Shopping

If shopping is your hobby, passion, indulgence, or sport of choice, San Diego will satisfy you. The area’s malls, shops, stores, and districts are seemingly endless and eclectic. We think San Diego has some of the most diverse shopping on the planet. The choices might even be a bit overwhelming. So in this chapter we’ve included need-to-know shopping information and then presented the best in shopping experiences. As shoppers at heart, we’ve put a lot of enthusiasm behind the lists we give you in this chapter. The places we’ve included are the ones we tell our friends not to miss.

Like the malls. Some, like the Fashion Valley Mall in Mission Valley, could easily become an addiction. Like the shopping districts—including Adams Avenue, with its blend of coffee pubs, new and used bookstores, and antiques emporiums. You’ll find information on the Carlsbad Company Stores, too, where you can find specialty stores from Donna Karan to Ralph Lauren—not to mention Starbucks and Garden State Bagels. The shopping centers are often a blend of specialty stores like these, national chains such as Sears, and discount stores like Marshalls Department Store. That information is here, too.

We’ve included our favorite stores specializing in resale and consignment clothing, and then added swap meets and a few flea markets. Half the fun of shopping in these specialty places is that you never quite know what you’ll find, and if you’ll need it, until you see it.

We’ve also given you a taste of booksellers and antiques stores in the area. Our list is far from a telephone-book tabulation, though. Use it as a basic introduction only. If you’re really hooked on antiquing, we recommend that you visit some of the stores and get a newsletter (we’ll tell you about that, too), which should lead you to even more stores to try. And while you’re off on your hunt, you might want to scan the listings for other possibilities. If you’ve traveled the hour and a half to East County’s Julian Shopping District, for example, you may find some surprises to take home along with your antiques. This quaint mountain town is heaped with little shops that sell country collectibles and crafts—not to mention fudge, ice cream, apple pie, and apple cider.

After organizing all our favorite stores into tidy categories, we discovered something was lacking, so we created a new section. It’s called “Unique and Intriguing.” Here you will find stores that may tickle your fancy with unusual or hard-to-find offerings, like those little cookies you nibbled in Vienna, the right color chaps for your western-wear outfit, or perhaps a fragrant bouquet of dried herbs.

Within each shopping category you’ll find the usual regional divisions. For ideas about places to play and relax in the areas of the county where you plan to shop, you might want to peruse those regions in our chapters on parks, recreation, attractions, nightlife, or restaurants. In fact, your companion or significant other might just insist on it!

Shopping - The Arts

It’s a long-standing myth that San Diego is bereft of culture. Take it from us—that may have been true 25 years ago, but it simply isn’t the case any longer and hasn’t been for some time. Once an idea is established, however, it’s hard to convince folks otherwise. So we’ll just let San Diego’s fine arts establishments and performers speak for themselves. You’ll soon see that no matter what region of the county you’re visiting, you’ll find an abundance of galleries, museums, classical music performances, theaters, and much more.

In North County Inland, Escondido, for example, has its own California Center for the Arts. And small but distinguished theaters are found throughout the county. Within the city of San Diego is everything you could possibly look for in the arts.

During its season the San Diego Opera features such internationally renowned singers as Ewá Podle´s [PD: Accent over the “s” in Podles] and Cecilia Bartoli. The Old Globe Theatre in Balboa Park, modeled after the original in London, not only continues with its cornerstone of Shakespearean plays, but has also presented everything from Molière to Mamet, from Electra to Damn Yankees. The La Jolla Playhouse has established itself by premiering several plays that have gone on to Broadway.

Around the county are hundreds of art galleries where you can find paintings, prints, and sculptures by emerging as well as established artists. In the East County are galleries featuring Western art from the likes Olaf Wieghorst and Remington; in La Jolla and North County you’ll find African, Aboriginal, Scandinavian, Indian, Chinese, and Egyptian art—just about any type that piques your interest.

Traveling troupes have discovered that San Diego audiences enthusiastically embrace touring performances such as Broadway revues, ballet, and dance shows like Riverdance and Stomp.

The film scene has started to emerge in San Diego, too, and several film festivals make this their home. San Diegans have long enjoyed the Latino and Jewish Film Festivals; in 1998 the San Diego International Film Festival was added to the mix. All draw filmmakers from all over the world, giving locals the chance to learn more about the history of filmmaking and to see some off-the-beaten-path movies.

San Diego has also begun to attract a growing enclave of writers. Victor Villaseñor, author of the best-selling Rain of Gold, is a native of North County Coastal near Oceanside. Joseph Waumbaugh, author of The Onion Field and numerous other best-selling novels, has adopted San Diego as his hometown, and scores of lesser-known but highly successful writers pen their works around the county.

You can see that San Diego indeed is no slouch when it comes to the fine arts. With unlimited time and an unlimited budget, you could be out every evening attending a play, a concert, a musical, or an art film. So when someone bemoans San Diego’s lack of cultural accoutrements, you can just smile knowingly and head to the opera while the uninformed spend another night in front of the tube.

In this chapter we’ll give you a comprehensive description of all San Diego has to offer in the way of arts. We’ll tell you where the best clusters of galleries are, where the best art-film houses are, and how to get discount tickets. Like everywhere else in San Diego, dress tends to be on the casual side, even for nighttime performances of the symphony and the opera (opening night excepted!). Although only the most daring wear jeans to these events, tuxedos and full-length evening gowns are nearly as uncommon, and most patrons of the arts choose comfortable and casual yet elegant clothing.

For current listings of performances, festivals, and special gallery shows, check the “Night and Day” section of the San Diego Union-Tribune, their online version at SignonSanDiego.com, or the “Calendar” section of the free San Diego Reader, which can be picked up in convenience stores, libraries, and bookstores all over the county. Both newspapers come out on Thursday.