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by hbien 4414 days ago
Welcome to San Jose!

I assume you'll have a car, because public transportation is awful here. I won't mention too many SF attractions but I definitely recommend you head up there at least one weekend.

Here are some of my absolute favorite places to eat:

  * korean food? -> Jang Su Jang or Omogari
  * vietnamese food? -> Tofoo Com Chay (vegetarian), Ca Mau, practically any Pho place in SJ
  * mexican food -> La Victoria
  * burgers/fries -> In n Out is a must if it's unavailable where you live, St John's Bar & Grill
  * indian food -> Gulzaar Halaal
  * falafel -> Falafel's Drive In
  * pizza -> Pieology (build your own pizza)
  * donuts -> Psycho Donuts (crazy donuts, people from Portland often tell me that they had it first)
Some tech fun:

  * Computer History Museum is a must
  * checkout meetup.com for your favorite technologies, one of the advantages of living here is that there are so many to choose from for almost every niche technology
  * Hacker Dojo throws events every day
  * BioCurious, like Hacker Dojo but with an emphasis on bio-hacking (their "hello world" project is transferring Jelly fish DNA into bacteria to make the bacteria glow!)
  * TechShop, like Hacker Dojo but more oriented towards hardware/electronics.  There's one in Downtown San Jose
  * (cheated, this is in SF) California Academy of Science throws NightLife every Thursday night -- it's science + alcohol + music
  * (cheated again, sorry!) Nerd Nite happens once a month, awesome talks on very niche topics
For drinks/culture:

  * check out Campbell's Boogie on the Bayou, May 17/18th -- http://www.downtowncampbell.com/events.php
  * downtown San Jose, Mountain View, Palo Alto have good places to grab a drink.  Singlebarrel in San Jose or Steinsbeer in Mountain View or Old Pro in Palo Alto
  * some coffeehouses frequented by developers: Coupa Cafe, Red Rock, any Philz
  * try out some Boba drinks if you haven't had them before!
  * Stanford's Art Museum is free (if you plan on going, I'm a big fan of Ike's Sandwiches located on campus)
  * San Jose has the Tech Museum and Museum of Art
I hope you enjoy your visit! As someone who was born/raised/lives in San Jose, I'm really sad most people recommend just heading to SF to most visitors (sad because it's mostly true...) But I hope you'll spend at least a few days south of SF.