By CISL San Diego student, Nicolas Sayo (France)
If you are a shopping addict or if you just like shopping, San Diego is the ideal place. There are clothes for everybody : fashionistas, bargain hunters, sportsmen, etc…
San Ysidro, 40 minutes south of San Diego by trolley, is my favorite shopping destination. San Ysidro, just across the border from Tijuana, Mexico, is a great place to shop with many factory outlet stores where you can buy casual clothes in many different fashions. The big Nike shop is a good place to start, and afterwards you can try your luck at the Aeropostale store (I bought a tee-shirt and a polo for only 39 dollars!), or the Vans store (2 tee-shirts for 15 dollars). There are other interesting shops like Tommy Hilfinger, The Gap, and the Cap New Era store. There are also lots of promotions such as “buy one product and then get 50% off of the second.” So San Ysidro is very attractive destination for people who like good clothes with low prices!
Another excellent shopping destination is the Fashion Valley Mall, a more upscale place for the shopping addict, featuring many famous designer boutiques. The prices are more expensive than San Ysidro, but less expensive than in Europe. Fashion Valley is easy to get to by trolley from downtown (20 minutes). Fashion Valley Mall is very big! Here you can find many chic labels such as Hoolister and Abercrombie & Fitch, as well as electronics brands like Sony and Apple, where you can try out many products and receive advise from the sales staff. So if you go to the United States looking to buy the latest fashion collections and brands, San Diego is the place to go!
![giant_dipper2[1]](http://cisl.edu/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/giant_dipper213-150x150.jpg "giant_dipper2[1]")
When I first got off from the bus in Mission Boulevard my attention was captured by the huge Roller Coaster located few steps from the coast. What I didn’t know was that the Giant Dipper Roller Coaster is just one of the several rides you can find in Belmont Park. Belmont Park is San Diego’s beachfront amusement park & entertainment center located on the surf and sand in Mission Beach. Visitors can enjoy traditional and contemporary park rides, ride the waves in the Wave House, play mini golf and much more. The “Giant Dipper” is one of two original oceanfront roller coasters still operating on the west coast. It was built in the 1925 and has been restored for all to experience the excitement of its quick drops, steep hills, sharp curves and high speeds. Instead the “Beach Bluster” is the newest ride which swings passengers 60 feet in the air to 120 degrees in both directions. “Chaos” takes passengers on a spinning, upside down, three-dimensional adventure and there are a lot of supplementary rides that you have to try personally.
machines, wave pools and surf machines whose purpose is to recreate the thrills and challenge of the ocean. Contrariwise if for you it’s not the right day to experience something new and you simply want to relax you can swim in the swimming pool present in the park. Apart from the Wave House one of my favourite attractions is the Laser Maze. Inside this maze you have to navigate through a web of lasers going over and down them as quickly as possible to arrive to the end of the maze without being hit. It’s a perfect game to challenge friends. The convenient thing about Belmont Park is that you can decide to buy a ticket for all the attractions ( if you want to try all) or to buy just the tickets for the attractions you are interested in, it’s your choice. Outside the park you can lie down in the sun, drink or eat something in the numerous places situated near the beach or decide to practise some activities.
the wonderful sightseeing, the beautiful houses and reach Pacific Beach in a easy way just doing a little bit of activity which is good also for the body. Mission Beach is in conclusion the right place to spend a day having fun or relaxing yourself not so far from downtown.
