SAN JOSE CALIFORNIA | DONNE TEMPO | RUTH
Fun, Flowers and Fancy Found in San Jose (continued)
Vung Tau is one of San Jose’s most popular restaurants, serving southern-style Vietnamese food for more than 20 years; food they describe as an “Asian style of cooking that blends the best of Chinese, French, and Thai influences into a unique style.”The menu features numerous soups – we had the canh chua ca, a sweet and sour soup – noodle dishes, rice dishes, and grilled meats. We also tried the banh xeo, a crepe flavored with coconut and turmeric, stuffed with bean sprouts, that was absolutely delicious.
Although it is usually crowded, the food and atmosphere are definitely worth the wait.
After dinner, there is no need to travel outside the city for dynamic nightlife. What ever your genre of musical taste, numerous clubs and bars offer live music, from full bands to individual guitarists to “spoken word tours.”
There are also plenty of neighborhood bars that have a, well, neighborhood feel, huge nightclubs with throbbing dance music, and small clubs offering intimate settings.
However if this is your first, or only, visit to San Jose, don’t miss the Salsa clubs. Even if you don’t dance salsa, you will want to watch the sultry swaying.
There are numerous options, but we suggest Club Caribe (1001 S. 1st Street, San Jose, CA, 408-297-7272).
This is a true “Latino” club that plays salsa music every Thursday and while there is often a line to get in, a few minutes engaged in conversation with some really nice people assured us it was definitely worth waiting for.
Nightlife in San Jose runs late, so be prepared to sleep in the next day before hitting the many daytime attractions San Jose has to offer.
Parks, Museums, and Gardens
Daytime San Jose is dominated by those amazing floral displays that never ceased to surprise me.
They greet you as soon as you look out your window, when you walk to the grocery store, or run along shaded paths.
The multi-colored flowers that peek from everywhere brighten the city’s concrete and asphalt.
Some gardens are well cultivated, carefully planned affairs, while others – like the highway medians – are casually planted wildflowers or native gardens.
However they are all beautiful.
Strolling through San Jose visit their parks, from small neighborhood rest stop to regional activity centers, they are all brimming with flowers and trees.
Situated along the banks of the Guadalupe River, the Guadalupe River Park and Gardens quickly became a favorite destination.
Guadalupe Gardens, adjacent to the park, currently includes the Courtyard Garden, the Taylor Street Rock Garden and the 3,700 antique and modern roses found in the Heritage Rose Garden.
The Guadalupe River Trail, eleven miles of winding, shaded trail that runs along the river as it weaves through downtown San Jose.
The natural beauty of the plants and trees, the rocks along the river, and the sounds of the water rolling over the stones invite quiet introspection.
Visiting San Jose’s museums, the exterior gardens are often as amazing as the interior making it hard to leave the outside for the inside.
That said, fabulous journeys await inside.
The Rosicrucian Park, surrounding the Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum, is a five-acre botanical wonderland.
Museum buildings in Moorish and Egyptian architectural compete with the beauty of the fantastic gardens, the peace garden, an extensive rose garden, papyrus, water lilies, fountains, and broad lawns that invite visitors to literally stop and smell the roses.
At the entrance, an impressive statue of Taweret, the goddess of pregnant women and childbirth, greets visitors, foreshadowing the scale and detail of the interior.
The museum has four galleries: the afterlife, daily life and trade, kingship and religion, and shrines.
We particularly enjoyed the life-size replica of an Egyptian tomb, two rooms at two different levels. The first room is an offering chamber, with carvings depicting different elements of ancient Egyptian life. Visitors descend to the second room, the burial chamber, where the walls are covered with paintings of life and afterlife, gods and goddesses.
The human and animals mummies on display were amazing.
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