9 September 2008

City Center Opening (T - 1)

So the big City Center is scheduled for it's 'soft launch' tomorrow! Finally, after months of construction, Bahrain's biggest mall is ready to welcome customers. Given though, it's not 100% complete; some of the shops won't be ready till the official launch in (hopefully) December, and the indoor waterpark + 2 hotels will finish sometime in 2009.


(click for large size)

Anyway, with a bit of free time on my hands, I decided to see if I can sneak a peek inside the closely guarded secret that is City Center. The place feels like some sort of special army base, since all the entrances are closed and heavily secured. The only possible entrance is the one through which all the employees/construction workers go, so I decided to head there:


The place feels like it's own community; it's got it's own roads, people walking around, huge parking lots. Huge place. Anyway; that proved unfruitful since, to actually get into the mall, you needed to go through a bunch of offices, all of which had employees not happy with my reason for coming (Uhhh, can I just like, look around?).

So that was that, and I decided it wasn't worth getting physical and beating them down to get an inside look. Got in my car and started to drive off, until I realized there was one side of the mall I assume no one had thought of securing off...

Yes! The desert side!


And so I drove all the way through the wilderness till I reached it, and somehow I was faced with a large lake that I had to cross:


With a touch of a button, my car magically turned into a boat, and I crossed the lake to the other side... (ok, not really, I just found a bit of land that I could drive across).




Lots of constructing going on to finish things for the soft-launch, as well as a bunch of deliveries arriving just in time. I tried to grab a few of the boxes and run, but I was given evil looks by the security guards...

The whole place seemed closed off, and I figured I would never get a chance to see the inside, until I spotted a small, open unguarded door on my way back to my car:

Finally, my chance! I ran through with my camera in hand, only to be faced by a number of ugly, mean-looking security guards! Took a quick shot before they dragged me out...


So there you have it! Exeeeeecccclllluuuhuuusive from ammaro.com, your first look inside City Center Mall! Launch is tomorrow, see ya there!

12 comments:

Woozie said...

Sure some local news outfit didn't get the exclusive first?

Redbelt said...

Wow Ammaro! An exclusive! Love it!
You must have been really really bored!
Keep them coming brah.

Shionge said...

Hey thanks for the photos, with so much work still being carried out are they sure they wanna launch it?? Will you be there?

Missy said...

I just got a msg from H&M about the opening! lol wouldn't 6ub there until everything is open.

Anonymous said...

I was excited about the soft opening until I saw the pictures. I'ma wait 'til December...

Anonymous said...

Eh, Carrefour is French!

I'm amazed at things being built from the scratch in the desert. Wow.

Abid said...

@Zhu

Carrefour is present in a lot of countries outside of France (China, Middle east, Africa, South America I think, etc).

RiaMH said...

whoa! you'll do anything for a story -- i thought you were in banking? lol. you're better than a lot of investigative journalists here. cool!

Anonymous said...

it's like u the doors were opened for u just like that .. barakat ramadhan XD

cool :-) hopefully we'll see the whole thing for real soon.

rosh said...

hahaha! that's just not brilliant effort, it's also quite nice of ya to give us that exclusive first look - huge shukrans! :)

The place looks quite exciting, am sure it's going to be THE place to hang out once finished. Reminds of me a town kinda not too far from BAH...DXB hmmm?

Broke Saudi said...

That was hilarious!

soso said...

loool these picture are illegal :P:P