The Differences of Living in Medan and Riyadh (Part 2)

 Hi.. Hi..

Good Afternoon, 

I hope everyone is having a good day..

I wanna continue sharing about the differences of living in Medan, my city and Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. I am gonna talk about two things again in this part. 

1. Transportation

Riyadh is the largest city in Saudi Arabia based on its population, while Medan is the third largest. So, you'll come across busy streets full of vehicles in both cities. The most widely used vehicle in Riyadh is the car, while in Medan, the most commonly used are not only the car but the motorbike too.   

I ever saw motorbikes in Riyadh quite many times. However, it's mostly for delivering food or people who have a hobby of it. In Saudi, riding motorcyle is a fancy and dangerous hobby, in my city, we ride motorbike everywhere we go. Even if it's just to a very near place. Yeah, most people are not into walking, the same like in Saudi. 

One of the things that I loved when living in Riyadh was the metro. It's not only wonderfully cheap, especially for students, only 2 riyals -- normal price : 4 riyals --. It's also because I had to walk to get the station -- I love walking -- and also it's not too tired when we just sit on a vehicle and we can do another beneficial thing while we're on it. 

It's surely different when we ride a motorbike. We will get hot when it's a hot weather and we will get soaked and cold if it's a rainy season, and we can't do anything else while riding it. I wish there was such metro in my city, with very affordable price hehe... 

My friends and I were lucky because the metro was launced in Riyadh when we were still living there. Otherwise, it would be so expensive for us as students taking an uber. But, still there was a place that we wanted to visit and the metro couldn't reach it. So, we needed to take an uber. Since I went together with my friends, we could split the fare. 

2. Hospitality

When the first time, I arrived in Riyadh. I greeted the driver --that picked me up at the airport-- when we met in the dorm in another time. And you know what was the response? He might were confused why I greeted him 😭😭😂😂. Because in Indonesia, we must greet everyone, if we don't want people to call us arrogant or unfriendly person.

So, it's not something common to greet or smile to the opposite gender to people in Saudi. It even could be something that misunderstood. But, you can greet people the same gender with you. They will reply your salam so friendly. 

Okay, I guess that's all for now. I will edit or continue if I have time. I need to check my students eating lunch right now. See you. Hope you guys found something useful in my writing. 

Again, I guess you can easily know which pictures are in Medan and which ones are in Riyadh 😁