Quirks of Qatar

I did manage to go to Doha and visit the City Center. This is a huge mall, and I mean huge. It is five stories high and has three wings. The middle of the mall even has an ice rink! Parking is insane, but after Thailand all drivers seem calm anywhere else.

While at the mall I did a lot of people watching. Qataris wear their traditional dress in their daily lives. For men, this is a long white shirt that reaches their ankles, called a thobe, and is worn over short trousers. A head covering, the gutra, is secured with four black tasseled cords, which have been braided. They can wear two different clothes for the gutra. The first one is a pure white sheet, this one is the more formal one. It would be the equivalent of wearing a business suit. The second is a white and red-checkered gutra, this one being more informal like a pair of jeans with a t-shirt. Women wear an abayah, a long black flowing dress over their clothes and are mostly veiled. Some women have their face covered with only their eyes showing and their abayah's are solid black. Then there are woman who choose to reveal their face. Their abayah's are often embellished with gold or silver embroidery. Some even have rhinestones embellished in the abayah's...just show everyone can enjoy a little bling. They wear clothing that I would wear under their abayah's. And this was very evident in the high quality of shoes you could see peeking out. Also I say more name brand purses on the arms of these women, they could rival Michigan Ave in Chicago.

The mall seemed to be a hot spot for people to visit on their days off. Weekends here are Thursday and Friday. The ice rink was always hopping and the mall had a 10-screen cinema in it. It plays 8 American movies and two Arabic. The teens grouped together and shopped just like anywhere else. The families were packed in the food court. The women were in droves in the high-end clothing stores. And I didn't see many men. So very typical of every mall I have ever been to, only larger.