2002-02-14 - 2:24 p.m.

On the internal soundtrack: "Surfin' USA", Beach Boys

Now, time for more vacation pictures.

We arrived in San Jose too early for check-in, so we had lunch at the House of Cathay, our favorite Chinese restaurant, at North First and 880. The food was every bit as wonderful as we remembered. Poindexter ate lunch there again with his coworkers, too. I have no doubt there may be better Chinese restaurants in the Bay Area, but this particular one was miles better than any local restaurant here in Northern Virginia.

After lunch, we drove around in our old neighborhood for a bit. We stopped by our old fourplex and took a picture:

I used to sit there and peel garlic for dinner at sunset, because I loved the pinkish glow at that time of day. Our apartment was the window in the upper right. There's a kitty cat living there now, can you see it?

It was amazing to see how the neighborhood has improved. About five streets down, near the train tracks, was a street with potentially gorgeous Victorian houses that had fallen into nasty disrepair, with junk in the yards. It wasn't a street I would have wanted to live on then. In the last four years, those houses have been sold to owners who fixed them up and cleared out the yards and the street is positively picturesque. I had intended to go back and get photos, but we didn't get around to it.

Eventually we headed over to our hotel, the Hyatt Sainte Claire. It's an older (early 20th century) hotel done in an Italian palazzo style, and it's really gorgeous. We weren't terribly impressed with the service (the valet parking people are IDIOTS), but apparently what you're paying for is the ambience. We had a feather bed which is INCREDIBLY comfortable and then there are the little touches like this on the bathroom ceiling:

Here's the exterior of the hotel at night:

I took that from Market Street as we waited to make a left onto San Carlos to go down to the Midtown Safeway, where we used to shop. We picked up a bunch of breakfast food and snacks.

Here are a few shots of the lobby:

Here's the view from our hotel room window. That orange building with the blue dome is the Tech Museum. The lovely park below with all the trees is the Plaza de Cesar Chavez. All of the trees are evergreen, so the park was lush and gorgeous even in the middle of the winter. And then there's that gold building, of which I'm rather fond.

Also notice the plane on its landing path, heading north and down. One of my favorite things about living here is the proximity of the airport to the downtown. I love planes. The view from the west side of our apartment was the landing path of the planes, and the tub was on a wall with a window, so I even watched the planes land while I was in the shower.

It's been weird, being here. There are many things that are exactly as I remembered, but a lot has changed. There's a lot of new construction going on, lots of raggedy ugly old buildings torn down. Other raggedy pretty old buildings have been renovated, which I really appreciate.

On Sunday we went over the hill (the Santa Cruz mountains) to visit with Poindexter's sister and her family. We were stuck in traffic on the way up, so I took pictures of people in cute little Karmann Ghia convertibles:

I love the suspicious look on the guy's face.

Also took a photo of the Bott's dots, although I had a hard time getting them into a photo:

People who live in really warm states (Arizona has them, IIRC) tend to have these dots on the road. Three on each white dash, and one or two inbetween the dashes. I have always madly loved these things. I love the noise they make when you change lanes, that brrrrrrump on one side of the car, brrrrrrrrump on the other. I have actually asked Poindexter to make his lane changes more gradual so that I can get the full effect.

We went to the park with the girls and tried to fly kites, but it was a windless day. Their dad decided he wanted to go to the beach. I was all for it, and so was Christie; Kelly and Poindexter and Lynn stayed home. There was, unfortunately, no wind at the beach either (!!), but the view was lovely:

There's something about the Pacific that is really spectacularly beautiful, more so than the Atlantic. Maybe it's the cliffs and rocks all along the shoreline. Although I won't be caught dead swimming in the Pacific because I'd probably freeze to death.

More photos tomorrow...

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