Gilroy has a huge collection of outlet stores in one of the Chelsea Premium Outlet’s centers. The outlets are located conveniently just next to highway 101 from San Francisco to Los Angeles, so they should not be that hard to find.

There are over 150 stores with various pricepoints. You can find real deals in some stores and others make you wonder why people are buying that crap. The center is so big that it is better explored by car — the shops are divided into both sides of a busy road.

If you are looking for designer fashion, Gilroy might not be the ideal outlet center for you. There are a few of these, such as DKNY and Hugo Boss. The center is strong in day to day wear and children clothing. Stores such as Banana Republic outlet and GAP outlet have good value for the money.

www.premiumoutlets.com, 681 Leavesley Road, Gilroy, CA, USA, +1 408 842 3729

I’m writing this in Lufthansa plane from San Francisco to Munich. I’m too cheap to buy WLAN access on the plane, so you’ll see this when I’ve got back home.

Week in Santana Row
Santana Row area in San Jose was extremely pleasant, albeit a small new development area that had several boutique fashion shops, good restaurants, a couple coffeehouses, a few art galleries and Borders bookstore. There is also a huge mall across the Stevens Creek Boulevard, but it’s already in Santa Clara. I missed only a good big computer store. There are Good Guys and Best Buy, but both are only for the mainstream stuff.

The days were spent in work and during evenings I was so tired that I just visited a few of the shops and then went back to hotel and crashed into bed. I woke up between three and five in the morning and had to spent the morning going through emails from Finland. On Wednesday evening I had some more leisure time and I visited most of the shops in the mall. I found the pair of shoes that I tried to buy in vain in Boston, New York and Washington DC last autumn.

The hotel, Valencia, has complimentary Internet access in every room, so I saved a hefty amount of bucks using Skype to call home. Some day I have to try using Skype up in the air, as it’s much cheaper than the satellite phones.
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San Francisco Museum of Modern Art is surprisingly good art museum; both the collections and the museum itself is really worth a visit.

The collections cannot boast with a huge selection of works from celebrated artists, but it is big enough to portray the essence in modern art. The exhibitions follow the same quality as the permanent collection, and they are usually worth the extra price.

The museum is located conveniently in the city centre, in a walking distance from the major shops. There is also a big museum store and a cafe in the building.

SFMoMA is located in the South of Market (SOMA) area of downtown at 151 Third Street between Mission and Howard Streets.

www.sfmoma.org, 151 Third Street, San Francisco, CA, USA, +1 415 357 4000

Apple Store is the only computer store I have seen people queueing into without any special happenings or discounts. The store is very light and displayed items have enough room around them. The whole shop has an exclusive mark — probably something that Apple has trying to achieve.

The ground floor has the gadgets: laptops, desktops, displays, iPODs and accessories. The big screens are impressive, and other stuff sold is also very designed.

The upper floor hosts books and a small theater for lectures and other shows. Note that the items are sold with the street price, so this is not an outlet. The prices are the same as in the web.

www.apple.com, 1 Stockton Street, San Francisco, CA, USA, +1 415 392 0202

One thing that I truly hate in the US customer service is that the clerks view you and your shopping as a transaction. They are more than happy to serve you until you have paid — the transaction is closed — and suddenly they are no longer interested in you or just disappear.

In some places you get very friendly and personal service, you start to like the clerk — until he or she stops responding. In several other occasions the service has been very friendly, but totally impersonal: the words seems to come in playback from a recording, all the same rehearsed questions and comments in monotonic voice: “How are you? Did you find everything you were looking for? Ten fifty five. Out of twenty. Eight forty five. Thanks for shopping XXX. Have a nice day.”

When the recording ends, I’m still busily placing the notes and receipt bag to my wallet and the items are on the counter in a bag — but there is nobody to answer to me when I say “thanks or goodbye”. The body might be there, but not the person.

I feel that this is degrading.

Hotel Triton claims to be a groovy hotel, but despite the funky looking tables and cupboard, I did not see much of grooviness in the actual room. The rooms have been renovated a few years ago, and they start to show some aging already. The design elements are just attached on the surface and otherwise the room is very basic US hotel; ugly walls, stained wall-to-wall carpet and inadequately sound-proofed windows.

The staff is very friendly and the service is swift. The location is excellent, just a few blocks from the Union Square and at the other end of the Chinatown. The streets are noisy, especially during weekend nights, so try to get a room on the upper floors.

www.hoteltriton.com, 342 Grant Ave, San Francisco, CA, USA, +1 415 394 0500

Rotuaari is simply the best location to start shopping in Oulu, especially if you do not have a car at your disposal.

Rotuaari is part of Kirkkokatu, designated only for pedestrians. The street has shops on both sides — both boutiques and large stores, including Stockmann department store.

The place is very good for fashion shopping, but you can find also book, jewelry and music shops. There are a couple of cafés at the one end of the area. The biggest movie theater in Oulu can be found at the other end.

Rotuaari, Kirkkokatu x Kauppurienkatu, Oulu, Finland

I’m writing this in my hotel room in San Jose at 5:40 in the morning. Jetlag is a wonderful thing…

San Francisco in the morning
After I had written the previous travelogue piece, I prepared myself for going out — enjoyed a hot shower, packed camera and so forth — and started to walk the empty streets of the city. I visited Union Square and Powell street cable car station, walked on Market Street to Yerba Buena Gardens and SFMoMA, then back to the hotel. I didn’t find any decent looking diner so I ended up buying a couple wraps from 7-Eleven.

Back in the hotel, I had a futile attempt to sleep some more. After rolling almost an hour in the bed, I decided to check-out and begin shopping. I had made some notes about the business hours of various shops and the route was planned: first to Union Square and Borders (9AM), then to Yerba Buena Gardens and SFMoMA store (10AM), back to Market Street for Virgins and GAP, then to Apple Store and CompUSA (11AM) and finally to Banana Republic next to the hotel. I managed to keep the schedule and even had time to buy stuff and take pictures.
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