February 2012: Cupertino, CA, USA
I cannot believe my good luck - the harshest cold snap this year, meant to go on for two weeks (and it did), and I'm sent on a training course to sunny California, Silicon Valley.
I stayed in the Courtyard Marriott, ground floor, with my room leading right out to the pool. And just to rub it in, the weather was gorgeous! 18-19C, sunny all day every day... The locals thought it was rather cold, and seemed quite bemused that I was happy to go round with nothing thicker than a tshirt on.
The course itself was a lot of hands on training, starting at around 9am and finishing around 4pm. This meant I had a lot of time, and sun, on my hands.
Just down the road from the hotel was the Valco shopping centre. Quite small, but a really neat knives shop. Looked independent and the staff definitely knew their stuff. In the other direction was a 99 Ranch store, a kind of Asian themed supermarket.
Over the two weeks I met up with a friend from my Uni days who lives in the area, and made a new friend quite randomly who was happy to show me round as well.
I was picked up from the AirPort, taken round the Bay area and over the Golden Gate bridge for a stunning walk and quite a number of photo opportunities. I also had my first all-American fast food an In-and-Outs - surprisingly good :)
I was taken to to the Burbank area quite a bit for food - Sino (mixed Asian foods, quite posh), Straits, The Cheesecake factory (amazing burger and the best Mohito I've had), and a random Sushi bar that I can't remember the name of (isn't Burbank where the Chuck TV series is set? Awesome), and went round a couple of Fry's Electronics stores - absolutely huge...
There's also a very large mall in that area called Valley Fair - Westfield, it's about four and a half miles from the hotel (which was about half mile from the training office). I walked it twice during my stay, much to the shock of the Locals.
Over the weekend I was taken on the Cal-Train to San Francisco and given a tour round all the usual places, stopping at the Ghirardelli Chocolate factory - think a chocolate version of an Ale Brewery w/shop. I also developed quite a taste for salted chocolate :)
Close to Ghirardelli's was a small shop, quite tucked away from anything - Bruce Abot's One Of A Kind. This place had astounding hand-carved... well everything. Animals, pens, puzzle boxes. I admit, I spent far too much in here - but it is so definitely worth it. Bruce was happy to talk about all the carvings, explaining how they were made (and all in local wood). One of the items I got was a reasonable sized dragon for my fiancée. When I explained about having to get it back home the UK with it's rather delicate wings Bruce wrapped it up so well he 'was happy to play football with it' (American football, and he didn't try it of course).
The last place I walked through was the Castro district, though it was getting late so it was only a brief stop and pretty much what I expected from what I'd read on it and how Soho is.
On the last Thursday I managed to get back in San Francisco again after training (slightly early finish)
Jay was able to give me a lift to the Cal-Train station as he was heading to SF anyway, and I spent a good portion of the afternoon to early evening walking round again. As Jay was staying in SF, I had to make my own way back to the hotel from the Cal-train station - only a three and half mile walk (and still shock from the locals)
This album is mostly from the first day, with a bit of SF thrown in.
This album is from the flight back - got some amazing photographs :) (well, I think so anyway)