MY FIRST TIME in Riyadh Saudi Arabia
Riyadh Saudi Arabia the largest city on the Arabian Peninsula with a population of nearly 8 million people Riyadh is the capital of Saudi and it is also referred to as the cultural capital of the country today we are going to take you inside the city and show you what this Metropolis is like and even take you to some new heights in the city we are 99 floors above the ground later on we are going to explore a place called the Bujairi Terrace which is located in Diriyah and that happens to be the birthplace of Saudi Arabia and we will finish off the video exploring a bit of Saudi at night but first we must introduce you to the famous Saudi coffee scene today is my first day in the beautiful country of Saudi my 63rd country and I'm here guys in the busy Riyadh now I'm just right outside of the airport area so I haven't gone fully into the city yet because I wanted to stop first and grab myself a coffee and I just picked a random place and it's called high right here I did look it up and it looks like it's got great reviews there's a couple different branches this one's a bit more on the outskirts in the middle of the like brand new construction here and so I think it's important that I show getting a coffee on my first day in Saudi because Coffee Culture is so freaking big Marhaba Marhaba brother so you got the best coffee in Riyadh here yeah yes and Tasty Donuts freshly made here which one's the best doughnut here here I like this one konafa oh konafa oh so that's Saudi original then yeah yes yeah oh these all look good and we've got a little Oreo tart there that looks really good and Zatar and cheese wow and Zatar and Nutella that's got to be a wild set of flavors to mix together all right all right I'm going to need to try one of the typical um glazed ones I will test out one of those and so so tempted to buy all of them but uh I don't think the Bell is going to be able to take that many down okay we'll try one of those too and do you have uh ice latte yes okay perfect look what we got here two boxes of donuts oh it slides out the side that looks fantastic well I guess we're going to have to try this one to start out mmm.. that right there is [__] brother it's got a nice doughy filling to it and then on the inside you just have a little surprise of Nutella mmm.. you pop that right out we've got a can doughnut we've got like the typical doughnut flavor to it but at the top you could probably hear there's that crunch oh yeah that is how you start out a morning right there ice latte so the reason why the Coffee Culture is so huge in Saudi is obviously over the last last few years Saudi has put a ton of investment into building up their cities building up their culture kind of transitioning the way of life to spend a lot more time you know socializing with people in these new types of um establishments all around the city so as you may or may not know Saudi is a dry country so there's not alcohol here but of course people want to go out with their friends and do stuff at night and so what has come to become like the place of hangout in Saudi over the years is really nice high-end coffee shops all right we got our coffee in our system time to head to the first place yala as I was driving through Riad for my first day my initial expectation of Riad was aligning quite well as it is an absolute Metropolis of infrastructure and ongoing construction what I did not expect was how spread out everything is from one side of the city to another can keep you in a car for quite a while but what I did notice is they designed their highways to run through the cities and keep keep the flow of traffic moving much faster than traditional city streets speaking of infrastructure we have arrived to our next place look at this they even have the plants right here carved out just like the building shape that's impressive I've never seen that before on a skyscraper well even the uh roadblocks right there too are in the shape of the tower all right and we have located at the sky Bridge experience Sky bridge line I just got on the I got lucky because I went to the bathroom and then the entire elevator full of people went up so I got my own elevator up which is pretty rare so yeah we're heading up to the uh 99th floor 90 91 all right and we have made it up when we walk over this there there's like an opening under here welcome to the sky Bridge here at Kingdom Center we are 99 floors up in the air and directly under me is a huge drop this is a little terrifying now I see why this is what you come up here to do when you're in Saudi you can actually see the layout of the city so much better because it's so flat here in the desert when you're just driving through these roads for a really long period of time you can't really tell where you are unless you know the city but once you are up here you can actually see the layout of the city like I was told when I first like before I came to Riyad that the city stretch is I don't remember like 120 km wide or something like that that might be a bit of an exaggeration but like now when you're up here you can actually see that I mean you have these two main roads that probably flush in and out most of the traffic leading into like one of the downtown City centers and then over here we've got another set of like pockets of larger buildings here a couple iconic ones like the one with the globe up top there and so it's uh really really interesting laid out City obviously it's much different than like US cities where like in US cities you have a downtown and that's where all of like the main large buildings are whereas in most other like countries I would say in the main cities there are a bunch of like pockets of larger buildings ticket price to go up was $18.40 so that's like 69 Saudi real so I mean it's not a bad bad price to get obviously all the way up here I mean we had to go up 99 floors so and then you get these crazy views I mean I wasn't sure if we were going to find like a cafe or something else up here but it's kind of a smaller area don't get up so [Music] Saudi Kil okay Sky [Music] BRD Isis [Music] [Laughter] so met some new friends here from Saudi so that's awesome super super friendly and welcoming and I definitely got them so surprised when I started speaking Arabic it always catches people so off guard because they don't expect Americans to uh you know know Arabic so casually so so we just went over to the other side here and the visibility today is great so like I think obviously like if there was some sort of Sandstorm right now we wouldn't be able to see this far out but I would say we'd be able to easily see I don't know 30 km out 40 maybe even more than that it's a really cool thing to do when you get up here like this will give you a much better layout of the city just going up here I already now feel like I understand a bit more of Riad and I understand a bit more of like how this City's layout is so that's the edge right there and as you can see all under us is hollow the skyscraper only on the sides everything there and then the rest is just a big drop so if you're afraid of heights be ready for this anyways let's uh keep exploring and we are heading back down you can also see this thing at night which is pretty spectac spacular I think that's when even more people go I mean in general Saudi really opens up at night anyways but uh this will give you right here an idea of what you can find a lot of in Saudi like so many high-end malls and this is such a good example of it like just look at this we have three floors everything is just shiny around me like Chrome colored high-end and you have those really strong smells I would say like you know almost around the world you're going to find a lot of scents but I'd say definitely in the Arab world there are so many more exotic scents that I've never smelled and there I'd say more shops per Mall than like malls outside of the Middle East especially here in Saudi with like the Arabian oud this is the highend side of Saudi I'd say we should do a little walk around and see what we can find and look at this we've got a bridge that just leads us right across you can tell this is one of the really really highend malls we've got Dior we've got Louis Vuitton we've got Gucci on that side you know all these other like really well-known International high-end Brands there are a lot of great fragrances walking through ooh that smells so freaking good and then just walking by get a little that smoke on you and nice you smell good for the day so this is the building I do love how they have palm trees inside of the building I don't know I don't know if they're real but they definitely look pretty awesome I will say driving here in Riad is very similar to the US I mean there are some differences don't get me wrong I am used to driving in the Middle East the sign colors are the same the roads are generally very similar in terms of construction and how they're designed I mean the main difference here is they use like metal to separate the lines which you don't find as much in the US but obviously we have we're driving on the right side rather than the left side in a lot of the other uh parts of the world and yeah I mean you have signs in Arabic that's one difference but other than that like honestly the Driving Experience is quite similar uh people here don't use turning signals as much the white paint on the lines a lot of people kind of like Drive in between them or sometimes when they're passing they drive like this overall it's very uh simple I'd say knock on wood to drive here there's where we're going right there Dy all right we are arriving to Dua this is insanely large I am in shock they're basically creating an entire new city that has like a modern infrastructure yet aligned with traditional design which is freaking awesome I me all the Billboards here saying work places for creatives and professionals I'm going to have to come back and stay here and boom we have parked and made it to Dua I think that's how it's supposed to be said Dua Dua the city of Earth and I will tell you when you walk out you are impressed I mean we just walked from this parking lot right here obviously they're still building it up but right here they have this place outfitted super well and I will tell you like over the next 6 years I guarantee you every every year I come back to Saudi we're going to have a completely different feeling because of how much development's happening I mean everywhere in the city right now on a Saturday is like construction noises stuff being built a lot of stuff is already built at this point but obviously like their 2030 plan of like building this Mega City Mega country so many mega projects we are at the very innocence of it still the beginnings so let's head over this way I'm not even sure where to go the one thing I can tell you is this whole area is so big and the first place looks like we're going to be going over to is the arari Terrace off so we're going to head over this way and see what we're going to find inside this place I think it's a huge mix of many different things that are built right now I want to say over here we have like Terrace restaurants we have um also like gift shops a few other places so once we get in on this side we'll be able to show you more on what's inside so this answers my question can get a ticket right here last minute scan that and then purchase it all right well I got lucky the uh ticket cost is zero but I guess in 1 hour and 30 minutes It'll be 50 Saudi R so there we go we'll pay for our free ticket and boom we got them all right and we are walking in we've got these like metal things here which is quite interesting but it's like awesome it's custom made as you can probably guess there are not that many people out during the day cuz it is is October time frame like going into November and so it is still relatively hot out most people in Saudi pretty much spend their evenings going out exploring places like these I'm guessing that's part of the reason why the ticket was Zero s to go in right now cuz it's 3:30 p.m. because like the evening is when people want to come in it's probably free to just get people in here cuz it's kind of quiet during the day walking through here it's got a great Vibe like there's surround sound at all moments or at like all areas you walk around obviously we've got stuff for the kids right here and a lot of restaurants but I decided not to make a reservation cuz I was like I'd rather walk in see which one I'm feeling see which one has some cool views and then select the restaurant that way she is kind of nice to see it during the day even though there's less people so you don't get that evening energy but you can definitely compare it to the level of detail that you'll find in places like Dubai where every square inch of the place is you know carved out to a very detailed level of Perfection every tile every carving everything is thought out and that's what I appreciate and that's one of the things that I've Loved about Dubai that I'm really excited to see you know saudi's version of it is like not to say one's like the other but to more say that like they're both aiming for an incredibly high levels of detail and quality while also building in this this feeling of like the culture you know like this is very very modern right but at the same time it's very very cultural at the same time and when I've be by modern is that like the designs and how it was built and um you know the level of um infrastructure of this place but like the color schemes and the styles of the buildings all of those make it still very special and traditional I continued walking around El buari after stopping by the tourist area I just walked out of the uh tourism visitor Hub right there and it was quite quiet around this time but I actually enjoyed having the whole area to myself I got a moment to really take in the culture stroll through the Alleyways and I even encountered some really unique areas that I feel like really bridged the past to the present of the overall Heritage of the park this is pretty awesome though how they've rebuilt it and added their own touch to it I think these are welded too oh yeah that's like super strong so I've been cruising through the Alleyways and it's pretty quiet right now I bet this place will get get a bit more uh filled up with people here in the next couple hours cuz it is a Saturday but I do like the time that we're here we've got the sunset probably 1 hour away from setting now and so you have these really beautiful Reflections out here and look at this over here they are building far down into there lot it looks like a bit of Excavating there and yeah I can imagine this place is g to have like sus and shops inside of here and food and maybe some street performers this is what what I would imagine it to be like once it's like fully operational cuz it needs that life you know you can you can physically see the traditional style um architecture here and living but you need that presence of those like cultural figures things being you know sold along here the smells of you know Arabian oud that'll really just add to the total essence of this place which they probably have it some days over here it looks like they've got it set up for some workshops that is so cool look at that workshops right there what do we got going on here sell a little uh dates there the good stuff dates small dates Tamor hello let's try one of these out B it these are very popular [Music] so we got something going on right over here too not what's going on there but that was pretty energetic some local kids uh bringing some tires there this is what I like to feel there's a lot more life on this side interacting with the locals and you know getting some of that excitement it's freaking delicious I guess you pop the seed out and finish it off see goes there it tastes like a natural doughnut like a natural glazed dut which is so tasty so where we just got here now is where the destruction of a mosque happened during The Siege September 1818 so you can see what's left of the remains here but it looks look like we've got ourselves a cafe right over here we're going to try out called Cafe ptil which uh is right here with some Mist spraying out and it looks like a good time to stop and have a little bite to eat so let's go ahead and do this so it's a good thing that I waited till you know maybe 30 40 minutes into walking around to find a place to eat because I found one that has incredible views here here you have some you know incredible views right in front of you of like palm trees a lot of greenery and then some of that architecture just peeking out right on top now the one thing is is they do serve Italian food here which I do love Italian food it's probably my favorite Cuisine but right now I want to try something very local so I found the only thing pretty much that they have on the menu that's uh local which is a sharing platter of like hummus also like three or four different things like kinoa and some specialty items on there as well as some traditional Saudi coffee that I guess is going to be served in a Saudi type of way so we will find out EX what that means in just a few moments so we will see you in just a second with the food and there it is we have this delicious milk a humus beetroot and the humus carrot and carrot tart oh so it's mixed with the carrots in there oh very nice we have also the P bread P bread and we have the this one the babagan like a eggplant babagan eggplant the pomegranate seed and the K like tomato aming and the lab powder uh lab Dua powder okay this one made it with the hij n Spicy oh all right very ex the olive uh black olives and the F cheese and the Z and the de that sounds fantastic and this is Walnut for this one is a h bread and this one for the day peon bread oh peon bread oh okay very nice thank you so much first we got to go ahead and make sure we get some coffee in here actually though it's in Saudi culture to not fill the glass up all the way so this is not the accurate way they do it actually in Saudi they'll fill it up about 1/4 of the way and you think like oh why am I getting such a small cup of coffee but the reason is is they want you to stay so if they fill up a cup like that almost all the way that means they want you to leave like how I just filled it up she filled it up for me 1/4 and that basically means like whenever you finish a cup of coffee usually people will leave right right like in most of the world so if you fill up a small cup of coffee then you'll keep having more and more and so that's their way of basically being hospitable and saying here's a partial cup of coffee stay for as many as you want oh that is fantastic I don't even know where to start here but I do want to try this bread because it is very rare in any of the countries I've been to that I find nuts in this way like basically I guess cooked into the bread and then sliced up like this mhm yeah it's got a really fresh flavor to it you can tell that bread was made today the nuts are light add a nice ba you know simple taste to it but really good I think the first thing I'm going to try here is going to be the hummus beetroot I don't know there's just something about like this pink look right there that looks just absolutely delicious so let's get a nice nice amount there Make It Count oh that's really good it is very different from hummus I've had obviously I've made a lot of videos in all over the Middle East but specifically in Lebanon lebanon's got great hummus this is a more like a lighter hummus like in terms of the thickness a bit more creamy but the Beet Root gives it more of a I don't want to say a sweeter taste but like just a more like a more unique taste like humus has a very distinct flavor and this Chang it's hard to explain hard to relate it to anything and this one is with carrots in there so it gives it this like golden look oh I like that one more they're both good but I think the carrot one that one just sits super super well on the taste buds all right now let's test out this quinoa it's got the texture of um quinoa a bit of flavors from like taboule in it and some sweet in there maybe it's those pomegranate seeds that are mixed in there when I took a bite of it that I kind of infused those and now we've got the Baba Gan let's get a nice Hefty scoop in there the eggplant eggplant is good if I were to rate them in order I'd say carrot hummus beetroot hummus no carrot hummus then the kinoa Beet hummus eggplant and then last but not least we do have the lebet that I think has hazelnut in it boom fast forward like 30 minutes I sat there and relaxed and enjoyed that beautiful sunset in those last moments and it just feels incredible walking through here the amount of people are starting to pick up in some of the areas this is like a quieter area but you can see how nicely this place is lit up we've got the uh hanging lights right there we've got the orange lighting this up it just adds a completely new experience at the evening time once the sun goes down so this is pretty awesome and now we're going to be heading back towards the uh exit here so I'll show you guys what the place looks like on our way out you got to see what this whole area looks like at night cuz it really is just like a whole new place at night and that's what I find in uh Saudi to be the case like it has a whole different personality once the sun goes down you can see maybe right up there those are all the spotlights I'm guessing from uh Boulevard season Riad Boulevard and here we go so we explored a lot of this area earlier and now you can see it kind of the lighting opening up all of the different areas at night look at this this is so impressive truly yeah the time to come here is for sure at night like during the day has a nice charm but like at night you kind of have a mix of like you know very like desert middle eastern historic feel that is just hard to beat so beautiful now we're almost back by where the entrance was we've got some uh recognizable names like hakan over there and a lot of the restaurants like over on this side right where you walk in like all of the developments are pretty much done and like you have all these restaurants these are the ones that you I guess need a reservation in order to uh book them but like you can see how Elite this place looks at night when it's lit up you have these like high-end restaurants mixed in with the you know the old style architecture you even have like I think that's a well like back in the day when they used the pulley system so it's pretty incredible to see how they have this place laid out it's 6:12 p.m. I bet this place at 8:00 or 9:00 p.m. is so full of people I mean it's already like 50x from what I saw earlier just
to once again a test to the fact that people in Saudi love to come out at night obviously now the temperatures are much better people are done with work and like the nights are just later than you know in a lot of other parts of the world where you're going to bed in like 2 3 hours once the sun goes down here the day is just getting started and that is a wrap we are leaving this place it has been such a fun time and that was a fun afternoon and evening in duria now it is time to do our last thing of the night which is head over to a really cool place known as via Riyad which is a very upscale and high-end complex that has everything from high-end hotels restaurants luxury Brands and so much more I don't want to spoil it yet because we just arrived let's head in and we have just made it over to Via Riad which is one of the most luxurious spots to roam in the evening and you're going to see why look at this we are coming up and we are surrounded by all of the buildings pretty much lit up in these like mural like um lights which is absolutely incredible so we're going to do a walk around this area and you can see like a projector screen all the way up there and and a lot of like really high-end designer Brands that's the main entrance right there you can see all of the uh Jewels down there hanging from there that chandelier that's the Lebanese designer right there so it's like as highend as it gets and there's some uh pretty incredible views as we walk around this way so we're going to walk right over here yeah here's a really nice look at viiad it's a little quiet tonight I'm guessing most people are at the main events tonight but uh really well-designed fountains flowing all around here even some waterfalls in the distance and so up here I think it's all like shops and areas maybe a couple restaurants built into here but I think most of the restaurants are actually down and it's retail mainly on the first level here so it's a pretty big place you can spend some time in the evening exploring so if you really want to live the high life I believe parts of this is actually St reg's Hotel I want to say on this side of it too that's why I don't see as much signage but that says Lobby Bar and one of the entrances over there it's specific for it and we're going to take the escal later down so we can check out more and here we are on the uh bottom level here look at this we've got this whole area pretty much candle lit walking through here this is majestic they know how to do it the high-end way here in Saudi a lot of areas to kind of like sit around relax looks like we've even got like some surrounding uh cafes all along here and a little pond that you can kind of just look out and relax at so we've got cafes on this side looks almost like a bar I mean Saudi is a dry country so it's probably not actually a bar a Sky Lounge and so quite a few different options to eat at we've got some uh high-end cars so that's how you know you got some serious money if you can come do a little bit of car shopping right here latest Range Rovers and uh Mercedes that's pretty awesome and this is all technically out it's like Open Air Mall like partially indoor partially outdoor and let's check out what's going on over here fullon chandelier right there so we've got a cinema and the cafes that we already went by and then on this side it looks like we've got even more restaurant options this seems like the type of place I would want to take my uh wife on a date My Belle on a date because coming here El solo you definitely can do it but it's got that romantic vibe even a cigar lounge right over there so I think these are the staircases that lead us back up to where we came from but yeah super high-end I'm impressed and that is a wrap for our first full day here in Riad I actually have another video on Riad but I decided to release it before this video which is what I did on my second night and that was visiting Riad season for opening night this video is actually filmed after but I wanted to release the other one first because everyone wants to know how opening night was so definitely check out that video If you haven't seen that one and thank you guys so much for watching we'll see you in the next video
2023-11-15 23:16
