Palo Alto Shopping

Stanford Shopping Center is a collection of upscale boutiques and department stores. The center hosts four giants: Macy's, Nordstrom, Bloomingdale's and Neiman Marcus. As these name implies, shopping trips here can drain your wallet very effectively.

These department stores are surrounded with a selection of specialty stores that cater the most areas of living: books, children, cosmetics, gifts, jewelry, clothing (almost half of the stores), shoes and so forth.

All the shops are on one floor -- or in fact, there are no floors at all, as the shops are located on alleys that grow trees and flowers. This is not your typical mall, but an elaborated version for places with good weather around the year.

There are also a wide variety of restaurants, but surprisingly enough only one fast food joint (McDonald's).

Sony Style is the flagship store for Sony products. Stanford Shopping Center has a smallish Sony Style store near Neiman Marcus department store. The store sells the whole range of Sony gadgets, including (but not limited to) laptops, walkmans, TVs, DVD players, headphones and monitors.

The items are of high quality, as usual with Sony. This is also reflected in the pricetag. Be aware that Sony has traditionally followed its own paths with ports and other interoperability features. You may end up being vendor-locked to them. The positive flipside is that Sony's gadgets work very well together.

Apple has a miniscule retail store in Stanford Shopping Center. Despite the size, the store hosts a wide variety of Apple computers, displays, iPODs and accessories.

The store is designed to resemble Apple hardware: stainless steel walls and white ceiling and floors. The items are placed spaciously so you are able to study them in relatively peaceful settings.

The staff is very helpful and you do not have to be a techie to get good service. There is also a small "Genius Bar" for solving your technical issues.

If you are a computer freak like me and are visiting in Silicon Valley (or Texas), check out the local Fry's Electronics outlet. These huge stores are heaven for buying computers, gadgets and electronics. They sell also appliances, televisions, fridges and so forth, but you usually cannot fit those into a suitcase.

The prices are okay, maybe not the best in the Bay area. Cheap enough anyhow to make you spend too much and maybe buy something that you really do not need.

All stores have been designed to reflect some theme, such as wild west or ancient Egypt. The Palo Alto store is a western looking. The interiors are, to be perfectly honest, a bit tacky but funny.

When you think of the typical American mall, alot of images of older buildings with many different stores comes to mind. A simple hallway seperating very common looking inner "rooms" for the shops.

Stanford Shopping Center is hardly your ordinary mall. It has many high end shops, as well as plenty of restaurants and niche California spots.

If you are looking for lunch, or to pick up a new broach, I would highly recommend the Stanford Shopping Center

What to buy: Apple IPOD
Neiman Marcus Cookies
Nordstroms
GAP Clothing

What to pay: $1 up to $10000

Normally, I would put this tip under a restaurant, but if you looked around this place long enough, you would not see the restaurant itself.

What you will see however is a group of people around lunch time lined up for a fresh deli sandwich. People from all over town come in and wait to get a deli sandwich here.

They have many different meats, cheeses and some great fresh baked breads here.

You can also utilize the whole market to get anything else you need with your sandwiches.

What to buy: Deli Sandwich made your way and some Maui Onion chips.

What to pay: 5.99 plus drink and chips.

At the Stanford Shopping Center, there's just about everything you could ever want, all in one location, including Macy's, Neiman-Marcus, Bloomingdale's, Banana Republic, J. Crew and J. Jill, The Gap, Haagen Dazs, The Pottery Barn, Tommy Bahama, Godiva Chocolate, Crate & Barrel, and bebe. I liked the window display at Oilily, a children's shop with brightly colored, whimsical clothing.

The thing that impressed me the most about this shopping center was the family atmosphere. There were so many families --sometimes three generations on an outing together -- out and about and enjoying the sunshine. Giggling children swarmed around the frog fountain or pulled their parents toward shops selling toys, books, and ice cream. It gave my spirits a lift just walking around and watching all the people.

This is a very tourist-friendly shopping center. They offer services such as currency exchange and package shipping. If you're planning to visit, order a Preferred Traveler Package (savings booklet and shopping center directory) through their website. Information about the center is available in Japanese, French, German and Spanish.

Take a walk down University Avenue and the neighboring streets. - there are all kinds of fascinating little businesses to hold your interest.

We saw a Thai restaurant, a used bookstore, a Swenson's ice cream parlor, a pizzeria amusingly named Pizza My Heart, a diner known locally for its milkshakes, a natural foods store, an independent theater running an old Cary Grant movie, a gourmet Italian market, and a florist that sold bamboo and other plants whose stems had been intricately twisted together. There was also a children's bookstore I'd like to visit sometime when it's open.