Trip 1 (continued)

I wasn't able to access Blogger when I was there so will only be able to post when I get back to Dubai, which is too bad because I had so many cool experiences EVERY DAY when I was over there and now I'm trying to sort them out and remember the things. But I will try.

First off- Everywhere we went for food, there were "men's" "Family" or "Ladies" sections. In Starbucks Men sit and order in the main store like you would see in the US, Women and Families must sit next door in a separate starbucks that has frosted windows and door (so it is not open to the public), and what looked like Cubicals with doors inside the family starbucks (I couldn't see for sure because I wasn't allowed in there.) Even at McDonalds where they have a row of counter, there is a divider down the center and a sign that says "Men" and then over the other side a sign saying "Ladies" This was in the food court, and as we went to sit down, we had to sit in the "Single Male" area while the CAO had to go sit in the "Ladies" section. This continued all over- the Kingdom Center Mall even has a "Ladies floor" that when you look at the pic- it's the top floor with the covered high walls so you can't see them. They also have "Ladies entrances" for Banks, and most of the clothing stores like Gap for instance-were Woman only, and then the men's store was either down the hall or outside the mall on the street entrance.
As we were going through the malls I was not seeing many men's stores anyway- so asked why that was. Single men are not allowed to shop in the more strict malls- only Families and Women are allowed during peak times, so when we went to the Sahara mall at 9pm (their busy time) it was a sea of black robes, maybe 2-5 men in the entire mall!!!!

There is NO music in the malls, or in any of the stores. It is that way all over KSA, and that alone sucks the energy out of the "In-store Experience" as we call it.

They are not allowed to use images in their stores or marketing anywhere in KSA, so they sometimes will use the western marketing and then blur it out before printing it, or we saw them pixelate it so the faces look like cubes, or in some cases we even saw them just white out the faces and hands! It varies from every store.

Only men are allowed to work in the stores- yes- even Mac Cosmetics, and Lingerie stores. We sent the CAO in to MAC to see how it works, and they do not ever approach a woman, so she had to say "I want to know what this does" and they sterilized all the brushes and allowed her to use the testers herself. Again, there are rules about touching a woman, so they can only really "support" her, they can't apply the makeup.

And saving the best for last:
The stores close at 12noon till 4pm, then close from 5:30-6pm, then 8:00-8:30pm, due to prayer times. Prayer times do change day to day, so the time's aren't really clear until you hear the "Call to Prayer" which is done everywhere in the city. The noon prayer is only an hour long, but then lunch, and they have next prayer at 3:30 so they just don't even open the stores back up. That is why in the picture of the starbucks all the stores were closed- that was at 12:15 in the afternoon and by the time we got back to the entrance at 12:30pm mind you- the mall was EMPTY! It was surreal.
Alright. That's a lot of info- talk amongst yourselves- I've given you many many topics :-) And that was only day 1!!!