Senior citizen's bus trip

My compound provides shopping buses for ladies. Two to three times a day the buses go out to the local malls and every day a different local grocery store sends a bus to our compound. I took one today and felt as if I was riding the estuary council bus! My gram and I had a good laugh about it on the phone this afternoon.  

One of our buses. 

The mall I went to was the Sahara Mall and it is pretty big. 180 stores and a huge food court.  I only spent about an hour as I had a few things I needed to pick up but didn't really feel like exploring today. I took a few photos but will get back for more detail at a later date. 

Many of the stores were familiar from home and the prices are similar. I passed an Express, Victoria's Secret, Gap and MAC cosmetics to name a few.  A few funny things, the Victoria's Secret had all of the makeup and perfumes in the front as opposed to the undies but yet, many stores had very interesting undergarments displayed right up front. (See photo below)

This is a rack of bras...yes, they consist of chain and fake diamonds and not much else...there were knickers to match but I felt kind of odd taking photos so I snapped it and hustled out!

Then there was the guy walking around peddling helium balloons...of Spongebob, no less.

I went to the mall for a few specific items, a new handbag and a bottle of perfume.  My current perfume is almost gone and I was told that perfume is a big deal here so I thought it would be a fun thing to purchase. It is incredible, there are multiple shops dedicated solely to perfume. So you get a lot of help and the salesmen (almost all guys) are very knowledgeable about the scents that they have. I told him about the two most recent perfumes that I have been wearing and he immediately pulled down eight different ones for me to try. All but one of which I found appealing and I am pretty picky about perfume. I was so conflicted between two of them that I left to go try handbags and came back for another round of sniffing.  

Just a shot in the mall

                                                   

My abaya shadow

I didn't have the chance to stroll through the Jewelry Market section of the mall but it is on the list for next time

        

I thought that Women's Secret with all the head to toe jammies in the window was fairly amusing

The other item on my list, a handbag, was due to my new lifestyle requirements here in Riyadh. I have always carried tiny little purses or even just wristlets. If I could fit my phone, keys and a lip gloss in, I was good to go. In college I used to say my bags had to pass the MILK test (money, ID, lipstick and keys.) Mobile phones were still pretty new then so I have added that to my list but not much else.  I wasn't aware of how handy having a car can be until I had to start schlepping my stuff. My bag now needs to hold (in addition to my money, phone, lip gloss and keys) a headscarf (just in case,) a bottle of water, my camera, sunglasses case and a pocket pack of tissues as not all public restrooms have paper. Some just have the not so handy sprayer. So, I treated myself to a beautiful, giant bag. I think my sister is going to end up with this beauty when I move back to the states as it is much more her size preference than mine.

My giant, very posh DKNY hand bag