Now, KAEC is quite far away from the rest of civilization here in Saudi Arabia. For those of who who do not know already; the city is the culmination of a dream by the current King in order to further diversify the nation's economy. The Saudis figure they are eventually not going to be able to rely on oil for their wealth forever...though it should hold out for a very long time. They needed to invest more money to strengthen foreign investment in corporations in the country. That's where KAEC comes into play. The King used $90 billion to finance the building of a brand new city designed similar to Dubai in its layout as well as its purpose. By building this brand new city it is hoped further investment will take place.
Right now the city does not comprise much. There's the main office building that runs the planning of the place, there's a few apartment blocks, a couple of restaurants, a virtually empty beach, and our school. There will be a hotel that's supposed to open soon...it's almost completed...as a matter of fact, I think it's supposed to be completed already.
In order to build a new city you need....land. The Saudis found this land on the coast of the beautiful Red Sea north of the nearest major city: Jeddah. KAEC is kind of in the middle of a triangle that makes up Jeddah, Makkah, and Medina: the holiest places in the Quaran and Islam. As a result, it takes a while to get into the city. As KAEC is new there are no modern day conveniences that I have taken for granted before. No grocery stores, no banks or ATMs, no hardware stores...no real stores of any kind actually. Anything that we need must wait until the weekend when we load up in our bus and make the treacherous journey south to Jeddah.
I say treacherous because driving in this country is absolutely RIDICULOUS. Caps lock does not even begin to define it. In order to fully understand you must be in this country driving on these roads, however; I will do my best. Imagine a stretch of highway approximately 100 km long. On this highway there is a posted speed limit of 120 km/hr. This limit is only a suggestion though because cars will blast down the highway at 160 km/hr or more. Now, imagine that there are lines separating lanes...these too are also a suggestion. Drivers drift in and out of lanes without any warning and at any time. People will pass you, cut you off, and even pass you on the right and left shoulders. If they can go they will go. Also imagine that there are service stops along the way that have driveways just going out onto the highway. You have masses of cars all merging at different distances into traffic that is already going 160 clicks. You can see why there's one of the highest accident rates per capita in the world here.
Jeddah is an...interesting city. Yeah, we'll go with that. It's absolutely gorgeous in most places and is quite vibrant. The only problem is it is vibrant at the times we are not there. One of the biggest obstacles to overcome in Saudi as a non-Muslim resident are the multiple prayer times throughout the day. There are 5 prayer times that happen at approximately the same time of the day (it varies slightly every day because they are based on the position of the sun). When these prayer times occur EVERYTHING shuts down. I'm not even exaggerating about this...everything. This is especially inconvenient when trying to get shopping down as you have to wait until the shops open again. This usually takes about 25-30 minutes. If you are in a store shopping you have to pay for what you have and leave, except if you are in a grocery store. They let you continue shopping while prayer is happening but there are no cashiers, no people working the butcher or bakery counters, and they close the store gates. Essentially you can just browse shelves and fill your cart. Those gates aren't locked though...so there won't be a problem in an emergency.
Although I do talk of inconvenience, this is how the country works and it's something you have to accept. Like anything though, you get used to it after a while and we have started to learn to plan our trips around the prayer times so we don't get caught in the middle of our shopping.
School's still trucking on. Our first term just finished last week so we have our first report cards going out at the end of this week. It's going to be an intense week for workload but it has to be done. I'm also really looking forward to the upcoming Winter holidays (25 school days and 33 days). I just finished booking all of my flights. In total I have 52 hours of transit time (flights and layovers combined) that take me to 5 cities on 3 continents including a 3 day journey in London. If nothing else, there will be a lot to blog about :D.
Until next time folks.
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