Bahrain is the closest open country from the eastern region of KSA. A weekend gateway for both Arabs and expats from Saudi Arabia who are longing for a few breezes of cultural freedom.
At 3pm, we left Jubail going to Bahrain . We’re lucky that the queue in the immigration is not too long. Somebody told us that so many locals flock to Bahrain during weekend especially Thursday night up to Friday. The immigration is in the middle of the bridge connecting the two Arab countries.
We arrived in our hotel at 5pm which I booked in Agoda. The hotel is just at the back of the Holiday Inn in Hoora Exhibition Road.
Location: Manama, Bahrain
Where I Stayed: Holiday Villa Hotel
Buddies: Family (+)
The receptionist gave us the room on the 16th floor which has a great view of sea and part of the city. Holiday Villa Hotel is a new hotel as what the local said. A little walk in front of Holiday Inn is the taxi terminal. So this is the best place if you come to Bahrain for enjoying the city life.
We directly headed to Sacred Heart Cathedral for the 5:30pm mass. The mass is already half way when we arrived. We met our friends whose working in Bahrain and gladly introduced us to this small country. We dined in Swan Lake, a known Thai and Filipino restaurant in the city proper. We ordered pork menu for we’re craving for it. A sip of coffee at New York Coffee shop continued our bonding.
The next morning, we visited the city’s known mall, City Centre. It’s huge but it still small if compared to malls in Philippines. However, we have not known that we spent our three hours walking inside this mall. It has its own attractions. Aside for being a mall, it has a hotel and a water park.
PARK and SHOWS. A 10-minute walk from the hotel crossing the pedestrian bridge is the marina bay area which has an amusement park and a dolphin show theater. We bought a ticket for a dolphin show for BD4 per head which will start at 6:15pm. The first show is the sea lion. The biggest sea lion that I’ve seen so far doing the same tricks. Although the language used in the show is Arabic, but it seems we understand animal gestures.
The next show is the dolphin tricks. The area is too small for a big mammals. The dolphin can do more when it’s in the big pool. Since most of the audience are kids, the facilitator mostly drawn more attention from them. The show ended on a picture taking with the dolphin. At this time, the audience are dry. The dolphin jumped up and landed on the dry stage. For the sake of picture, the dolphin sacrificed.
DINING. There are so many great restaurant near the hotel in Hoora. We’ve discovered the Arirang Edo Restaurant, a Japanese and Korean cuisine. We have a great time enjoying our Korean meal with Japanese sushi. They also gave us a special room near the kitchen, and we have a chance to witness one of their chief while preparing sushi.
Tracking Traveler 