best burgers in jeddah

hot waves .. better than burger king and mcdonalds and hardees and all that nonsense .. a little bit pricier though .. just a little bit .. and just like a pizza they let you add toppings for more money .. also they have these giant fries which are wonderful ..

company iftar

juicing

there is this place called juice world ... they have every kind of juice you can think of ... the combinations are endless ... fruits ... ice creams ... cocktails ... smoothies ... ice coffee blends ... i tried it a few times and liked it so i started buying their juice in big sizes ... i got two 5 liter jugs yesterday ... one is kiwi strawberry ... and the other is lemon orange ... delicious ... no more store bought juice for me ... goodbye nada juice ... you were once my favorite kind ...

apartment of homeland security

heavy rain

yesterday jeddah turned into one giant the day after tomorrow movie ...

just watch the video ...

maybe i will write about it later ... but suffice to say it was quite a memorable day ...

number two

what i did during my lunch break

i took two guys from work to lunch today ... i am their supervisor ... one of them i always have lunch with him ... but the other one this was the first time ... i paid ... i took them to a place called pizza fusion ... the pizza was awesome but the salad was terrible ... or at least not good enough to justify the price ... it cost more than a pizza ... and all the staff there are filipino and one of the guys i took to lunch happens to be filipino so he started chatting with them in filipino ... anyway the pizza was awesome but the food took a while to prepare ... so we had to race back to work because by the time we finished there was five minutes until the break is over ... and it was a 15 min drive back to work ... and guess whose car we had gone to lunch in ... if you said jundi you are correct ... usually i go to lunch with the other guy in his car but today it was blocked by another car so we took mine ... so it was my job to play the transporter ... it was a wild drive lol ... also it being my car we were listening to my music ... so i turned it up loud as i drove ... they swore they would never ride with me again ...

i think i should stop playing need for speed so much ...

remix

you know how we say shu malak ... well in the jiddawi dialect it's eesh bak ... emphasis on the eesh ... it's a slight variation of aish ... as for bak it's a variation of bik ... as in matha bik ya rajul ... so basically it translates into matha bik in fus7a ... so they'll say something like eesh bak ya wad ... what's with you boy ... but i digress ... here's why i mentioned eesh bak in the first place ... i was thinking of the perfect remix for that fairuz song ... kifak inta ...

eeshbak intaaaaaaaa malla inta

it's perfect ... eeshbak and kifak are the same rhythm ... someone should make that song ...

song of the day

in honor of the severe rains falling on jeddah these days ...

to the ka3beh

well i mentioned i rented a car recently ... due to my car being out of service for the time being ... and seeing as how i paid a good sum of money to rent it ... and seeing as how i am not really using it much ... certainly not enough to justify what i paid ... although the convenience of having a car at my disposal makes it worth it ... but getting back to my point ... i decided to go to makka this weekend ... i haven't been since coming to jeddah ... my last time was a long time ago ... like four years ago ... i'm not going for umrah or anything ... i just want to go sit in the haram and pray and contemplate and so forth ... a friend from work might be coming along ...

cat killer

i ran over a cat when i was driving home today ... happened on my street ... he came running out of nowhere ... poor guy ... i looked in my rearview and i saw him lying there ... i stopped and put the car in reverse back to the scene of the crime ... got out and looked at him ... i could see that i hadn't actually run over him ... that is there was no blood or guts ... but he was lying there motionless ... his eyes staring into space ... there is something chilling about a dead person's eyes ... or dead animal's eyes in this case ... though they are open you can somehow tell there is no life in them ... anyway i gave him a little tap with my foot ... and he just kind of moved with the tap ... like a lump ... he was clearly gone ... anyway i stood there a little longer ... just looking at him ... then i got back in the car and went home ... so this thread is dedicated to him ... or her ... rest in peace little guy ...

قدر الله و ما شاء فعل

so i wrote about how my car broke down on the way home the other day ... and how i thought the massive flooding had something to do with it ... well turns out it did but not in the way that i thought ... you see ... when the street is a sea you cannot sea the street ... and when you cannot see the street then you cannot see the potholes ... and jeddah is full of them ... so as it turns out i hit a nasty pothole which broke something which is connected to a cylinder which in turn bla bla bla ... to boil it down my engine is bye bye ... and i need a new one ... well it will not be a new one ... it will be a used one from the junkyard ... the point is the engine needs to be replaced ... such wonderful news to hear at the start of this new year ...

cash rules everyone around me

people these days just don't give a shit about others ... seems to be ... you hear stories of someone laying for dead in the street and people just stepping over him ... or stories like this ... well today i had a little experience of my own ...

there was a huge storm in jeddah today ... it didn't last very long but it was enough to turn the streets into seas ... and as i drove home from work my car decided to stop working ... i'm guessing the water had something to do with it ... anyway ... i stood there stranded on the curb ... and people just drove by ... i finally got someone to stop and told him my problem ... he said i will tie a rope to your car and tow you ... i told him i don't want you to take me to a mechanic i just want to get off the road ... i just want to park it at the side of the road and i'll come back for it later ... he said how much ... and here i thought this guy was nice enough to stop and help me because i was in need ... i honestly was not expecting that ... but i was in no mood for negotiations and i desperately wanted to move my car ... so i told him 100 riyals ... i knew he would accept ... and he did ... so we towed it and i parked it on the side of the road ... i'll go back for it tomorrow with my friend and see if it will work or not ... i'm probably going to take it in even if it does work anyway ... get it checked out ... so anyway ... then i stood by the side of the road trying to get a ride home ... most people wouldn't even stop when i would try to flag them down ... finally someone stopped and accepted to give me a ride home ... it wasn't a taxi ... but he also wanted money ...

moi @ corniche

the sun was in my eyes ...

a day in the life of jundi

well my mom and my brother were here ... they just left like an hour ago ... they had come for hajj and they came to visit me ... they arrived in jeddah last night at 11 pm ... i would have been asleep had i not been expecting them ... so i went and picked them up ... they were hungry apparently ... it was late and so i suggested al baik ... they said yes ... so i got them some takeout from there ... for those unfamiliar with al baik it is a VERY popular restaurant chain here in jeddah ... arguably the most popular restaurant in all of jeddah ... visit their website if you are interested ... so that took forever ... the ticket number for my order was 698 ... the number on the display was 625 ... yeah it's always packed like that ... anyway ... so they came home ... ate ... and soon passed out ... mom took my bed ... my brother took the sofa ... i got the floor ... how about that ... they were exhausted ... next morning my brother and i went to friday prayer ... after coming home i took them out ... we went out at 2 and stayed out till 8 when they left for the airport ... i don't know many places in jeddah but i showed them what i know ... first i took them for a cruise ... that was about an hour ... then we had lunch at some place called uno chicago grill ... good food ... then we went to the corniche for only a few minutes ... my mom wanted coffee ... then basically we just killed time by going from mall to mall ... we didn't buy anything ... not a single thing ... it was just about wasting time ... their flight was at 11 pm and the plan was they would leave for the airport at 8 ... so we just kept going from mall to mall ... which bored me tremendously ... them as well ... but there's nothing to do at my house really ... so all in all it was a long and tiresome day ... but at least i got to see them ... also they got to see my apartment ... which they admitted exceeded their expectations ... so i was pleased about that ... and yeah it's back to work tomorrow ...

also ... away from my own personal life details which mean nothing ... i want to take a second to address something that actually does ... mean something that is ... and that is maid abuse in the arab world ... every other day it's a new story ... today i read about a horrific story where an indonesian maid in saudi arabia was found in a dumpster ... her throat had been slashed apparently ... i just want to say to all those people who abuse their maids ... ya wailkum min Allah ... i think we are all familiar with the hadeeth about the woman who entered hell because she tortured a cat ...

spotted while driving

* a police jeep pulled over by the side of the road and some indian dude was painting over some graffiti while the police officer observed ... as i drove by i could see that the words they were covering were an insult to a certain prince ...

* at a stoplight ... there was a sign stuck to the pole ... it said ... تقسيم الميراث - استشارات شرعية و أسرية ... then it mentioned the number you could call ... i just felt it was an odd place to advertise such a service ...

slice of life

i passed by an atm booth on the way home from work and both machines in the atm were out of cash ... or temporarily unable to dispense cash ... something like that ... the point is i was unable to get any cash out of them ... later on in the evening i went back and there was a huge line ... so i was like fuck that ... there is another machine in our neighborhood ... i'll just go to that one ... so i did ... and lo and behold it was also unable to dispense cash ... it was at that point that i exclaimed ... FUCK MY LIFE MAN ... rather loudly ... as i turned around to exit the booth i realized someone was waiting outside ... i'm sure he heard me as the door was not exactly closed ... i told him it wasn't working as i left ... got in my car and went home defeated ... that was yesterday ...

today was the first day of the holiday ... i didn't do much ... woke up rather early ... had breakfast ... stayed awake for a couple more hours then went back to sleep ... played some playstation ... haven't played at all since i moved here ... literally haven't played at all ... so that was nice ... other than that i didn't do much ... i went to this part of town where there are a lot of houseware shops all on the same street ... it's not far from where i live ... i bought a lava lamp there ... i went there just to look around i didn't have anything in mind ... i didn't even know they had lava lamps ...
i might go shopping again tomorrow ... maybe buy a new playstation game ... go to ikea maybe ... maybe go to virgin ... i probably won't buy anything ... maybe one or two things i don't know ... it's more about leaving the house than actually coming home with bags ...
i need to do laundry over the break as well ...
i was going to go home for the break but some things came up ... it's not a big deal though the house is practically empty ... it's just my dad and my little brother ... and the maid ... my mom and my other brother went to hajj ... and my other brothers no longer live in the kingdom ...
i have some work to do over the break ... like work work ... couple of spreadsheets ... not exactly thrilled about that ...
i might watch a movie after i finish writing this ... i downloaded inception the other day but it's 2 and a half hours long ... so not watching that ... maybe tomorrow ... i will definitely watch it over the break though ...

mumblings

jeddah ... it's the san francisco of saudi ...

office talk

i was having lunch with boss and his boss today ... as we often do ... we have lunch together at the office since we are "too busy" to take a lunch break like normal people ... i happened to mention that i was going to ikea straight after work ... and so the subject of my apartment came up ...

boss's boss (bb) ... boss (b) ... jundi (j) ...

bb: sa7ee7 keef il sha22a ili la2alak yaha b .. mabsoot feeha
j: il7amdulila .. il binaye kteer mrattabe w 2areebe 3al shughul kaman
bb: tayeb mnee7
j: bas fee shaghle wa7deh ....
bb: shu
j: ino poor area
b: yir7am jdadak

jundi goes to ikea

i went to ikea today ... when i got there i realized i didnt have my atm card on me ... i thought it was at home but even when i got home i couldnt find it either ... i will go to the bank tomorrow to see if their machine has it ... i think i may have forgotten to take it last time i withdrew some money ... anyway ... so that sucked ... since i couldnt buy what i wanted to ... but i did have some money on me ... so i was like lets just go inside and look around ... even if i dont buy anything i will just browse and pick what i will buy next time i come back ... which may or may not be tomorrow ... i was in there for a good two hours or so ... i picked out the sofa i want to buy ... and the eating table ... the coffee table and the rug will be decided when i go back ... i will probably go for one of those high pile rugs ... i liked them ... very spiffy ... its just a matter of what color ... also they have some nice photos/paintings you can buy ... i found a few that i liked ... also i wanna buy a rod and a curtain for my shower ... theres a bunch of stuff i marked down as "to be purchased" ... though i dont know that i will buy it all this month ... i only need the sofa and the table for now ... the coffee table and the rug as well ... the rest is just decorations that i can add as i go along ... anyway so i bought a bathroom mat ... and a bathroom set ... one of those soap dish + cup for your toothbrush and what not + liquid soap dispenser + bla bla ... gotta love ikea though ... such a lovely shopping experience ... anyway ... so that was what i did after work today ... i leave you with this beautiful song i heard on the drive home ... so beautiful i heard it three times ...