What's fun to do or see in San Jose? I'm heading down there with my sister this weekend to explore. I'm relatively new to the bay and she lives in SF, but doesn't extend far beyond there normally, so we make a point to go exploring the bay area every now and again. Previously, we've gone to the pinball museum in Alameda, did touristy bullshit in SF like Pier 39, checked out Pacifica and now it's time to see what San Jose has got.
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SF BayGaf
- Thread starter PseudoKirby
- Start date
Only kind of FGC but might as well be a different community, but there's usually a few Smash events per week in the Bay Area that you can find if you join the NorCal Facebook groups. Foundry, Super South Bay Sundays, Bay Area Monthlies, Golden Bairs, etc.
JonathanNemo
Member
Japantown's nice.
K1 Speed is worth the reservation, drive Go-Karts around an indoor track in Santa Clara and compete with each other and/or for best times that week.
Great America is a theme park that exists. It ain't Hershey Park or Disneyland, but it's present!
Technically Santana Row is an attraction too but it's never really appealed to me. Too rich person outdoor mallsy.
FlexMentallo
Member
If you are prepared to wait in line for an hour after the hour drive from SF you can get some awesome Santouka ramen in San Jose. The Mitsuwa strip mall is solid if you like JPN food. Coming from Seattle the long wait for Santouka deeply offended me and Mitsuwa was no better than Uwajimaya in Seattle or the Sawtelle JPN
stores in LA. It did the job, not worth the drive.
I got lost and drove around downtown San Jose going to Mitsuwa, and it looked like the typical bland side of Cali. Is there hidden awesome to check out?
Also as an SF newbie I'll take all recommendations. So far I have done a bunch of movies at the magical Alamo, Mission Chinese, El Farolito, Meh-nsho Ramen, Tony's awesome Pizza and a bunch of local stuff around Civic Center & Hayes St.
Oh, also the crazy Korean ladies running Chelsea Place that gamble shots with the patrons. Awesome stuff. Went with a bunch of game dev friends during GDC.
stores in LA. It did the job, not worth the drive.
I got lost and drove around downtown San Jose going to Mitsuwa, and it looked like the typical bland side of Cali. Is there hidden awesome to check out?
Also as an SF newbie I'll take all recommendations. So far I have done a bunch of movies at the magical Alamo, Mission Chinese, El Farolito, Meh-nsho Ramen, Tony's awesome Pizza and a bunch of local stuff around Civic Center & Hayes St.
Oh, also the crazy Korean ladies running Chelsea Place that gamble shots with the patrons. Awesome stuff. Went with a bunch of game dev friends during GDC.
JonathanNemo
Member
Are you interested in bail bonds?
Do you work for a Google?
Even if your answers are "no", it's the part of the Bay that I most enjoy living in.
I can't say it's a touristy place, though there is a Japanese Friendship Garden that I forgot to mention. If you like to destress and go out for peaceful walks, there's plenty of little niches here for that.
If you'd rather have noise and parties, well, night life here ain't super great, go back up north while you still can. Or hell, just keep going south-ish to Santa Cruz and check out the beaches.
There are other places in the South Bay for ramen that are really good like orenchi and kotetsu
Ken Ken is my favorite ramen place in SF. I like the lunchtime curry too
I've never waited in line for ramen at santouka. It sounds like you just went at a really bad time. also idk how you ended up in downtown San Jose when santouka is off of 280 and Saratoga in a pretty suburby area near Santa Clara. I'm also perplexed as to why you drove to the South Bay when there's plenty of decent ramen places in sf
Tbh San Jose is one of the few places in the Bay Area that has any semblance of a soul since you can still survive down here as an artist. I'd rather hang out at the ritz, paper plane or cafe stritch with people that I actually know than wait in line at a club in SF to see a dj.
People who say there's nothing here either just aren't looking or just don't care. Have they ever been to an ugwa show or a first Friday? You know that current tattoo opened a Star Wars themed show tonight? Or that drive like jehu played at the ritz last month? or that breezy excursion used to have mortal kombat weeklies at their warehouse? Drink and draw at Art boutiki? There's shit always going on.
End rant I guess
there's the obvious shit like the tech museum, San Jose museum of art. It should be noted that the South Bay is more than just San Jose. check out the various downtowns in the area, downtown Campbell, downtown mountain view and downtown Palo Alto, downtown Los gatos (oak and rye for amazing pizza and drinks) and downtown Willow Glen. If you like art theres the cantor, the Anderson collection near Stanford. Downtown San Jose has the previously mentioned museum of art, anno domini, works San Jose and kallied. Downtown SJ has San Pedro square if you want to kick it and grab food and a drink, and right around the corner is afk lounge which is kind of a high end cyber cafe with an emphasis on group gaming. For arcade high scores is a good time. Going to the berryessa and Capitol flea markets is a fun pastime of mine and also a good source of fresh and cheap produce
http://www.metroactive.com/ Always has a good rundown of cool shit going on down here. it's always a crapshoot recommending stuff to people I don't know especially since my tastes run cheap and revolve around food and alcohol
charlequin
Banned
*crickets*
Um.... There's a very good beer-and-sausages place downtown called Original Gravity. I haven't been back since they renamed it, but there's a cocktail bar called Haberdasher which (in its previous incarnation as Single Barrel) was Actually Great and not just Great For The South Bay. The Municipal Rose Garden is really nice. There's a really fancy playground called the Rotary PlayGarden. Um....
BeardyChan
Member
If you have any interest in Japanese arcade machines Round 1 at Eastridge is really nice. Outside of the other things listed previously there isn't much to do and see in the southbay which sucks.
I find myself always driving out of the southbay to go on little day trips though since everything is so close. Feel like going to the beach head over to highway 1 and pick one. Want to go to napa for a bite to eat and drink there's that. It's kind of nice having all of those options an hour or so within where you live. But then you have to come home...
I find myself always driving out of the southbay to go on little day trips though since everything is so close. Feel like going to the beach head over to highway 1 and pick one. Want to go to napa for a bite to eat and drink there's that. It's kind of nice having all of those options an hour or so within where you live. But then you have to come home...
If you want to see a minor league baseball game, you can see the San Jose Giants play.
That Santouka location is always ridiculously packed. My experiences at other locations like Arlington Heights and SoCal have not been as bad as that location.
That Santouka location is always ridiculously packed. My experiences at other locations like Arlington Heights and SoCal have not been as bad as that location.
Yeah I live by Mitsuwa and that's not Downtown rofl. Also Santouka has lines sometimes but they're usually not very long. It depends on when you go though. And it can be hard to find a seat.
BeardyChan
Member
Tip for going to Santoka is to go around 2pm on a weekday and 11am on a weekend. That is the best times to go there and not have to wait at all. But even then they keep selling out of the cold ramen so I haven't been able to try it yet.
Santouka definately needs to get another location. Having it in a cramped little food court, and right beside a grocery store/book store... ya need more room! Sometimes I go to the ramen place next to it if it's way to busy. Needs more expansion... just like Kula in Cupertino. At least, I hope now the wait still isn't around 2 hours.
the wait at kula sucks, but in reality it's closer to an hour since a ton of people leave before their name is called. i think they have a new system now where you can just put your number down and they'll text you
Last time I went, I didn't enjoy it although I went around lunch time.
Nothing really to see or do.
I prefer SF's.
Looks like the Friendship Garden is worthwhile if you want to see something Japanese themed.
Anybody do the Northbound commute to Menlo Park from lets say, North San Jose/Santa Clara? Looking for options for a new place, and was thinking about trying something southward instead of northward, but am wary of the traffic that way. Currently commute from San Mateo and it's 20-30 minutes, but 15 on a good day/no traffic, so I could stomach something like that for sure.
JonathanNemo
Member
Basically there will be traffic accidents in the morning and the afternoon, Tuesdays being the worst. If you don't have a shuttle or a carpool arrangement it's a slow, tough commute unless you're prepared for it.
Another alternative is to ride via motorcycle. Less safe, but you can zip by cars piled up on 280.
I've also heard some folks attempt a regular commute from Menlo Park <-> Fremont because they ran out of time to find a place as an employee of Facebook while they were on temporary housing. That's nuts to me. Fremont itself is even more sleepy than SJ, and the commute's even longer both ways.
Sirpopopop
Member
Just moved to the Bay Area. When's the next meetup?
Anyone here familiar with Stadium Sport's Bar's weekly SFV nights in Sunnyvale?
It's a bit of a drive from where I work, but I was considering checking it out tonight.
It's a bit of a drive from where I work, but I was considering checking it out tonight.
Good to hear that it's legit. Never really been to any locals before aside from the couple times I went to the Foundry, but even then I didn't touch the Street Fighter side so this'll be totally new to me.
Yeah, Brentwood seems pretty far considering most of the FGC events seem to be in the South Bay. Seems like the East Bay scene is pretty dead for the most part, so I'll likely have to get used to going down to the South Bay for any SFV meetups outside of SF.
m_shortpants
Member
I go from South San Jose to Redwood City daily
Kill me
Kill me
I'll be driving from work (Pleasanton) and then back to Hayward. Not TOO bad, but I still wish we had more stuff going on in the East Bay.
Oh yeah I forgot about this that recently started.
oh awesome this is super close to my place
Whereabouts in the bay are you in?
I wouldn't mind doing another meet in SF or Berkeley sometime.
Tornix
Member
It's pretty dead for sure. The only weekly in my area is at Phoenix Games in Concord on Tuesdays.
https://www.facebook.com/events/153861545016790/?ti=cl
NintendoGal
Member
Yikes, I feel bad for everyone who has to commute. Besides people who don't leave their homes for work, I probably have the shortest commute or one of the shortest anyway.
Sirpopopop
Member
Didn't realize so much time had passed and it reopened. I need to check that out!
Have you gone to Folsom St. Foundry yet?
Yes I will mention it every chance I get in this thread.
Won't be able to go this week but there's another Rocket League tournament in a few I can't wait for.
chief suhr finally fired after a 27-yo woman who allegedly stole a car is fatally shot by sfpd. fuck him
http://kron4.com/2016/05/19/sfpd-ch...-string-of-deadly-officer-shootings-scandals/
http://kron4.com/2016/05/19/sfpd-ch...-string-of-deadly-officer-shootings-scandals/
Looks like Google Fiber will begin construction in San Jose this summer.
Three years.
http://www.mercurynews.com/bay-area...ber-releases-san-jose-construction-plan-major
Three years.
http://www.mercurynews.com/bay-area...ber-releases-san-jose-construction-plan-major
"God's Beard!"
Member
I moved from SF to Hayward last year because I work from home and there's not a lot of extra benefit to being in the city, and even though my rent was cut in half I do miss it. That said, there's a boba shop right by my new place and there wasn't when I lived in Nob Hill.
The Thai food just isn't as good. The upside is that I live within walking distance to a BART station if I ever want to go back, but the BART gets kinda crazy if you pick the wrong times.
The Thai food just isn't as good. The upside is that I live within walking distance to a BART station if I ever want to go back, but the BART gets kinda crazy if you pick the wrong times.
Yesss
broz0rs
Member
Ed Lee is the man. Fired the most powerful police chief in the entire state, and replaced him with a black officer.
i disagree, ed lee is the worst...sorry
people have been calling for suhr's replacement/resign since alex nieto got killed and lee refused to do it.
i guess the pressure finally got too much. it only took some racist texts and the sfpd becoming a death squad
Sirpopopop
Member
I haven't gone there yet. I guess I'll need to check it out.
Seeing signs for that every day as I drive down. It's always a zoo though, dunno if I'm gonna make it this year. Parking is pretty impossible, advise anybody going there to try to find an alternate route if possible.
Yet he remains in office. Shameful.
finalflame
Banned
Anyone going to see Viceroy at Mezzanine tonight? I'll be there.