what is VIPS anyway?

At the request of my father, he wanted to see the front of my house and my neighborhood. It has been kind of rainy here and when he tells me to take pictures it is usually dark. I am going to get pictures of my host family soon, but they are having a lot of family issues and I don't want to bug them for a picture at the moment. So this is the front of my house:
I have no idea why this is being underlined...but anyway....It is quite amusing because I had a very funny conversation with my host "dad" and he was telling me that the neighbor across the street sometimes likes to park their car under "his" tree. Today, he got to park in the shade (his car is the nissan altima) but he gets very angry when anyone parks in front of his tree. The truck is their daughters. She has been coming to visit a lot lately to be with her mom. At night they park in the driveway which is behind the gates. We live on the corner.
If I look to the left there is a park:
If I go to my right toward the main streets, this is what I see.
At that corner I always go left. From this ^ corner I can see the main street where I take cabs or busses everywhere I go. I also take these taxi's called pulmonias. They basically look like a golf cart. But anyway, no one here uses street names. And when they do they are super long and you will never remember them. So basically you say its near [fill in the building name]. The first day I got here, my host mom was telling me how to get around and she was like whenever you want to come home tell the driver that you want to go to VIPS. and at first, I was like "i have never heard that word ever in my life, i have no idea what she is talking about" The next day she pointed it out. She was like "there is VIPS" and i was like omg and I let time pass cuz I didn't want to ask questions and look like an idiot....so on the day that she was driving me to school she pointed it out AGAIN. and in spanish, i was like VIPS WHAT IS VIPS?! hahaha and she laughed and laughed and it is basically a restaurant and a little convenience store and I cleared it up and there is only one in Mazatlan and it is very well-known. So, that is my life. A donde vas? Quiero ir al VIPS!!!!!