Jeddah Adventure and Week 19

Because of the king's holiday we decided we should use this rare opportunity to travel while we could. We had been meaning to travel to Jeddah at some point in our stay and this was a great opportunity to do it. Jeddah is considered the most liberal city in Saudi, which is still extremely conservative by U.S. standards, but still cool. We rented a car and headed out. Me, Chris, and Jared on our way. This trip to Jeddah took us about 8 hours westward to the coast. Jeddah sits right along the Red Sea.

Classic Saudi landscape. When you get closer to the coast the region becomes much more mountainous.

Heading down down down.

When we got the city Taif, it was evening. We had to drive downward for a surprisingly long time to get to the coast.

So what is this picture above? Its kind of blurry but I had to put it on here. As we drove to Jeddah there were signs pointing to Mecca as well. Only Muslims are allowed in Mecca because it is their holiest city. We took the road to Jeddah which goes around Mecca but in the very center of this picture you see a tower pointing above the horizon. This tower is the Mecca clock tower (the tallest clock tower in the world) and it sits right next to the holiest mosque. So even though I can never go to Mecca, I can say that I have seen it from a distance. You should google that clock tower by the way. Its very beautiful.

From here on out my pictures aren't in order. This was found in the Red Sea Mall in Jeddah. They put up papers for people to sign welcoming the king back to the country. Here is a picture someone drew of the king.

Here is a picture of the older part of Jeddah. There were many shops and people around. Jeddah is an extremely crowded city. It was probably the most unpleasant driving situation I've ever had in a city.

In the older part of Jeddah there were many old and run down buildings, but they actually looked really cool. It was interesting to see.

Here is a nice mosque in Jeddah. Jeddah actually has flooding problems from time to time. In the past few years they have had floods that have taken lives. The people are trying to change the roads so that flooding wont be so damaging in the future.

The word "Jeddah" actually means grandma. Why name a city grandma? In Islam they believe this is the place where Eve (of Adam and Eve) died. They even have a burial spot here dedicated to her. We tried to find this place but couldn't (it was difficult to find anything because driving was such an issue).

More sites of the city. Along the Corniche, they had many ususual and weird looking sculptures. Something you would never see in Riyadh.

Walking along the Corniche next to the Red Sea. It was very very humid, something again, we don't have in Riyadh.

At the Red Sea Mall they had art on the walls, yet again, something very different and somewhat liberal for this country.

In the Red Sea Mall they actually played music in the stores, something we take for granted at home. We probably don't even notice the music at home. Here it is kind of extreme to play music in public.

A woman painting in the mall.

Here is a cat restaurant in the city.

King Abdullah car! People got very excited about his return. Flags were everywhere and still are today.

Jeddah is home to the tallest fountain in the world. This thing was pretty amazing. You could see the fountain rising above the tall buildings in the city. We often used the fountain to find our way around the city.

Another pic of the fountain on the Red Sea.

Red Sea Mall.

Chris and I infront of the Mecca gate. Jeddah is very close to both Mecca and Medina, the two holiest cities in Islam. During the Hajj, when people do pilgramage to these cities, they fly into Jeddah first, I imagine the traffic being some of the worst in the world during that time.

Children playing in the street. There were children everywhere in this city playing in the streets.

Me inside another interesting sculpture.

A beautiful mosque along the Red Sea.

Here we are at juice world. They had real fruit hanging from the ceiling of this shop. It was pretty good, but I think it would be really annoying to have to change the fruit when it goes bad.

We saw another cool place in Jeddah, but I'll do a different post on that. When we got back from Jeddah it was back to school for us. Luckily it was a four day week and it flew by. I can't believe this semester is almost over. I remember sitting outside my school in the first month of teaching and thinking "how am I ever going to survive this?" Now the end of the semester is close (of course I have to do it all over again, but its nice I made it this far)