Lunch / Dinner at Marjan Island :)

We reached there at about 3.30pm. There were only 2 families having their lunch or dinner, I can't really tell :). It was Thursday and the 2 families decided to go for a picnic when they woke up that day. Funny huh!!


Yes, we didn't plan ahead but Abang did mention he wanted to go to Qatif a day before. His friend (*whisper* he is Syiah... syyyyy..) told him that there is a some kind of flea market in Qatif, that is much better than the one in Dammam. We've been to Dammam flea market. It was okay, not that great. Abang was a bit excited to go when his friend told him the one in Qatif is better (after I went to Qatif today, I think he never been to the one in Dammam hehehee....)


Since a few days ago, Liza did mention to me 'to go jalan jalan' on Thursday, I asked abang to go ahead with the plan. We hadn't had our lunch when we left the house since we had a very late breakfast, errrr... at about 12.20pm!!


Intentionally, I fried a packet of simple (really simple) meehoon for our breakfast and lunch though I actually fried the thing at about 11.40am. Since we wanted to go to Qatif, I rang Liza up to confirm if she wanted to come along. Bla bla bla... she agreed. In addition to Qatif, we planned to go to Marjan Island. I never been there before. In my mind, I was thinking of an Island somewhat like Langkawi or Pangkor.


We dropped at Qatif flea market and noticed the sellers were about to set up their booth. So, we changed plan. We planned to go to Marjan Island first and dropped by at Qatif flea market later.


My comment about Marjan Island - it was not like Pangkor or Langkawi in any way. It was quite a small island, full of grass for the people to sit and having their meal while looking at the sea that they can't even play with or swim. Of course, there was no grass at the parking area :)


We unfolded our plastic mat, put our food and eat while chatting and looking at the kids running here and there. I didn't worry about the kids would get dirty because the land is full of grass and pavement, though I did shout at Sophea and Coan once in a while for pushing Shahmey's stroller like nobody's business.


One thing about the island was, it didn't have a prayer room - both for male and female. Everyone had to pray at the park itself. I could see men were praying in jamaah but not women.

Woman had to pray by herself, some with a shelter, some not. It was quite a troublesome for women. I wonder why the developer never thought of building a prayer room. I could accept this if I were in States but this is Saudi! If I'm not mistaken, there is a hadith that discourage women to pray in a open space. 'Women have to pray in the most inner room' - I'm not able to quote the complete hadith but my husband once recited the hadith for me (I think he read it in Reading in Islam website)


We finished our lunch / dinner at about 5.00pm after getting really fatigue due to hot sun perhaps.


After packing our stuff, we moved on. On our way to find a place for me to pray go back, we were trapped by a group of cars accompanying a newly wed couple. They decorated the car just like some of us in Malaysia did. Not only that. They had many escorts with cars. They moved really slow on the road. Abang said, it was their culture to do that. But of course not many could stand that, including the Saudis. When there was a diverted road, others quickly geared up to overtake the wedding group, including Abang. But, Joe (Liza's husband) was delayed by the traffic. So, we had to wait for them at the road side. I got a chance to snap some pictures of fisherman's boat though hehee...

We dropped by at Qatif. Only the males (Abang and Joe) went to the market as we saw no woman there at all. I thought of snapping a few pictures from the car but not knowing how the Syiah would react to that had stopped me. Qatif is a Syiah area. They have their own mosques there. Sunni are discouraged from praying there, afraid that they would feel insulted. Why? I don't know. I just have no idea. By the way, Abang bought a huge water melon with seeds (heheee... mentang mentang lah kat Malaysia water melon takde seed kebanyakannya).


On our way home, we received a call from our friends. They wanted to come and visit. No doubt, we were really tired but having guests at home is rather hospitable. The moment we reached home, we had to tidy up our house a bit (tetamu nak datang kan... heheheee..).


About an hour later, Shariz, Madina, Amru the kid, Nawal and Hafizah came. Madina bought 2 large boxes of pizza and Hafizah brought a very appetizing no-bake-cheesecake. yummy!!!


They had to go back early because Nawal and Hafizah had a curfew and had to be home before 10pm. They're lecturers in the Girls Jubail College but having a curfew?? This is the first time in my life knowing adult had a curfew for no specific reasons. The college really treated them like a student. Pity them...


When the guest went back, Abang helped me to clean all the dishes while I was taking care of little Shahmey and reading online news hehehee... Abang did give me a remark,

"Neeza kan ada maid dalam rumah ni...."

Heheheee... Thank you Abang!