15 Best Things to Do in San Jose (CA) (Part 2)

The first settlement in California is now the vibrant, cutting-edge “Capital of Silicon Valley,” 240 years after the Spanish first settled there. The scene includes tech behemoths like Apple, Intel, Microsoft, and Amazon, as well as PayPal, Cisco Systems, eBay, and Acer. San Jose’s wealth is evident in its skyrocketing rents, opulent malls, world-class sports facilities, vibrant dining scene, and expanding cultural offerings. From the South Bay, you may also chart a course for the Diablo and Santa Cruz ranges, visit the Lick Observatory for astronomy, and watch the Santa Clara Valley’s ocean of sparkling lights as the sun sets. On the cutting-edge VTA light rail, in interactive museums, on the campuses of IT giants; and even at the city’s film festival, Cinequest, which supports virtual reality, life in San Jose is infused with technology.

Emma Prusch Farm Park

This farm park, which is appropriate for families with young children, was given to the city in 1962 by farmer Emma Prusch. She wanted the land where she raised wheat and fruit to be conserved so that San Jose’s agricultural history could be seen. A livestock yard, the charming Prusch farmhouse, a rare fruit orchard, a deciduous orchard, and the largest freestanding barn in San Jose are only a few of the farm life attractions in the 42-park, which has been absorbed by urban East San Jose (used by the 4-H and Future Farmers of America). The farm hosts a free Harvest Festival on the first Saturday in October, and there is space for picnics and kite flying as well. Hayrides, multicultural dance performances, freshly pressed apple cider, a 4-H animal expo, and other family-friendly activities are on the schedule.

San Pedro Square Market

This Downtown San Jose hotspot, which spans an entire block, is a great place to spend an afternoon shopping and dining. A restaurant like San Pedro Square Market has the benefit of allowing you to bring a group of friends and let each person try something new, whether it be spaghetti, falafel, burgers, tacos, pho, or pizza, and match it with craft beer, creative cocktails, or gourmet coffee. Fresh food and homemade gift merchants, a hip barbershop, and the Peralta Adobe, the oldest structure in San Jose and dated to 1797, all share this area. The market is bustling all week long with events for kids, quizzes, karaoke, and live music from Thursday through Sunday.

Westfield Valley Fair

Places like Westfield Valley Fair, one of the nation’s largest malls and the one with the highest sales volume in the state, serve as a symbol of Silicon Valley’s enormous wealth. The Valley Fair Shopping Centre was founded in 1986 when two post-war malls joined together to establish this opulent playground that spans the border between San Jose and Santa Clara. This enormous company has not ceased expanding over the past 30 years, and in 2019 it finished a $900 million expansion, leaving it with about 240 tenants. Although it can be difficult to know where to begin if you want to splurge, head straight for the “luxury wing,” where Prada, Giorgio Armani, Versace, and Louis Vuitton are all arranged in a row. There are also retailers like Sephora, Nordstrom, Gap, Levi’s, J. Crew, Claire’s, Zara, Banana Republic, and others that you might expect to see in a major mall. Food is the main focus, and there is an endless variety available, including favourites like Subway, Cheesecake Factory, and Starbucks, as well as more than 20 alternatives for just Asian cuisine.

Sikh Gurdwara Sahib

The largest Sikh temple in North America is this Gurdwara, which is located directly where eastern San Jose borders the Diablo Range. A second phase was finished in 2011. In actuality, this is the largest Gurdwara in the world outside of India’s Harmandir Sahib. The Gurdwara San Jose, which serves the sizable and expanding Sikh community in the Santa Clara Valley, was established in 1984 and moved to its current location on this 40-acre parcel in the Evergreen Hills in 2004. The Silicon Valley may be seen in its entirety from the fountain outside, and the view at night is spectacular. Everyone is welcome at the Gurdwara, which offers translations in numerous languages throughout and explains the temple in accordance with Sikh teachings (head-coverings are also provided). Langar (Sikh community kitchen) is also there, where free meals are daily provided to individuals from all walks of life in a communal setting where everyone eats.

Mission Santa Clara de Asís

The Santa Clara Spanish mission dates back to the early days of European habitation in the Bay Area. King Carlos III sent Juan Bautista de Anza (1735–1788), an expeditionary leader and future governor of the Province of Mexico, to this area to establish future settlements. He established a military outpost and mission in San Francisco, as well as missions on the east and west banks of the Guadalupe River and the city of San Jose. Santa Clara de Ass, the eighth mission in California, was established in January of 1777. It is the only mission that is currently located on a university campus (Santa Clara University), which developed from a college founded in 1851. The church has been rebuilt several times due to the short lifespan of adobe buildings, most recently in 1929 after a fire. On the former location of the original cemetery, which has subsequently been moved to 490 Lincoln Street, there are gardens with an intact 18th-century adobe wall. The university’s de Saisset Museum across the street has fascinating relics from this mission and other Californian missions on exhibit.

Lick Observatory

This storied observatory is located 1,238 metres above sea level in the Diablo Range, east of San Jose, and is operated by the University of California. Completed in 1887, this was the first permanently occupied observatory of its kind in the world and was funded by the real estate investor James Lick, the wealthiest man in California at the time of his death in 1876. Several significant discoveries have been made at this facility, including the near-Earth asteroid (29075) 1950 DA, several extrasolar planets, and four of Jupiter’s moons. The observatory provides an absolutely unimaginable view over Silicon Valley, made much more stunning at night when there is an infinite lattice of lights, almost like a mountain community of white domes. Although there are five free speeches per day inside the dome of the 36-inch Great Refractor from Thursday to Sunday, you can also travel the lengthy, winding road to visit during those days. Additionally, you can access the gallery of the 1959-installed, 3-meter Shane Reflector.

Downtown Campbell Farmers’ Market

One of the top farmers’ markets in the South Bay, you can reach it in ten minutes from downtown San Jose. No matter the weather, the market is open year-round on Sundays from 9:00 to 12:30. The Boogie Music Festival in mid-May and Oktoberfest in late October are the only exceptions. Purchase organic products directly from the grower, including eggs, honey, seasonal fruits and vegetables, cheese, fresh pasta, meat, flowers, and many other products. Numerous vendors will tempt you with Mexican food and artisan beer, all to the sounds of amazing live musicians. There are plenty of mom-and-pop shops, cafes, and restaurants in Downtown Campbell to keep you there a little while longer.

San Jose Museum of Quilts & Textiles

When it first opened in 1977, this museum was unheard of in the US. It honours the art, craft, creators, and history of quilts and textiles. More than 1,000 items, including quilts, textile art, and clothes, are in the collection. Some outstanding exhibits are a c.1830 mosaic quilt top made by Mary Taylor Lloyd Key (married to poet composer of the Star Spangled Banner, Francis Scott Key), scores of molas by the Kuna people of Panama’s San Blas Islands, quilts by notable 20th-century designers like Ernest Haight and Ruby McKim and a rare linsey-Wooley whole cloth quilt from c.1820. At any one time, the museum hosts three temporary exhibitions, but Know Your Meme stood out in late 2019. This crowdsourcing presentation examined the idea of Internet memes as a form of communication by adapting them to crafts like basketry, weaving, knitting, cross-stitching, and quilting.

San Jose City Hall

San Jose’s City Hall relocated to the two-block San José Civic Plaza after spending more than 50 years in an office park. Postmodernist architect Richard Meier, the winner of the Pritzker Prize and designer of the famed Getty Centre, finished construction on this nearly $400 million building in 2005. The government building in San Jose, which contrasts with the showy Beaux-Arts city halls in Oakland and San Francisco, is inspired by Le Corbusier and the International Style thanks to its angular 18-story tower and free-standing Rotunda in the plaza’s middle. This 30-meter-high venue, which is hired out for private parties, has the appearance of an observatory and is worth a quick glance from the outside.

Japanese Friendship Garden

After the California storms of February 2017, this emblem of U.S.-Japanese relations in Kelley Park remained open but undergoing long-term repairs as of November 2019. Landscaped in 1965, the Japanese Friendship Garden is designed after the Korakuen Garden in San Jose’s sister city of Okayama, which also supplied the koi for its three main ponds. The garden’s ponds, tea house, stepping stones, bridges, waterfall, and meticulously maintained trees, bushes, and grass allow you to forget about the city temporarily. When the ponds are full they’re flocked by waterfowl like ducks and geese, but also the occasional great egret easily spotted for its long slender neck.

SAP Center

It goes without saying that another computing behemoth should receive the name rights for San Jose’s NHL team. The San Jose Sharks were established in 1991, and two years later they relocated to the SAP Center. You can watch the Sharks compete in the Western Conference with 17,500 other Sharks supporters from fall to spring at the “Shark Tank.” The Sharks haven’t won a Stanley Cup yet, but under Peter DeBoer’s leadership, they did win the conference and advance to the championship game in 2015–16. Disney on Ice, winter sports competitions, WWE, UFC, and well-known performers all take place at the SAP Center (The Raconteurs, 1975, Miranda Lambert and Louis Tomlinson in 2019-20). Limited runs of items including grilled cheese, chicken and waffles, fish tacos, cheesesteaks, and BBQ are provided to vendors as part of a new cuisine concept called “Test Launch Kitchen,” which provides customers with a continually changing menu.

Ames Research Center

In 2019, the Silicon Valley visitor centre at NASA’s research complex is primarily a gift shop, but it does have a few interesting exhibits. The enormous wind tunnel blade from the Ames Research Centre, measuring 24 by 37 metres, is one eye-catching feature. A moon rock, a Martian steroid, and a lunar glove box were included in the Mercury Redstone capsule, a test spacecraft built in the 1950s that flew before the Apollo missions. Full-size replicas of the Pioneer Venus Orbiter and a variety of other vintage spacecraft are also on display.

Dr Martin Luther King Jr. Library

In the early 2000s, the City of San Jose and San Jose State University joined forces to construct an eight-story library for the benefit of the general public and SJSU students. In the entire Western United States as of 2010, this library was still the biggest to be constructed all at once. A set of indoor artworks dubbed “Recolecciones” were created during planning by Houston conceptual artist Mel Chin. A digital display in the atrium informs visitors how many hundreds of millions of items have been borrowed through the library system since 2000. The kids’ area, which features LEGO, video games, movie screenings, storytimes, and many other activities, is a revelation for families. The university’s research resources are accessible to serious academics on floors 6 through 8, while you can use a public computer terminal on the first three floors.

Moffett Field Historical Society Museum

Moffett Federal Airfield, a civil-military airfield on the San Francisco Bay, is surrounded by Silicon Valley behemoths like Yahoo!, Amazon, and Google. It was first established as a naval air station in 1931. Numerous anti-submarine weaponry and maritime patrol aircraft were developed at this location between 1942 and 1994, when the station was shut down. The enormous 345 by 95-meter Hangar One, constructed to hold airships, is an early example. The WWII-era Hangars Two and Three are among the largest freestanding timber structures in the United States. The historical society’s museum is open from Wednesday through Saturday if you want more information on this intriguing location. Black and white pictures from 90 years ago are waiting for you, along with extensive displays concerning Hangar One, cutlery from the officers’ mess, Cold War anti-submarine equipment, relics from blimps, aircraft electronics, cockpits, uniforms, and more than we can mention here.

San Jose Improv

This historic theatre downtown was taken over by the Improv chain in 2002 for wall-to-wall laughs Tuesday to Sunday. A-list stand-ups, sketch groups, open mics, and live podcast recordings are all part of the packed programme. You’re guaranteed to have a nice time when you add that to the quaint atmosphere, fantastic food, and classy cocktails. Cristela Alonso, Nicole Byer, Jay Mohr, and Michael Blackson were among the choices for late 2019. Additionally, the structure has a rich history in addition to being the go-to for belly-laughing humour. This is the oldest theatre in the city, starting out in 1904 as the Jose Theatre for vaudeville acts and stock companies. It once included a four-man orchestra, and in 1933, the interior was given an Art Deco makeover.