San Jo--You Know!

We had one night in San Jose and tried to make the most of it. We actually used to hang out in San Jose during D's Silicon Valley days, but I don't remember much of it. For dinner we drove to Japantown, which is really more like Japanstreet. We made a quick stop into the manju shop. It is amazing to me that places like these can stay in business.

n making another face.

We ate at Gombei, which felt like pretty authentic, Japanese home-cooking.

The Gombei Special--$10 D had his favorite oyako donburi.

For dessert we walked down to Banana Crepe. Although they do serve crepes, we went for the shave ice. This place has good reviews, but no one mentioned the LONG wait. There were only a couple of orders ahead of us, but it seriously took longer than our Japanese food. Maybe they were just short-handed that day?

k kept herself entertained by looking at all the monkeys on the ceiling.


The shave ice was good (mango/passion fruit), but not worth the wait, in my opinion.

For breakfast we walked to Philz Coffee. We tried the Iced Mint Mojito coffee and ordered a hot chocolate for the kids. We asked for them to cool the hot chocolate a bit, and they put a huge block of ice in it, which cooled it down a bit too much. I liked the mint mojito drink, it was very unique. D wasn't as much a fan because he 1. doesn't like iced coffee as much as hot, 2. doesn't really like mint.

Look at all that mint!

k was getting stuffy in the cafe so we walked across the street to San Jose University.

The kids let off some steam. Or maybe it was the hot chocolate.

Afterward we made a stop at A Taste of Paris, which was next store to Philz. The owners are from France. We weren't sure what to get, but once we saw the guy making crepes for other people, we had to try one.

We ordered a ham and cheese crepe. The guy before us ordered a bacon-brie crepe. Wow, that looked rich.

We also bought a baguette to go. We ate some (warm from the oven, yum!), and I stuck the rest in my purse and we snacked on it all morning.


Regarding our hotel, we stayed at the Sainte Claire, where the wedding we were attending was held. We liked its historic, classy feel.


It is connected to an Il Fornaio restaurant.












The ceiling in our bathroom was really pretty:

My favorite was the bar of verbena L'Occitane soap provided in the bathroom. It smelled so good! That one definitely came home with us. :)