Day 9 - Tuesday, May 20th 2025 - Fanateer and the Resort portion of the Intercontinental Hotel

On this day, I set out to get the house pictures for about 5 of my friends who had messaged me and wanted pix of their house. I also picked up a few extra pix for friends whose houses I used to go to for playing Atari 2600, or watching Betamax movies.

Naturally, I didn't get going too early but I was on the road out to Al Fanateer early enough for lunch. One thing I was finding is that Saudi Arabia has plenty of hamburger places. And really, it makes sense because they're relatively affluent and nobody wants to eat Shwarma all the time. Plus it's really easy to get a Halal burger so it's a natural thing.

Much to my surprise, I found my favorite Kiwi burger chain that I first fell in love with in Wellington, New Zealand in 2011. I loved their sweet potato fries. We had a few in Australia but I was shocked to find a Burger Fuel in Al Fanateer, Jubail, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

As I was leaving Burger Fuel, I saw a Nike store and an Adidas store. I browsed the Nike store and didn't see anything I liked although, if you were in Jubail and absolutely needed some Jordans, they had you covered.

I headed over to the Adidas store and struck gold. Adidas is the outfitter of the kit for the Saudi National Team so they had quite a few green and white "Saudi" t-shirts, shorts, etc. Let's just say that when the 2026 World Cup and the 2028 Olympics roll around, I'm set with my KSA national team supporter gear.

The interesting thing about this is that when I lived there, the amount of sporting goods available locally was very limited. They did have a good supply of diving gear, spear guns, etc. but if you needed soccer cleats there wasn't a lot on offer. I did have a great pair of black and fluorescent green PONY screw in cleats when I was in 9th Grade.
They were very similar to this in color:

But, I think it was actually this model on the middle left:

Paolo Rossi helps promote the Pony “Rossi” range Boots#Pony #Boots #Rossi pic.twitter.com/f0ecRcC88q

— Football Memories (@footballmemorys) March 27, 2018

Anyway, after lunch, I drove around Fanateer, and then back to Camp 10 (Al Lulu) and Camp 11 (Al Huwaylat) before winding up back at the Intercontinental Hotel and Resort.

I'm not really one who can just "relax" and hang out at a resort. Especially when I'm rolling as a single (married) man with zero available females to flirt with and zero alcohol to get loose with. But nonetheless, I decided to check out the resort portion of the hotel.

There were a variety of activities you could participate in, including - workout room, sauna, pool and then there were the activities available at the beach. You could rent bicycles including surreys, play miniature golf (although it looked like nobody had played mini-golf in several years), rent these little water pedal cars that floated.

And on the other side from the private beach lagoon, they had boat and jet ski rentals. I had never ridden a jet ski before so, I ponied up the 200 SAR for a 15 minute jet ski ride.

This was all pretty comical and they gave me a life jacket and a bicycle helmet as my safety gear but the real funny part was when the Indian guy working the jet ski rental stand told me that - the maximum weight for their jet ski was 140 kg (308 lbs) so, I needed to take it "a little schwei schwei".

Schwei Schwei (or sometimes translated shwe shwe) is a term that translates to "slow and easy" and is a common term in Saudi Arabia most frequently used for crazy drivers that need to slow down, the guys will cup their hand and yell - "schwei schwei"

I enjoyed my 15 minutes of jet skiing but, honestly, I didn't really get much more out of it than I did the Caviar on Emirates. I see how people can enjoy it but, it wasn't really my thing.

After that, I went to the beach and swam in the exact same little man made cove that we use to play in during the early 1980s.

In the Arabian Gulf, it is very salty and due to the lack of depth, there are essentially no waves. The only waves we saw in the cove were a couple of inches (at most) when a boat would drive by. There were no natural waves at all.

Initially, I walked out until I couldn't touch the bottom any more and then I started swimming a little bit. I'm a strong enough swimmer (although really out of shape) that I'm not going to drown in my old neighborhood. But, once I got to a point where I couldn't touch the bottom anymore, I tried to swim back to shore which was no problem.

I had a really bad experience in Australia where I got caught in a rip and I've been a little bit gun shy in the ocean since then. There were no rips here and most importantly, what I figured out was, it is so incredibly salty that there's really no way to drown yourself.

https://www.ihg.com/intercontinental/hotels/us/en/al-jubail/dhahc/hoteldetail/amenities

After spending some time on the beach, I headed down to the Lebanese restaurant where I had some hummus and a nice lamb dish.

The other major things I accomplished this day were dropping off my laundry with the hotel and, performing a Non Alcoholic Beer taste test with 6 NA beers that I bought at the convenience store near the Hyper Panda.

1st Place Heineken - tasted like Heineken
2nd Place Moussy - wasn't that bad
3rd Place Bud Zero tasted like water
4th Place Corona Cero - tasted worse than regular Corona
5th Place Holsten - didn't taste that great
6th Place Barbican - awful tasting

Day 11 - Thursday, May 22nd 2025 - Jubail Academy

Today was the day I've waited for, for literally 40 years. I finally got to tour my old school.

That, in and of itself is kind of funny because it is literally the same exact school building where I attended grades 6-9 from 1981 - 1985.

I was instructed to meet some lady with an Arabic sounding name but I didn't know if it was a first name (Christian Name - LOL - that's what they called it in Australia), or a surname.

The first thing I had to do was get through the post - Desert Storm, post 9/11 security to even gain access to the campus. I will say that being well dressed (coat, no tie) and carrying that Blue USA Passport did help with credibility but, they had to make a couple calls to determine if I was legit or not.

The irony here is that when I was a student there, 40 years ago, there was no security at all. Yes, there was a 6-foot wall around the school - which is about 4 feet higher now, but really anybody could drive down the street and walk onto campus. Today, it's almost Consulate/Embassy level security. And not the Security Charade/Theatre that the do in Indian Hotels post-Mumbai Attacks. There was no way I was getting on campus unless Sadik (don't remember his actual name) the security guard let me in.

So, I arrive at the school 15 minutes ahead of schedule because if there's a day to be Swiss-German on timing, it's today. They park me in the waiting room next to the administration offices which are in the exact same location as 1981. While I'm waiting for somebody to show up, I notice that there are 110V outlets in the wall, along with the modern Brit plug 220V outlets. I can't recall if I mentioned it before but one thing that's been tripping me out since I arrived in KSA is the 220V Brit plugs because I know for certain that when I lived there we had US/Japan style plugs and 110V power.

Much to my surprise, the School Principal (a female) shows up and welcomes me. She's an American and says something along the lines of - wow, you're back after 40 years, this school must have had a big impact on you. I say, yes, it certainly did. In fact, I tell her as I point to the classroom across the hall, that this was my very first classroom in 1981. I think it's just mind-boggling for everyone that I'm 54 y/o at this point and I have vivid memory of being in this exact same spot in The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia when I was 11 years old. And the teacher who had the classroom to the left, I just saw her at a Jubail Academy Reunion in Las Vegas back in February 2025.

So my tour guide shows up and I'm shocked. I figure out that the name they gave me is her first name because she's wearing an Arabic language necklace with that name on it. Her name and my name start with the same letter so that's what tipped me off. But, honestly, I'm tripping out at what I'm dealing with here.

She's young, 22-25 years old and she's a Saudi. Keep in mind, during my era, once girls reach 12 y/o, they're covered. And you never saw a Saudi woman without an Abaya and a Veil. But..., I lived there long enough, I can tell, this girl is a Saudi.

Now, how she is dressed and what I have to mention here is my time living in Sydney, Australia with "Muslims" who would follow the letter of the law but not the intent. The intent from the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him - so I don't get fragged by some disgruntled Muslim) is all about modesty. In Sydney, I would frequently see Muslim girls who were "covered" but not leaving much to the imagination. I mean, if you look like you're wearing Lululemon and just stepped out of the F45 Gym and put on a headcovering, I don't think that's the intent of what "the rules" are for Muslim women.

I'll also say that they have greatly repealed the accepted rules in The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia so these people like the Ilhan Omar's of the world who are covering to make political points, are no longer required post - Mohammed bin Salman reforms in Saudi Arabia. And based on my experience with Islam, if the Saudis don't require it, it's not required. This is one of the burdens (if you like) that is carried by the King of Saudi Arabia, being the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques. So the King is also kind of like The Pope for Catholics. He has an ability to dictate to the whole of Islam, what the rules are.

So, back to my tour guide. First, she's pretty. She's wearing Doc Marten boots and she's wearing denim jeans which are loose fitting and the popular (what I'll call) stovepipe legs that finish just at the top of the boot. She's wearing a black and gold Barcelona FC Rakuten sponsored jersey. Finished off with a black leather jacket (keep in mind, it's 115F outside) that goes down past her butt just like the Prophet intended.

So, bottom line, she is both within the letter of the law, and the intent.

A few minutes late, the South Korean dads show up. One thing that was funny is they made it very clear that you were not allowed to take any pictures without permission. One of the Korean dads had a kid coming into 1st Grade and the other into 2nd Grade. So the father of the 1st Grader, the first thing he wants to do it take pictures. This guy was probably 30-35 years old so he's in the zone where he wouldn't give that a second though. But our tour guide said NO.

As we toured the school, the first room she showed us had the same (re-upholstered now) "whistle cushions" that we had back in 1981. And I hadn't thought about "whistle cushions" since 1982. I burst out into laughter as I told the tour guide - "Wow, you still have the same Whistle Cushions". She was such a doll, she was like - what did you call them?

Ok, I can't find an internet example and obviously I couldn't take pix in the school but, if you google - Acme Thunderer Whistle, that's the shape of these cushions that we used for reading class in 1981 and they're still in use today. I was blown away.

Here's what I'll say about my assessment of the school. The demographics have changed significantly. Far less Americans and Californians (Keep in mind that Bechtel the main contractor and Fluor who my dad worked for were both from CA) but, the academics looked every bit as challenging as they were back in my era. Like seriously, I'd be proud to send my kid to Jubail Academy in 2025, just as much as I would have back in the 1980s.

I had fun sharing which classrooms used to be where. Their band has done so well that they've switched classrooms with wood shop. So Band is a double classroom and woodshop (tragically) has been relegated to a small portion of a regular classroom. But, in 40 years, they've really only moved across the hallway from where they used to be. One funny thing is that our tour guide talked a lot about string instruments and the fact that a few of their violin players (or whatever) had gone on to Oxford / Cambridge, etc. I kind of wanted to point out that one of your trombonists (from my era) went to UCLA and one of your saxophone players was in The Fightin' Texas Aggie Band. But anyway...

As we were headed out to see the sports fields (which used to only be basketball and team handball), we walked past the old typing classroom where I was taught by a Mormon WWII vet - who was a super hardass. Not joking when I say that he would throw a chalkboard eraser at your head if you looked at your hands while typing. So, I mentioned to our tour guide that, that room used to be the old typing classroom. Her reply was - yeah, I've seen a typewriter before.

Reminds me, she took us in the classroom that used to be the computer lab when we had like 12 x Apple II Plus computers with 5.25" floppy drives. Our tour guide introduced us to the classroom teacher who was also the longest tenured teacher at the school - almost 20 years. The teacher asked me if I had ever been to the school before. I said, um, yeah, I graduated 9th Grade here in 1985. And in this classroom used to be the computer lab when we had Apple II Plus computers.

We finished up the tour and I asked our tour guide about the very old pictures they had on display in the gym and would she show us those pictures (she had mentioned this before the tour). She said, oh, yeah, I forgot about that. Do you want to see that now? The two Korean guys were up for it so we headed back to the gym.

They had pictures from like Cross Country back in 2001, etc., then they had some Black and White pictures for Softball and Volleyball from 1984-1987 or so.

I immediately honed in on the Jubail Academy Boys Softball team from 1984-1985. Frankly, it was ridiculous how much taller I was at 6'0" than the rest of the kids on the softball team. But, there I was, the tallest kid in the back row of the softball team photo. I pointed at myself and I said - that's me.

The tour guide and the two South Korean guys were tripping out. I asked our tour guide if I could take pictures of the 5 Black & White pix on the wall from my era and she said yes. I also asked if the younger South Korean guy could take a picture of me next to the picture of me playing Softball in 1985 and our tour guide said yes. I'll try to figure out how to post that pic later.

Keep in mind, I'm a Texas Aggie Bandsman (B-Company Hell Bent Street Fighter no less) but frankly, what's more impressive than me being on display in the Texas A&M Corps Center as a member of Rudder's Rangers, is the fact that I'm on display in my old Junior High in Saudi Arabia from 1985.

So we wrapped up the tour and it was time for lunch. Naturally, I headed out to Fanateer to capture some additional house pix for one of my friends who was really persistent.

I ate lunch (Halal burger, surprise?) at Fuddruckers and had Gelato afterwards. On the corniche in Fanateer, it was first class.

After that, I took some pix of the Hwy 6 signs (runs North and South - just like B/CS) and later, headed down to investigate what had been Camp 9A a single men's camp where we used to have boys swim practice. Swim team would usually start in early February so I remember a few times that Mr. Nair was torturing us out at 9A for swim team.

Bottom line is that the foundation of the Camp 9A swimming pool is still there as well as the racquetball and squash courts. And I'll say that looking at a 12 foot deep end with no water in it is nowhere near as intimidating as being asked to dive down to 12 ft and retrieve stuff.

Afterwards, I went back to the Intercontinental Hotel and had planned on their advertised Thursday night BBQ. Well, I found out that wasn't on so I went with the buffet instead. Which was fine if you like some combination of Asian and Lebanese food.

During the dinner, I sit down and I'm minding my own business and then this krewe comes in with two Saudi women and a child. Well what I'm assuming was the child's aunt was wearing a very tight dress and had some breast implants that were - dialed in. As I glance without staring, I decided that this girl is skirting the rules and I'm going to do my best not to look. Was she gorgeous?, yes. Was I going to get in trouble for staring?, NO.

So, I headed back to my hotel room to get ready for my departure tomorrow morning and what would be a 500+ km / 300+ miles trip to Riyadh for the Guns N Roses concert on Friday night.