Day 7 - Shopping

In San Jose, the Bay area is very well known for its shopping. Now, I am not a big shopper, but Christmas is upon us and it wouldn't hurt for me to look around for a few things. In fact, I know that I needed a couple of pairs of jeans, so it was a good chance for me to pick up a couple of pairs.

We went to the Great Mall. This mall is huge, however, it is only one-storey tall. I'm not sure why they used up all of the land to build the mall so flat, instead of parking, but nonetheless, it might give you an idea of what this mall looked like.

Ellin needed a few things, and I wanted to look around. The first thing that I noticed was that in the food court, you were allowed to try free samples. By the time I walked around the food court, I almost ate enough to not want to eat anymore. The food was pretty good too. The second thing that I noticed was that Mall Cops actually have those stupid segways that you see in movies like Paul Blart: Mall Cop. I thought that this was a joke in that movie, but I guess its real.

Well, shopping isn't really all that interesting topic for me to talk about, but I did buy some jeans at the Levi's outlet store. These were the only things that I bought. I'm sure you girls would have been jealous as I know there were a lot of girly stores around that I know are popular. They were the outlet versions too, so you probably would get a good deal.

Day 6 - San Fran Again

On day 6, I no longer had a car, but I had Ellin to drive me around. Ellin had made some time to take me back to San Fransisco to see more of this beautiful coastal town. This time we went to go and see the California Academy of Sciences. This is a brand new museum that only opened last year, but there were many cool things to see since it is situation in Golden Gate park.

San Fransisco is about an hour away from San Jose if you wanted to know. It has a lot of touristy things to do, but it can be an expensive city too.

The California Academy of Sciences has a ton of things inside. It has a planetarium, a rain forest, an aquarium and other displays. The planetarium was neat as it was an imax-like presentation on our solar system. This particular movie was narrated by Whoopi Goldberg and described the life of stars and most notably our star, the Sun.

The Academy also had a built in rain forest complete with birds, fish, and other tropical animals. You were able to walk through the rain forest and observe the various animals inside. The most dangerous of animals, of course, are protected in tanks and display cases. Nonetheless, it was neat walking though such a display.

The aquarium was also pretty cool, but it lost some of its lustre from the fact that I went to the Monterey Bay Aquarium only a couple of days prior. The only exception to this rule was the albino alligator. It was something I definitely had not seen before.

After our trip to San Fran, Ellin and I headed back to San Jose so that we could meet Jer for dinner. We decided to go to japantown and went to a restaurant called Minato. Here, I had some food I had never had before. My Japanese food experience had been limited to Chicken Teriyaki, so it was a very nice experience to be able to try something a little bit different. The food was excellent, and I highly recommend it.

Day 5 - San Fransisco

On day 5, I still had the car, so I decided that it would be best if I got to spend some time in San Fransisco. There were a couple of things that I wanted to see there that peaked my interest.

The first thing was pretty nerdy of me. When I was a kid, I was a big fan of Full House, the television show. The opening scene shows about 5 houses in which it appears that the Tanner's actually lived in. These houses are actually a landmark now in San Fransisco just outside Alamo park. They call these houses the painted ladies, and I decided to go visit and take a picture.

The next thing was a trip along fisherman's wharf in San Fransisco. They have many boat tours and such that go around the island of Alcatraz or near the Golden Gate Bridge. The area also has a ton of shops and touristy things such as the famous street cars that San Fran is known for. I had decided that a trip to Alcatraz would be interesting and educational.

There is only one tour company that has the right to drop you off at Alcatraz. If you ever visit San Fran, please ensure that you go to Pier 33 to actually visit Alcatraz. All other cruise ships will simply cruise around the island, and you never get to experience the island in its truest form.

The first part of my tour on Alcatraz involved a ranger taking us around the island explaining some of the history of the island, from its military roots, to its correctional use, and political activism. The most interesting parts were of course the parts that had to do with the maximum security prison and some of the failed escape attempts.

The second part of the tour involved an audio tour of the prison itself. The audio tour was really neat as I never really had one before. If you're like me, an audio tour is simply a little digital box and headphones that act as your tour guide. It tells you where to go and what to look at. The audio tour lasted about an hour, and it gave a great history of the prison. After seeing Alcatraz, it is more myth than fact that gives the prison such a high esteem. It was very interesting nonetheless.

Day 4 - Whale Watching and hockey game

Day 4 was a Tuesday. I had just spent the night in Monterey. I had to find the fisherman's wharf after breakfast, so that I could go whale watching. I had never been whale watching, so it was a neat experience. First, I should mention that it was a cold experience. After boating for about an hour, the wind becomes very cold for nearly anyone, even a Canadian like myself. I definitely recommend a jacket, mittens, scarves, and tuques if needed, even in California.

We saw two humpback whales. There was a sea lion that found our boat and would pop his head out of the water every once and awhile to throw the group off. We kept thinking it might be a whale since the whales would seem to pop up out of anywhere.

The thing about whale watching is that whales can stay under water for about 6-8 minutes at a time. It seemed like our whales were feeding, so they would be up for a minute or two then swim back down to the ocean floor to get some grub. It was a tricky experience because you never knew where they would pop back up. We were lucky once and they came up pretty much right next to our boat. I tried to snap as many pictures as I could, but its difficult when everyone on the boat is trying to do the same thing.

Whale watching was a lot of fun, but I had bigger plans for Tuesday night. I had to drive back to San Jose to watch Dany Heatley's first game against his former club, my Ottawa Senators.

We got to HP Pavilion pretty early as I was excited for my chance to heckle Mr. Heatley. As I walked around the Shark tank, I noticed that there was a lot of teal and black jerseys. I was just surprised that there were so many dedicated Sharks fans in California. I didn't think hockey would necessarily be all that popular. The reason I noticed this was two fold. First, there were an abnormal amount of people with Jerseys and second, I was looking for people with Sens jerseys on.

I think in the night, I counted about 20 jerseys or tshirts from Sens fans. I didn't think that was too bad considering we were in California. One guy was following the Sens on their west coast trip and some others were just in the area by coincidence.

Our seats were in the nosebleeds. The seats were good, but they were high up. We were the second row from the top of the building. We sat next to some season ticket holders, and it didn't take them long to question why I was at the game wearing my Sens gear.

These season ticket holders were great guys. They knew more about hockey than I would have given them credit for. In fact, one of the guys was wondering if Ottawa was going to get a CFL franchise back. He said he was a sports memorabilia collector and only had a Renegades Tshirt. He knew about the Hull Olympiques are now the Gatineau Olympiques, and many other things that I would not expect from someone from San Jose.

Impressed by their hockey knowledge, I didn't waste any time to let my feelings be known about Dany Heatley. The guys around me seemed to understand my feelings and just let me jeer away without any scowls, dirty looks, or smart-ass comments in return. In fact, they seemed to be jealous that we now had Jonathan Cheechoo on our team. Cheechoo was very respected by the fans in San Jose. I would say more respected than Michalek. (We traded Heatley for Cheechoo, Michalek and a 2nd round pick. Michalek has been tearing it up for Ottawa, while Cheechoo has had a slow start) All in all, I had a great night. I booed Heatley everytime he touched the puck, and I got to experience hockey in California. The bad part was that the Sens lost to San Jose that night 5-2.

Day 3 - Coastal tour

On day 3, Jeremy dropped me off at the local car rental place and I rented a Toyota Yaris. It was cheap, and even cheaper on gas. It was the perfect car for my coastal drive along the Pacific Coast. This was Monday and Jeremy had to go to work. It was a good time for me to start venturing on my own.

The night before, Jeremy and I had devised a route for me to take that he thought I might enjoy. I had my GPS with me, so the odds of getting lost were much less. I began my trip by heading a little north towards San Fransisco, but I simply went this way to be able to drive up some of the hilly terrain that exists in Silicon Valley. Once I drove through this terrain, I ended up along the coast in a beach town called San Gregario.

Once I got to San Gregario beach, I was truly amazed at how nice the beaches were. Some of the beaches weren't really conducive to swimming, but they were still very picturesque. I tried to take as many pictures as I could. I kept driving south along highway 1, which pretty much follows all of the beaches along the coast of California. It was a very nice drive.

Other than stopping quickly along the various rest stops on Highway 1, I decided to stop in Santa Cruz for a walk along their beach/boardwalk. Santa Cruz was a very nice beach and had many attractions to go along with it. Unfortunately, at this time of the year, there were hardly any tourists because it is actually a little cooler in this area than someone in Canada may expect. Nonetheless, it provided for a peaceful walk and nice scenery for me to enjoy.

After my time in Santa Cruz, I quickly drove myself to Monterey. I had booked my hotel there and Jeremy had recommended that I try going to the aquarium there. At the aquarium, they had a few really cool exhibits. These included African penguins, sea otters, numerous jellyfish, and seahorses. They had other stuff, but I would consider those things to be the highlights.

The nice thing about Monterey is that they have a boardwalk to walk along while trekking to places like the aquarium. They have nice little shops and restaurants all along the water. I was particularly excited to see the Bubba Gump Shrimp company as one of the restaurants along the boardwalk. I took a picture of the logo and a bench that was outside the restaurant that had a box of chocolates and a plaque dedicated to the movie Forrest Gump. Later on in my trip, I came to realize that there are many other Bubba Gump stores in the area. Either way, I was still happy to run into this.

I spent the night at a cheap motel in Monterey. We found this place on the internet, and despite its price, it was actually pretty decent. It was probably the cheapest motel I've ever stayed at, but it was certainly not the worst place. I had a pretty good night of sleep there.

I should mention that I tried to go out in Monterey to experience some sort of nightlife in California. I wasn't expecting great things as it was a Monday night, but nonetheless, I was still somewhat disappointed in what I experienced. I was hoping there would be more going on in what appeared to be somewhat of a tourist town. I suppose I might have been looking in the wrong place. Despite this, I did meet a couple of people while out and about and had a decent time.

Day 2 - 49ers game

The second day in California I was planning to go to the 49ers game with Jeremy. We both had never been to a NFL game before in our lives and we weren't sure what to expect. I wanted to get there early, but the commute from San Jose to San Fransisco was not as smooth as one might have expected. We wanted to enjoy some adult beverages at the game, so driving was not one of the options.

On this day, I got to ride the BART (bay area rapid transit) and a shuttle to the game. The 49ers were playing Jacksonville that day and it was a beautiful day to watch the game. It was probably about 21 degrees in the sun, but the stadium was worn down and old. It turns out that Candlestick park is the oldest stadium in the NFL and it certainly showed. I still had a good time, but I doubt I would go back to a 49ers game if I had other options available to me.

Candlestick park holds about 70,000 people. I would guess that on Sunday there were about 60,000 people there, and 50,000 were drunk out of their minds. I even saw a guy being sick all the way down the steps in the upper section in which we were sitting. American love their football and they also love their beer. The 49ers won the game 20-3.

Day 1 in California

This is a little break from my real estate postings. I decided to discuss some of my trip to California. I hope it might give you some ideas if you ever visit the area.

I left Ottawa at 7:15 am for my trip to San Jose. I was set to visit my good friends Jeremy and Ellin that moved to San Jose shortly after Jeremy got a job with Apple. I hadn't seen them in awhile and I had never seen the Pacific Ocean, so I was excited to get away from the grind that I do on a daily basis.

My itinerary consisted of a layover in Denver, Colorado then a flight directly to San Jose airport. Although my view from the Denver airport was limited, I was nonetheless excited to see the rockies for the first time. It turns out that John Denver was right all along as the rockies were indeed rocky.

I arrived in San Jose about 2pm local time. My first day in San Jose was a bit of a slow day. It more or less consisted of flying and then going to a local high-end mall. We did stop at a burrito place as Jeremy highly recommended this burrito to have a true taste of California. First, the burrito is very popular because of the high Mexican-American population in the area, and that this particular burrito came with Avocado, which is in any food that describes itself as Californian. The burrito was tasty, but Jeremy was disappointed as the burrito place hadn't lived up to its previous standards. Jeremy has high standards for burritos.

Saturday we didn't do too much that was exciting. Time was short, so it was just good to get oriented with Jeremy and Ellin by going to the mall and hanging out at their place. I even went to bed relatively early because I was tired from the travel and not yet used to the time change of 3 hours. I also had a big day planned for Day 2.