Off to visit my prophet

Last Friday was a busy day for me, and that's cause we decided to take a plane and head off to Madinah for the day. And for those who don't know, "Madinah" OR "Almadinah Almenawara" is a city in West Saudi Arabia where prophet Mohammed (peace be upon him) lived after he immigrated from Makkah. There is a mosque there in his name, and also he is buried there next to his 2 friends and companions "Abo Bakr Al-Sedeek" and "Omar Bin Al-Khattab". So us Muslims like from time to time to go and visit him and pray in his mosque, its not obligatory by the way as many may think.

Anyway, we took the morning flight, and as usual with Saudia Airlines, the flight was delayed 50 minutes! It seems that they were shopping for a plane, cause as soon as we boarded we kinda noticed the crew look weird... They are white, speak a strange language, and have Western looks. What made me realize whats goin on is that the signs and everything else was written in a weird language in addition to English, this is an aircraft rented from Turkish Airlines!

After the short 45 minute flight, we were hit by the cold weather of Madinah. It must have been 20 C and we are still 12 PM! We headed to the mosque barely in time for Friday prayers and spent the rest of the day in Madinah to attend the rest of the prayers.

I was happy that we chose to spend this time in prayer, sorry I cant say the same for other Muslims who couldn't wait to run outside the country to Egypt, Dubai, Lebanon, and Europe, even though these 10 days of this Hijri month are very holy and sacred, and a Muslim is better off trying to worship Allah more and try to erase his sins. I felt sorry that I left Jeddah for Dubai for the last day of Ramadan... I mean we get 20 days in the whole year that are VERY sacred, cant you wait to get out of the country?? Lots of Muslim WISH to be leaving in Saudi Arabia because it has Makkah and Madina, and also because of the strict Islam rulings here and that there is no alcohol, prostitution, crime, etc. Nah, leave all that and let's hit good old Italy, pick up girls in Cairo, or roam the night clubs of Beirut... God save us...

Now even though its prohibited to photograph at the Prophet's grave, I managed to sneak behind someone and take this video below. Not many have seen this spot, (so excuse the quality cause I was hiding behind someone) . Not for security reasons, but because you are supposed to stand there to visit prophet Mohammed (peace be upon him) only. But I felt obliged to show this to the world, especially people who are interested in Islam, and even the people who attack us without taking the time to know more about us and our religion... Mohamed is buried behind these gates...

What really made me upset, is that the boys and girls were not acting at all that they are going to pray and worship. Girls are wearing full make up, flashy clothes, and accepting flirts from various boys scattered around *gasp* the outer gates of the mosque! What's wrong with this world? Are you coming to visit your prophet and erase some sins, or coming to build some more and pick up girls or get picked up by guys??

We took the 11 PM flight and headed back to hot and humid Jeddah. I tried not to laugh as I boarded the plane, it was so freakin small! I felt I was in a shooting of a film and this is a trick plane or somethin! The roof was so low and there were only two rows of chairs, with only 4 chairs in each row. Here have a look:

So that wraps it up I guess... Now if you excuse me, I am very tired... Happy Eid and happy new year everyone...

Vacation At Last

Well after a hectic month of phone calls, client requests, an insane number of mid night calls on my cell phone, at last I can say the season has passed and I can relax! Well kind of...
Our company gave us only 4 days off, Saturday to Tuesday! While 95% of other travel agencies and companies took the whole week off. But I would not bend for that, so I applied for the remaining 2 days to be deducted from my 30-day per year annual vacation.

I was loosing hope that we were going to head out to Madinah (the holy city where the prophet PBUH is buried) because we couldn't find any seats, and I was too tired after the season to drive 5 hours back and forth. But thank God (and then thanks to my bro in law!) we managed to get seats! Tell me if you need any prayers! LoL..

Also in the news, I got a job as a freelance photographer in Layalina Magazine, a community mag published here in Saudi Arabia. Its a good chance to polish up my skills! And for that I bought a new Nikon SB-600 flash, cost me around US$200 but its worth it!

I love getting mail, except when its credit card statements! The sad part is I got a mail from Men's Health saying that my subscription didn't go through cause my bank didn't release the funds from my credit card! But the good part is that I got my first issue of JPG magazine, and the customs didn't even open it! Even though there's a pic of a girl with a tattoo on her chest! Now how convenient...

I watched the movie "The Constant Gardner" last night on Showtime with the Mrs. , and I have to say its one of the best I saw in a long time! Plus I saw the pilot of "Prison Break", and honestly I dont know what all the fuss is about, I didnt like it at all...

Oh by the way, take a look at this cool phone! I would deffinatly get that if its well priced!

Anyway, Happy new year and Happy Eid to all of ya.. Take care...

When we had balls

I stumbled upon this video on youtube.com which shows a report by NBC about the Arab Oil embargo back in 1973. This was done to force Israel to withdraw from occupied areas. When I look now at our situation, 33 years later, I am shocked and sad. What happened during the last Lebanon bombing and how most of the Arab countries did nothing but watch. Back in those days the Arabs actually had the balls to stand up against Israel and the USA, even the world.

Now even if we decided to do that step again, USA have already secured themselves by placing themselves in Iraq, and being buddies with Qatar. Its amazing how the United States have planned this carefully through 30 years to settle themselves within the Middle East and the Gulf, now who can say that politics isnt a dirty game?

Beaten up... For what?

We had a family gathering last Thursday, and during that my sis was telling us that she was in Tahlia Mall the Thursday before when she found lots of guys running towards something and shouting... Then one security guard came running towards the middle of the mall and collapsed on the ground! We had no idea what was the deal and just suggested it was probably a fight or something between some guys...

Yesterday I heard from one of my relatives, who happened to be there at that time with his wife and kids... he asked around and found out that the story was that one guy from "high up" was trying to enter the mall, escorted by the usual dark-skinned companions, when 2 security officers stopped them from entering the mall, because of corse its for "families only" on Thursdays...

The powerful guy did not take no for an answer, and actually sent his henchmen to get clubs and "chains" from the car and beat one of the security close to death while the other one managed to escape inside the mall (the one my sis saw fall to the ground).

What I wana ask is, till when will this continue? That these people can do whatever they please whenever they please, even if they are 2nd class or even 3rd class "big shots" if u know what I mean... What did these 2 poor Saudi youths working as security for only SR. 1000 - 1200 a month do except do their job by not letting singles into the mall?
I bet this will just go like many other stories like it before.. under the table, forgotten, and never spoken of again...

Birthday and other stuff

Well I guess this has been the longest time I stayed without writing up a post, this was cause of many reasons:
1- Too busy with the season picking up
2- My aunt had an operation
3- I caught a bad flu which knocked me out for 3 days
4- KSA decided to block off some pages of blogger which affected signing in!

Anyway, my birthday was 02 December (yeah the UAE national day, woop-dee-do), and sadly not many of my deviant friends remembered, even though half of them are from the UAE and they noticed it was the same day as their national day... Anyway when you get older you start to feel birthdays are over rated anyway, whats so special about them? you just managed not to die for 12 months!

But I did get a few nice gifts... like a new Giorgio Armani wallet from the Mrs. (thanks honey!), an overseas call from my aunt in England (awwww), the new Boss perfume from my sisters, and last but not least a nice amount of cash from my parents

So what else has been goin around in the Godfather's world... Well I formatted my I-pod cause I felt there was too much junk on it anyway (23 GB of junk!) and it was easier to format it than to remove what I didnt like. Also in the news, I finally laid down my defenses and decided to agree that I need braces to fix a few of my back teeth. But the doc discovered I had a crack in one of my teeth and it has died and now I gotta get a root canal!!!!

The Saudi stocks are falling badly, they lost 2 years of profits in just 2 weeks and people have lost more than half of their savings... I lost alot too but I managed to escape before it got worse... Sukie wrote me the sweetest words... its so great to know that you mean so much to somebody, and it kinda gave me a confidence boost after I was feeling I wasnt liked alot just cause I always speak what comes to my mind... so now after I read this, I can tell ANYONE here on DA who doesnt like me or doesnt understand me to kiss any side of my ass they wish and to go burn themselves in a place where no one will hear them scream, lool....
You can read what MJ wrote about me here

I opened an Aramex "shop&ship" account which gives u a mail address in both USA and UK, so no more "sorry we cant ship to your country" crap! I srated by buying myself an arm band for my ipod and some external speakers for the Mrs.'s Nano I-pod. oh yeah I also subscribed to Men's Health magazine for half what they would charge you for an overseas subscription! I am even thinking of buying filters and lenses from Amazon cause they got amazing deals there!

Anyway thats it for today... I got my dentist appointment in an hour so I gotta go to a bar and get drunk... wait, I'm in Saudi Arabia, oh well...

Back Again!

After switching to blogger beta, I was having a hell of time logging in to make new blogs and respond to others! I thought it was something temporary but then time passed by and I couldnt comment on my friends' blogs and I couldnt write!

I thought it was a bug, and even sent an email to Blogger. But then my friend on both DA and the blogger world: Sukie suggested that maybe they blocked off Blogger and that whats causing the problem. So I tried my proxy bypass program and it worked!! I could have not been happier! Thank you Sukie for pointing this out, and damn you Saudi Internet filtering for blocking off our voice and our sites!