN love with Jeddah. Its colorful, its loud, crowded, overflowing with cars, and the roads are narrow but i still love it. I love the Malls, i love the street Fashion, I love the eatries, basically i love the fact of having sooooooo many choices.

I was there a couple of days ago. I planned to stay there longer but my trip was cut short by someone's lack of planing skills. I wont name the someones's name. But I am free to say anything about my better half if no names are named. hehehe

Anyways, whenever i go to Jeddah since my first exit from KSA i have some rituals. I visit all the places that have special meaning for me. Like the place i grew up. The mall that was near my house. Go to corniche in sunlight. eat shawarma at the old place, see my school. Its after all that i normally do all the new stuff. But unfortunately this time it was a little different. I couldnt get to my rituals and just did the fun stuff this time. Here some of the pics


Corniche
Flying car near corniche

Old building in Balad (restored)

Another old building

LAnterns, they look lovely at night

A masjid near Balad

A Ship themed restaurant(under construction)

never what it is. near Tahlia

Coming soon more posts of Jeddah at its best.

Arabian Dreams

I love this look and the makeupartist Jangsara who does them is an awesome makeup artisit.

She did this look a while back ago on her first blog


But no tutorial.

This time she is doing the same look different color palete but with a tutorial. Hurrah!!!

You can see the Tutorial here.

Hope U enjoy. Do check Jangsara's blog and all her looks, amzaing really. And if u try the look do send me a pic. i would love to see how it turned out.



Have Fun

Bakery Review

I am a Big Big dessert fan. It dont care what it is Pastries, Doughnuts, cakes, i will have anything with sugar in it. So a friend of ours took us to bakery here in Khobar. From the outside it didnt look much like a bakery but a restaurant. Le Gourmet is the name. But it was really really good.







They had a wide variety of things there



Sweets



Different kinds of chocolate and candies, Very tasty








miniture pastries, big ones as well. forgot to take the pic of it as i was really busy deciding which one to dig my teeth into. sorry

Cakes

Some delicacies like salmon and other processed and preserved meats

The cigar shop was located on the entrance of the bakery. but can be good gift for someone who are into cigar along with a delicious pastry.

Overall the cakes and pastries were finger licking good. Would go there as many times my husband will give into my pleadings.

The LeGourmet bakery is in Jeddah as well, on Tahlia Road.

How to do Arabic Makeup

So hopefully you enjoyed the last video I posted on how to do Arabic makeup. This one is kinda of step further, but i think still easy to do. I liked the tecnique the artist used. It looks doable. Try and tell me how it turned out for you.

WORLD CUP 2010 Anthems

Out of all the World Cup 2010 songs i liked this one th best.

Which one is your favorite???

Can this be True????

A few weeks ago i saw a really small headline on the msn homepage which was quite shocking to me. I didnt post it earlier because i was a little confused as to if i should post it or not. I am still confused but I am posting it anyways. The original article is here. The article states that London Times is reporting that the SAUDIS CLEAR ISRAEL TO BOMB IRAN.

Really can this be true? i am still trying to put my mind around it. If it is True how can the saudi do it. I mean ISRAEL really. Isnt Palestine enough. Isnt Iraq enough. Isnt Afghanistan enough. Isnt Kashmir enough. Do we really need more beheaded children photos in our inboxes. or do these photos not reach the people runnig the countries or do they not care cause its not their kid, sister, mother or father cut into half. I mean why the muslim countries are not standing with each other, even in this time and age why are the muslims against muslims, Whatver our differences maybe.

I really am quite disturbed over the news and i am hoping and praying that its false.


May allah be with us

Chronicles from Jeddah----Forgotten Glorious Past

Finally the first thursday of June came along and we went to the Islamic Center where they were holding a Morroco day. I was really exicited about it as I mentioned in my earlier post that I would love to visit Morroco some day, so it was a sneak peek into the experienec waiting for me. But there was more than I was expecting, Morroco had taken a backdrop for there ongoign series "Why do we belive In....???". This time we were shown a short film and my GOD was I totally in AWWWWW. Please have a look at it.

This short film was made for an exibition held in London this January. It was quite a big Event organsied by a Saudi organization. At the exibition Islamic history is being presented in a marvellous way. It was so insightful not just for the western world who usually show a bleak picture of Islamic culture and call that era the dark ages but for us as well.

WE muslims need to know where our roots lie. Where we come from and how at one point in time we gave the world its latest discoveries and invention. I dont know what the curriculum in arabic schools in the KSA is, but growing up I certainly was not introduced to this period of muslim history as I should have been in my schools. I mean yes I knew some names, and yes I knew we did something but not to the extent I know about the western scitentist and their acheivements. Why this lack of expopsure to our own hisotry I cant understand. Maybe because in my schools the authorities are BLINDLY following the curriculum definetly not designed completley for us and adding information to it is too much work for them. And we as parents are relying too much on our schools to educate our kids. Why is that, that we dont have any heroes of our own? Why is that, that we dont have any Muslim scholar or scientist to look up to and follow? Why is that, that we are from the get go made a follower of the western civilization? I dont know. Maybe if we are shown and taught what great acheivers we were maybe we will replicate it. We did it once and we certainly can do it again.

Here you can get a little view of the exibition.

Please do share this with your friends, family, children of all ages so that they know alll about our great past. and for a change know the names of someone other then Elbert Einestein and be proud of what we are and our contributions to the modern world.

After the movie we had a discussion on the "Why have we forgotten where we came from?". We know the first message give to our Prophet Mohammed (P.B.U.H) was IQRA (read)....so being a muslim its our mission on earth to seek knowlegde, knowledge of everything and then to apply that knowlegdge for the goodness of mankind. Leaving a footprint in this world. Maing a mark. We dont know what an impact can it make. It can be as small as making someone smile or as big as changing someones outlook to life. The main goal of all this is that do somehting productive while we can, whether it be with your children, your family, people you know. start small. Seek out knowledge, share your knowledge, lets make this world a better place for you and for me,so that a few decades later we still have a remarkable past to look at.

~How to do Arabic Makeup~

A friend requested Arabic makeup. I LOVVVVEEEE how the arabs do their makeup and i do it most of the time. But I am not very good at it. So to keep on learning how to do the makeup I watch a lot of how to videos. This is the easiest one. I will keep on adding them every week.

This is marlene from Makeup Geek i love love her turorials. They are easy and very adorable.

This video is from youtube if you cant open it, maybe if u visit the site makeupgeek you can directly see the tutorial from there.

Hope you enjoy and look lovely!!! ;)

Chronicles from Jeddah---Breakfast Anyone??

There aren't lots of activities that you could do in Saudi Arabia, especially if 1) you are a woman 2) living on your own....but most of the time I am ok with it because i believe in "Live in Rome as the Romans do".
Anyways, two to do things that I see the abundance of and personally enjoy alot are SHOPPING(should have guessed it) and Eating out. Eating out in Saudi Arabia especially in Jeddah is a Fun experience. You can find the best deals under 10 Riyals. And you can have the best ambiance and dinning environment you can imagine at the price you can imagine (ALOT). Anyways, In Jeddah you will find every cusine there is around the world. And being a desi and more accurately a lahori ( ppl from lahore) I cannot resist what Jeddah have to offer in this sector!!!

So me and a collegeue of mine have started going out every thursday to try different breakfast places. And I would say we are discovering some favorite & some completely no no place :)!!!

Few weeks back we went to a place called "The Crepe Cafe" in Star Avenue. I specifically went there because on thier menu it says they have pancakes and i loveeeeeee pancakes but sadly upon arrival there what did they tell me !!!! "WE DONT SERVE PANCAKES AND WAFFLES!!".I was like but it says here that you have so many kind of pancakes but there answer still remained the same!! I would say that it was bit of a blow for my taste buds that were already getting ready to taste some maple syrup and soft spongy pancakes, But the name Nutella crepe on the menu just saved the restaurant a huge NO NO review.




Thursdays are family day so be prepared to see some cute babies in the place but also get your ears ready to hear shrieks and yellings of the same cute babies who will not seem too cute anymore.


Now WHY would you put up a scrumcious picture of pancakes when you know you aren't serving them :S!!!

My healthy ;) breakfast....nutella crepe...it was quite yummy..but could have been yummier if it was served warm...so i could get more melted chochlate...ummm yummmm!!!

Iced coffee which is nice!! especially for a sunny warm Jeddah morning :)!!!

My strawberry smoothie.....somthing I did not like much!! it just had a funny taste...or atleast it wasn't sitting well with my taste buds !!!

My friend's philly cheese crepe. In her own words it was quite nice with spring onions and melted cheese....only if they wouldn't have taken half an hour to serve it , we might have gone there another time!!!

Ummm.. overall a good place with nice decor, good ambiance, an ok food ...nothing that you must have to Have as soon as you think of it!!! Rest is for you guys to check it urself.....

Until Next Time

Toodlessss!!!

Two Reviews

I was really really exicited today. If you dont remember, the Jewellery Exibition at the Dhahran Exibition International Center started yesterday I talked about it here on a previous post. I was really looking forward to it, as the description of it named a lot of things that were goign to be there. But I am sorry to say that it turned out to be a little disappointing for me. Why???? well becasue i am not a filthy rich, diamond buying (eyeing maybe, dreaming surely), person and that is what they all had. I mean dont get me wrong, The jewellery on display was exquisite. My eyes popping out beautiful. No words to describe for pretty. But it was really expensive. Yes if u are into diamonds and can afford to buy them you are in luck because most of them are having special offers and have almost upto 50% off on many items. And you still have time uptill 28 of May. But other then diamonds they didnt have much. One stall of silver jewellery and one stall of Indian gold plated jewellery with semi precious stones in them. Thats It. One more thing dont take your kids under the age of 16 with you because they are not allowed inside for this exibit. If you have someone to look after them, you can leave them outside the Exibition Halls, But thats a chance because its hot out there. No photographs because they didnt let me take any. One thing I used to dislike and now I am starting to hate about KSA. Photographs restrictions, I dont get it. Just dont.

Anyways, I promised two reviews, so this is the second one but unfortunately this is one is not a very good one either. After the exibition we went out to dinner, a farewell dinner for my in-laws. We went to the corniche on the CORNICHE AVENUE. It comes after Kudo and before SEEF (by the way there is somesort of Exibit there as well but i dont know what about because everyhting was wriiten in Arabic and you know about me and arabic from here). The Avenue has six restuarants in it, One of them is a Labanese one AL-BALAD


I liked the location of it, as it is first of the restaurants. It has a rustic entrance, but the thing that I liked the most was the signs on the washrooms there. The WC are located at the start of the restaurant before entering in the main hall. This was the sign on the Ladies one.

And this was the one on the Male one. I am thinkingof copying them and putting them on my own WC's. wont they look nice??

Anyways, Enter the main hall. the ambiance was nice and clean. The servers were friendly, the filipino or indonesian ones at least. But the locals not that much. The menu was in Arabic and in English. But the problem I faced with this one was that many of the names of the dishes were traditional names and not self explainatory. So I had to stick with the only choices I could understand. I do like to explore food alot but not with company. Anyways the food tasted fine. The Grill was really good. I havent had really soft and juicy kababs or grill like this one. Taste wise they were fine. The quantity of the food as compared to the price was not much. If you are willing to spend around Sr.250 for 2-3 people then you can try this restaurant otherwise wait for my next restaurant review.

I loved the fresh bread, it look so pretty.

This is Al-Balad Shrimps from the starters cold section. It was good.

Fattoush. My mother-in-law really liked this.

Hummos

MIX Grill. the grill in under the bread. Good.

Overall I was not impressed with the Restuarant. The food was OK but the price was too much for it.