I love California. I have been to every county in the state, and I am at least somewhat familiar with many places in California. I love touring around and getting to know my state better.
However, although I have been to many places in the state, there are some places where I have spent very little time. I never find time to get to touring Fresno, Modesto, and Bakersfield, for example. Probably because I never hear anything good about those places.
I have also neglected San Jose. One thing I find odd is that I almost never hear anything about San Jose, except in brief passing reference to the Sharks or Silicon Valley. Here we have the third largest city in California, 10th largest in the nation, and not one peep outta San Jose.
I would like to take a weekend road trip and visit San Jose just to see what’s there. So, please tell me about San Jose. Is it worth seeing? What would I see? What is there to do? Is it culturally and historically interesting? What other parts of the state compare to San Jose? What is the “feel” of the city?
Here’s what my imagination tells me, coupled with some very brief visits… Even though it’s big, there’s not much going on and little culture to speak of. It’s like a huge corporate business park with as much flavor as Irvine. Am I wrong?
Pizza Chicago, Mission and San Fernando. Second-best pizza I’ve ever eaten (first being Pinnochio’s over in Cambridge, MA). I’m in Berkeley and would call it worth the trip easily, if I had a car. Public transit takes much too long. If you hang around in that general five-or-ten-block radius, sometimes there are interesting things going on. You have to do some scratching to find the culture.
It can also be quite interesting to walk around at the tiny hours of the morning - it’s really a bit of a ghost town, a whole bunch of different identities that buried each other without waiting for the old ones to actually die, so you can see a whole bunch of different slices of life jammed up against each other. That’s not for everyone, though, and it certainly isn’t worth a trip.
The library (attached to the SJState campus) has fantastic booksales. Maybe worth a trip, if you buy a lot.
Fanime happens every May, and I had a blast there this year. It’s great people-watching, even if you don’t like anime. Not worth the trip from Sacramento on its own, though, unless you do.
If you visit before or immediately after Christmas, there’s a cute little Holiday festival going on downtown in the Plaza de Cesar Chavez right now, including an outdoor ice skating rink. The Tech Museum, which is right across the street from the plaza is worth a visit.
My favorite thing in San Jose isn’t in San Jose at all, but on a 4000’ mountaintop outside of town, Lick Observatory. Perhaps not a recommended drive if you get carsick easily, but on a clear day the views are very nice. A drive in the opposite direction from San Jose over the hills, through the redwoods to Santa Cruz is pretty neat too.
I’ve been here 8 years and I’ve never done the Mystery House. $25 a person just seems like a lot to see a crazy mansion. But people are always there… Then there’s the Mystery Spot, somewhere outside Santa Cruz, which I’ve never done either.
If you want to do some people watching, don’t bother with downtown, try Santana Row, an upscale outdoor mall instead.
As much as the city fathers would like San Jose to be something other than just a gigantic blob of sprawl (and extremely overpriced sprawl at that), there really isn’t much there there.
That’s about right. It’s not as bad as Irvine, in that there are a few cool things scattered here and there. The Tech Museum is good, the Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum is pretty cool (and right next to a very nice public rose garden), there’s a good used bookstore I like (Recycled Books). But for the most part, it’s pretty lifeless. I think this is partly because we’re so close to some very cool places. There’s not much incentive to make San Jose cool when you can just drive to San Francisco or Berkeley or some of the nice little neighborhoods on the Peninsula.
And I wouldn’t waste your money on the Winchester House. I saw it when I was 10 and thought it was pretty cool, but even then was sort of surprised by how little there was to it. “Look! Stairs going up to the ceiling! Wooooo!!!”
I grew up in Silicon Valley.
San Jose kind of sucks, if you ask me. The nightlife is totally lame. The restaurants are middling to mediocre. The breweries aren’t all they’re cracked up to be. Santana Row is expensive and full of pretentious idiots. The Winchester Mystery House is a rip-off.
I poo-poo things like Winchester House. I would get nothing out of that. I’ve seen it on California’s Gold or some similar show. That’s good enough for me.
I’ve been up there at least 100 times on business. San Jose, Milpitas, Fremont, etc. Yuck. Irvine of the North isn’t a bad description at all but it is a little less sucky than Irvine.
I lived in San Jose until I was 15. It’s Ok. But like others said, rather boring. I never go down there. Sacramento is much nicer. And if I’m driving that far, I’m going to San Francisco or the Peninsula.
The one place I went while I lived there that I really thought was cool was the Rosicrucian Egytian Museum. We went as a Girl Scout field trip. I was like 12 and totally amazed. My son is studying ancient civilizations for history this year…we will be making a trip to see the mummies and other great stuff they have.
