August - September 2017
After breaking our own rule of living in each place for a month, we
moved in the middle of August to a new location. Let the adventures
begin (continue)…
Location #2: SAN JOSE
Moving In
WE ARE BACK, BACK AGAIN, WE ARE BACK, TELL A FRIEND … in Downtown San
Jose. We reserved this place just days before moving in, therefore our
options were slim - but that’s the name of the game this year. Our
main priority with this location was laundry - we moved in with about
a month’s worth of dirty clothes and with our European vacation just
around the corner, it was crucial (to Katelyn) that we stay on top of
the pesky chore. Per usual, we do nothing easy. We moved out of Palo
Alto on a Friday morning, took all our stuff to Sean’s office (again
for weekend storage) and we were off to spend the weekend in Tahoe. We
returned home Sunday, packed the cars, and ventured back to Downtown
San Jose around 8 p.m. to see what the next few weeks will have in
store of us. And let’s just say, it was a GIANT SURPRISE.
The Place
By GIANT - we mean WE ARE THE GIANTS. Yes, even 5’3” Katelyn. SURPRISE we
are living in a basement guest house with 75” ceilings. Translate that
into feet, and it’s 6’2”. How tall is Sean, you ask - oh, don’t you
worry, he’s 6’ 4”... So yes, Sean is TALLER than our Airbnb this month.
Apparently we were so concerned with finding a location that had
laundry, we happened to overlook the small note mentioning the ceiling
height #priorities. Not going to lie, we weren't so sure about staying
in this place all month.
Parking is another struggle - it’s primarily street parking. And with city
street parking, comes confusing parking signs. Within the first 48 hours, we
(Katelyn) were hit with a $60 PARKING TICKET. Here’s the story -
street cleaning happens on Julian St. every other Wednesday morning.
On 11th St it happens every Wednesday morning on the RIGHT side of the
street, and Tuesday morning on the LEFT side of the street. Following?
Katelyn saw all the street cleaning signs said Wednesday, so
naturally she parked on the Left side of 11th St. on Tuesday - and BAM
- WRONG SIDE, WRONG DAY. San Jose, you win.
After taking a night or two to adjust, we decided we would stay and
call this part of the adventure. Besides the ceiling height (if anyone
can look beyond that) and the crazy parking schedules, the basement
guest house is very nicely renovated and includes a good amount of
storage. Two major wins in our book! The basement guest house was
located on a busy street on the East side of Downtown San Jose, just
outside of the Japantown district. There’s not a lot of Japanese
culture left in the area but there are a few Japanese retirement homes
and a cute mini downtown street in Japantown.
Truthfully, the street that our Airbnb was on
was a little sketch. There was a liquor store about four houses down
where shady things went down at night. Ok, we don’t know what EXACTLY was
going on, but we know there were always people outside, and
sometimes ladies dressed in rather revealing clothing. So naturally,
we just kep our distance. You do you, we will do us. But Japantown is
an interesting location - it’s rough on the outside, but once you’re
in the neighborhoods they are quite charming. There are a lot of
quaint bungalow homes, tree lined streets, parks, and restaurants
within walking distance. The basement guesthouse had it’s own separate
entryway on the side of the house and down a few steps. There was a
lockbox so we never had to balance who had the key. It included a
decent size kitchen with extra drawers and places to store food,
tupperware, etc. The homeowner included a very nice spice rack, and a
few rather strange kitchen gadgets and bakeware. HOWEVER, the SAGA CONTINUES -
WHERE ARE THE BAKING SHEETS? She’s also missing a pasta pot, something
else we consider a kitchen “must have”?? If we had a comments section
in this blog, we would ask your thoughts on this since it seems to be
a recurring struggle.
We must admit, there’s a lot of bugs in this
house. Little spiders, moths, and a few crawlers. About three weeks in,
Katelyn woke up with three huge mosquito bites on her legs - of
course. If there are bugs anywhere near Katelyn, they WILL FIND HER,
it’s a guarantee. The bedroom was cozy - nothing special. A bed,
dresser, mirror, and two nightstands. We don’t always get two
nightstands, and sometimes one of us (Katelyn) ends up sleeping
against a wall without a way out and nowhere to place the phone alarm.
The troubles with this room came with the spacing between the door,
dresser, bed post, and closet. Those four corners were all within
inches. SOMEHOW in one of our first days, Katelyn ran into the bedpost
- a fairly common occurance and usually nothing to call attention to.
Except, this time it left a huge bruise on her thigh. The pictures
from the solar eclipse below were taken weeks after the initial bruise
formed. She later got a small matching one on her other leg, let’s not
ask too many questions.
Restaurants
Where did this month go - we
didn’t try too many new places this month. We sought out some comfort
food in our old hang out Smoke Eaters and enjoyed a company dinner
with Sean's work at the company favorite, The Halford. But we did get a
chance to try these two.
Sushi Maru
- The Airbnb was walking
distance to the San Jose Japantown area. It was Memorial Day when we
decided to walk down and see what was open for dinner, and of course
we had to go for Japanese. Sushi Maru was one of the two paces open
for dinner on Memorial Day and it was fairly crowded, so it looked
like a good choice. We were both starving and ordered the bento box
dinner with soup, salad, rice, sushi, teriyaki chicken, and another
main course option. It was so much food - but good. Ironically it
wasn’t our favorite sushi, but the teriyaki chicken was really good.
We left with just enough leftovers for someone to have lunch the next
day. I’m sure we would go back if we were in the area, but for now our
favorite sushi restaurant has not been dethrowned.
Rollos Donuts
- This was a recommendation from a
coworker. According to the website the place has been around for 25
years and has a prime corner location in Japantown - however there’s
very little parking. We stopped by on a weekend for breakfast on our
way out to Oregon for the solar eclipse. They were good - they have a
blueberry cake donut (one of Katelyn’s favorites and hard to find).
Sure, we would go back, who doesn’t like donuts?!
Activities
The first
half of the month when we were in Palo Alto may have been calm - but
we all know that was just the calm before the storm. The Wednesday after moving in, we went to see Incubus and Jimmy Eat World, which was
more of a concert for Sean, but Katelyn kept screaming "I didn't know they played this song!" throughout the whole show.
Then, the first weekend
after moving into the basement guest house, we took a leap of faith with our friends Megan and Zach, and
drove 12 hours to experience the 2017 Solar Eclipse in Oregon. We
drove up the Saturday before - grabbing some of the last free pairs of
solar eclipse glasses at Warby Parker and hitting the road just after
noon. Based on the news report, we were expecting an obscene amount of
traffic, however (although bad through Sacramento) the traffic
patterns seemed relatively normal for a summer weekend. After a few
stops, including Katelyn's first-ever Wendy's Frosty, the car overheating, which resulted in us having an early dinner,
we made it to our rental property
for the weekend. The property happened to be in the same village resort that we have gone to in the winters the past few years to enjoy the snow.
Sunday was spent exploring Bend, touring Deschutes
Brewery, and getting to bed early to prepare for the 4 a.m. wake up
call and the drive into the Path of Totality. We didn’t drive 12 hours
to NOT experience the Totality.
So at 4:30 a.m. on Monday we got in the car and drove the 30 miles towards the city of Madras, Oregon (yes, where NASA was set up). Based on the news reports, we were expecting to sit in stand still traffic the entire way - and would likely not make it to Madras if we left anytime Monday morning. It was never our plan to venture into the city with hundreds of thousands of others, so on our way we located a small national grasslands and decided that would be good spot to watch. We hit NO traffic, at all. After driving about 5 miles off the main highway (on dirt roads) we found a spot to pull over. It was almost 6 a.m., we had 4 hours to wait - in the middle of nowhere, Oregon.
How did we pass 4 hours in the middle of nowhere Oregon without a
bathroom and no internet access? Well, we:
Slept
Sean took pictures of our child
(aka Yeti)
Made friends with people in other cars
Made videos on our
phones
Ate snacks
And all of a sudden, it was time. The first 30 minutes of the
eclipse went slow and so we would look and then continue whatever
crazy thing we were doing. Suddenly we noticed the sky looked like it was dusk, our shadows got much
more defined, and the temperature quickly dropped. We all had to put our jackets back on. The temperature
drop was eerie. About 10 minutes before the total eclipse we could see
darkness falling over the sky and could no longer see Mt. Bachelor in
the distance. There were no more birds in the sky, and crickets were
starting to chirp at 10 in the morning. It was surreal. Katelyn may
have even shed a tear. We had never seen anything like it. When
totality hit, the sky went dark for about 2 minutes. Not quite a
midnight dark, but we would say a 8:30 p.m dark BUT at 10 a.m.! There
was a huge difference between 98% to 100% covered, and that difference
made the 12 hour drive there and back completely worth the experience.
After nearly 2 minutes the moon moved, and it went back to
98% and the magic was gone.
We all enjoyed marveling in the magic of
nature we just witnessed. At around 50% and 10:30 a.m. we got back in
the car and started our drive back to California. Again, expecting the
drive to take us into Tuesday morning. After a few stops (lunch, Jamba
Juice, gas) we made it home around 11 p.m. that night.
In less exciting news - but equally as important in
our Airbnb journey, we discovered the Taylor Street Market in San
Jose. It happens on Thursdays right behind the Gordon Biersch Brewery
and Headquarters (SURPRISE that's in San Jose, fun trivia fact for
you). The Market is a collection of Food Trucks, vendors, and live
music set up for the community to enjoy. It was such a great little
find, thanks to our friends Jana and Ricky who went with us.
Our last big excursion for the month was to Southern California to
attend our friend Elizabeth’s wedding. It was the hottest weekend of
the year, and we definitely drove through the Santa Barbara pop-up
hurricane to get there! But nonetheless it was a beautiful weekend celebrating
Elizabeth and spending time with friends. And we were also able to spend some more time with our friends Ana and Zach.
At this point, we have already ventured into the month of
September. We stayed at this place from mid- August through Mid-
September and checked out right before our big trip to Europe. Much of
this month was spent planning for the trip, purchasing some necessities for the trip:
Lowepro camera backpack
Packing cubes (people
swear by these things!)
Camera memory cards
New shoes for comfortable
walking
Headphones for the long flights
Moving Out
We made this a two-day process this month. YOU try
to move all your belongings while in the middle of organizing and
packing for a 15 day trip! Day one we took a trip to storage and
brought a few already packed items to Sean’s parents for storage
during our vacation, including our wine, alcohol, and some
already packed clothing. Day two was everything else. Somehow our cars
were still super full on the day 2 move. Why is this not getting any
easier?
What went to storage this month: Sodastream (we miss you!)
There MUST have been something else…
Would we move here? The Japantown
area of San Jose would absolutely be a contender. Although rough
around the edges, and the schools may not be ranked the best (4-7 out of 10 for
those who are interested) it could be a great first home. The bungalow
style homes are often 2-3 bedrooms and provide just enough space for
the two of us for the next few years. Our commutes were fairly easy
too. It took Sean about 40 minutes on side streets to reach his
office, and Katelyn had the usual 20 minute commute with a few
different route options. It’s almost questionable on how Katelyn’s
commute is 20-30 minutes from almost any location...
