Alright, our last full day in Jeddah and in Saudi Arabia. Let’s start it off well.

If you’ve been following our trip, you’ll know why we’re taking a picture with our breakfast, hehe.

Today my partner took some time to actually leave the hotel because he’s getting ready for the next leg of our adventure. He rearranges his travel bag to make sure we have everything well packed and don’t have to rush tomorrow, and he washes some clothing to arrive fresh at our next destination. Only once he’s all done does he actually decide to go out for a walk. But, since today is our last day in Saudi Arabia we might as well take it somewhat slow and revisit some things in Jeddah. This can also be translated as “we’re not sure what to do, so let’s redo something”. Hopefully you don’t mind revisiting some places, we won’t. And who knows when we will return to Jeddah or Saudi Arabia.

We leave the hotel, quickly cross Al Balad, and start on my partner’s long walk. As with most days, we start by looking across Jeddah Lake.

Then we cross the pedestrian bridge and look towards the Islamic Port of Jeddah and at the world’s tallest lighthouse.

We skip the fish market, and take a picture looking out towards the Red Sea. A little disappointed we didn’t swim in it… but, maybe that’s for the better. It gives us another reason to come back to Saudi Arabia and maybe visit one of the small towns along the Red Sea coast.

And, we just had to show this. If you haven’t noticed, we love call backs to things we’ve seen in the past. If you recall, this was everywhere in Oman. We think it’s the drainage system for when it rains. (Although Saudi Arabia is generally regarded as a desert, there are mountains along this entire coast and that traps the moisture and does bring rain with it).

Instead of crossing the bridge and following along the coast, we instead go underneath the bridge this time and continue along Youth Lake. We will eventually make it to that flag again.

This also allows us to have another call back. Remember our first time we walked this path that we showed you a box that had prayer rugs in them? Well, we told you that they were pretty widespread around Saudi Arabia/Jeddah, and here’s another example of that. This time it’s a bit different because it looks like it is a dedicated space for prayer while the one on the other beach was just straight on the “beach”.

We walk a bit further and decide that that’s enough for now. You can see that the sun is out, which means it’s hot. My partner decides to just take a seat here to enjoy a bit of his book. We don’t have anywhere to be until much later, so we’re in no rush. And it’s a nice spot.

Eveeeeentually my partner has enough of reading and he allows us to continue. We approach the huge flag from another street this time, and we can’t see a designated crossing. So… we weave through traffic (which is mostly stopped) and cars let us pass. Eventually this leads us to the centre of the traffic circle where we are able to stand directly underneath the giant flag. In this first picture you can see the Sharif Ahmed bin Sultan Al-Far Mosque (from our translator app) while the second picture has the greenery under the flag on display.

We weave our way out of the traffic circle, which takes a loooooot of waiting until it’s actually safe to cross (my partner’s mother should be happy we waited) and then continue on our way. Instead of going straight to the coast, my partner walks a few blocks through residential neighbourhoods. Every so often they’re dotted with the exact same big box stores as you see in North America. But, we’re here to sightsee, not shop. And you’re here for the same reason. So, we go back to the coast a few minutes before the show starts. Can you recognize where we are?

Just like last time, we just sit on the grass and relax while we wait. At least this time we know when the show starts and we timed our arrival accordingly. 

And then the fountain starts again.

We stayed here for quite some time. We just sat around, took some videos, some pictures, and took it all in. A beautiful place to just sit and relax… But, you know my partner is incapable and we need to get walking again… Seems never ending, and I’m not even the one walking!

We get this last picture before starting the long walk back. We just watched the sunset, and there’s the moon in the background already! And it was the perfect backdrop for our last picture of the huge Saudi flag. This time it’s still up, or we stayed long enough for it to be taken down and put back up as that’s what seems to happen at night. Maybe with the sunsetting? Not sure.

Finally as we get closer to Al Balad we pass by our last beach (first on the way there, just after the Fish Market). And, guess what! They’re filming! Who knows what they’re filming… but this reminds us of our time in Vladivostok when we saw NGT48 filming their music video for “To the people of the world” (「世界の人へ」). Hopefully one day we find out what they were filming in here!

Well, that’s it! Our time in Jeddah has come to an end. We walked through Al Balad a bit to do some shopping for souvenirs and dates, but other than that we got our food and headed to the hotel to finish getting ready and rest. Tomorrow will likely be a long day. But for now, we need some sleep. Goodnight from Jeddah!