bigevilempire

We all know too well how a good session of retail therapy can perk things up. Seeing that it has been a while since my last shopping outing, I could not say no when my friends suggesting heading to outlets over the weekend.

The destination was the Gilroy Premium outlets, south of San Jose. It has an impressive array of 145 outlet stores under big brand names like Adidas, Nike, Calvin Klein, Kenneth Cole, Hugo Boss etc. Basically a one-stop shopping area for people to do some serious heart-thumping action-packed shopping.

It was a good solid 75 miles from Berkeley to Gilroy, around one and a half hour worth of driving. We rented a car at a nearby car rental company. There are seven of us going for the shopping spree and I was hoping to get a MPV or SUV for the day. Unfortunately for the passengers, the only suitable vehicle they had was a Chrysler 300. Even though the Chrysler 300 was a sedan, it was huge, probably the biggest sedan I ever drove. Nevertheless, it was still an amazing feat how we squeezed seven people into a sedan.

The drive was pretty smooth and easy. The iPhone came in handy for sure, loving the new Enhanced Maps features (upgraded in the 1.1.3 update). The latest update allows the iPhone to use information from surrounding WIFI base stations and cell towers to triangulate your current location; basically empowering the iPhone as a GPS.

Having said that, do not get your hopes up. The accuracy is definitely not on par as that of a conventional GPS but good enough for anyone to figure out where they are. I have depended on the iPhone on countless occasions on trips. When it comes down to navigation and getting directions from point to point, the iPhone definitely has my votes.

We kicked off the shopping at the outlet with lunch at In-N-Out Burgers. Always good to have a hearty meal before any shopping. The Gilroy Premium outlets had a total of four buildings. It was incredibly huge and needless to say, crowded. We spent the next six hours hitting outlets after outlets. The range of outlets there was simply amazing and most of the items were really cheap as claimed.

My spoils of war for the entire day were: a Nike Fit Dry jacket, a Tommy Hilfiger long-sleeve shirt and black sweater, and Calvin Klein grey pants. The total damage was around $120, pretty controlled and would have been higher if Hugo Boss had the right sizes for what I wanted!

Dinner was italian pasta at The Old Spaghetti Factory over in downtown San Jose. Initially, we were struggling with the confusing freeways from Gilroy to San Jose but once again the iPhone came true for us and we managed to get to San Jose in time.

The day ended when we got back home at 11 o'clock. It was tiring but I really enjoyed the driving, and it was sure fun handling the Chrysler 300. It was a long day but no complaints!