There are good things, too. :)

I know, I have been posting about the bad things about KAUST, but there are good things happening, too.

I love the housekeeping services. It is so cheap, to start with: Only 19 SAR (~5 $) per person per hour! Isn't it crazy? We usually have two men for an hour for the whole townhouse. Most of the cleaning people are very very good at their job, they clean very neatly and even clean the oven, stove, kitchen surfaces, etc. (although it is not expected) if they have time left. They almost never come late. And one of the nicest details about their service: they even take the garbage out.

If you live on campus, don't hesitate to use their service.
It wouldn't worth to buy mops and vacuum cleaners and the effort you would spend. So, ladies, I suggest you to use their service instead of buying such stuff and use the free time in your hands for shopping. ;)

Cheers,

KAUST proudly (!) presents the WORST transit services you could ever imagine!

KAUST has two major companies monopolizing the transit services: Saudi Oger and Hanco.
In the past Hanco was known as bad (and interestingly more expensive) and Saudi Oger was known as good.

Hanco had earned its bad reputation by late arriving booked cabs (not 5 minutes late, 30-40 minutes late!), not showing up at the pick up time, changing the pick up/drop off stop with no notice, etc.

We were still feeling lucky, at least we had a reliable cab/bus source on campus: Saudi Oger. This feeling started to fade away with the terrible service quality Saudi Oger has reached.
They started to behave exactly like Hanco. Plus, their drivers are becoming more and more rude everyday. For example, recently I got a full-day cab which is 12 hours (as it is written on their webpage and booking form). Driver came almost 30 minutes late, and he didn't even apologize. Moreover, he started to push us to finish trip in around 6-7 hours instead of using our fully paid 12 hours! If it was a personal trip maybe I would consider doing a favor to this rude man, but our return time was up to the consulate from where we would pick up our visa. Consulate told us to come back to pick it up at 4PM (~7 hours after taxi came to pick us up). This time, taxi guy started to bargain with us about the time, and it didn't matter for how long I tried to tell him that it's not up to us. He took us to the consulate 45 minutes earlier and kept asking my husband to go and check the consulate door if it is open. By the way, all of these are happening under the Arabian summer sun, and the temperature was more than 60 C! Of course he couldn't reach his goal, since the rule is rule and consulate wouldn't plan things around him! After we got the visa, he didn't even ask if we will go somewhere else in Jeddah as he was supposed to do and just drove straight to KAUST!

Another Saudi Oger fiasco was on Mekkah bus couple of weeks ago. Driver changed the drop off location by himself (by car 50 minutes away from Kab'a instead of the announced drop off/pick up place around Kab'a)  and we learned about this when he parked the bus! After Teravih prayer finished it took 20 minutes for us to get out of Kab'a because of the crowd. Outside was bursting at the seams and there was no bus (only one goes there has a thousand people trying to get in), no taxi (they only go to Jeddah), no other means of transportation and no way of walking! We were 30 minutes away from our bus to go home, all our food and water was in that bus (we couldn't break our fast by food, we just ate couple of dates they gave in Kab'a), we didn't have much money or our credit cards since we came and were planning to return by Saudi Oger bus! After several injury risks we hardly managed to get into one of those sardine cans as a side layer of fish and called the bus driver that we are on the way and asked him not to go without us since we don't have another means of transportation. He promised to wait for us and 10 minutes later when we called him to say we are approaching, TA TA!!! His phone was TURNED OFF and when we arrived there he was GONE! We had to struggle all night long to find a way to go back home. We reached home around 6AM next day with no breakfast and no sahoor!

Last, but not least, the cab to go to airport we booked days ago came almost an hour late and we were about to miss our international flight! Again, as a Saudi Oger classic, driver didn't apologize or give an explanation for his delay! During the waiting period we kept calling their call center but of course nobody picked up!

If you live in KAUST and you need to use transportation services, I have some suggestions that might make your life easier and longer (since you would skip the extra stress) :)
* Book the cab at least 30 minutes earlier than the time you actually need it.
* If you are using the bus,
   - don't leave your stuff inside the bus, never trust the driver.
   - always keep extra money and card with you just in case you might need to go back home on your own.
   - you can only find cabs (limo cars with no taxi sign) that can enter KAUST campus from the parking lot across Hera Mall, but make sure that the driver has his iqama and driver's licence with him.
   - always ask the driver time to pick up, his phone number (although they do turn it off), pick up location at least twice so that he will have it in his mind and hopefully will not change on the way.

Oh! Welcome back sandy season...

Image is taken from http://cindy-twoplustriplets.blogspot.com

When I woke up this morning, the light coming through the window was different. It was not your regular sunny day light, rather denser.
It didn't take long for me to notice our sand/dust storm days are back.

Last year they started around this time and lasted until late October. Sometimes it is so strong that you cannot breath without a mask or see without protective goggles!

Well, it is not my favorite time of year, if I must say. I don't find it pleasant to clean the dust layer on my scooter every single day! I can almost hear you suggest that "get a cover". Well, good idea! But I don't think I will have any luck to find such miscellaneous stuff in here.

Anyway... Stay safe fellow KAUST residents. Try not to walk if it's not urgent and do not forget to keep your goggles and masks handy.

Oh! By the way, RAMADAN KAREEM to all fellow Muslims. I hope this Ramadan will be as festive as it was last years. :) I am hoping to catch a camel-ride fair on campus this year. I was so jealous ( :-P ) all year round when I saw friends' pictures on or next to a well decorated, cute camel during Ramadan 2009 (the very first semester of KAUST).

Well, I guess that's enough for today.
Cheers.

Dear fire alarm, please stop! Would you?

KAUST fire alarm systems are famous for their "weird" behaviours. Once ours is activated while we were cooking something in the oven around lunch break time and we called the maintenance people to come and stop it (because you don't have the panel password to stop it by yourself!). They came the other morning around 9 AM!! Thanks God that my dear husband had already found out the password by exploiting the options and stopped the annoying thing.

This interesting fire alarm panel woke us up the other night around 2 AM by giving the most annoying bleeping noise! It was a CPU error, and the password knowledge was not helping this time! We immediately called the maintenance guys again. Luckily they came around 2:45 AM and stopped the bleeping. After they were gone and we were hoping to get some sleeping before going to work in the morning, it started bleeping and screaming again around 3:15 AM. We called the guys, they came at 4AM and disabled the whole system with a conclusion that our panel needs a CPU change!

I would be very grateful if they did tell us the way to disable it in such cases. It is not a pleasant thing to be waken up by the screaming fire alarm panel, especially if you need to go to work in couple of hours!
KAUST needs to find a solution to this specific problem, and I hope they will do it soon.

Burglary incident vol 3! Safety IS an issue on KAUST campus!

When we first moved here, KAUST campus was a safe place, almost as safe as New England! We didn't need to lock our doors and we could easily let maintenance people/caretakers in while we are not present. Good, old days...

Recently, our community members received an e-mail from the victim of the 3rd burglary incident within the past 6 months!

First one was a student, who locked the sliding balcony door of his room, but when he was out somebody opened the door using force and stole his electronics (~ 1000$ worth he says). Of course he immediately reported the incident to the campus security, but they couldn't find the person who broke in! Apparently those surveillance cameras everywhere are for ornamental purposes!!

Incident number 2 happened right after the first one. This time victim was a family living in a townhouse. Around 2 AM she heard some noise, and went out to check in the dark. She started screaming when she saw the silhouette of the burglar. Then he (the burglar) hit her and ran down the stairs to go out of the house. Her husband woke up, they called the security, etc etc... They finally caught him who turns out to be a plumber at KAUST! You know, the kind that we welcome to our houses without having trust issues! I do not know what happened to the guy, hope he got the punishment he deserved.

The last incident happened 2 days ago to another family who lives in a townhouse, also. This time, burglar didn't enter from the front door or the balcony door... The entrance was done from the roof! Thanks to the victim's e-mail, we learned that our roof entrance locks might be broken by these nasty people!

Such a shame for KAUST that the campus is becoming so unsafe. You cannot let your child play out anymore. You are not safe even you lock every single door in the house, since KAUST burglars know their ways from the roof or maybe from other secret passages only they know!!! 

Only thing I can say is please stay safe fellow residents...

Introducing your spy in KAUST ;)

Hello dear reader;

The first post of a blog is always awkward, but I will try my very best!

King Abdullah University of Science and Technology is an international research university owned by King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia. KAUST campus is located next to Red Sea, in a city named Thuwal (80 km North of Jeddah).

I am a resident of KAUST since March 2010. I experienced the life in it both as a dependent and as a student and will soon experience as an employee. So, I will try to reflect a wide-angle of point of views in this blog.

Hope you enjoy reading.

Cheers,