Arrived in Bay Area – California Baby!

Saturday morning (8/18), woke up at 4:30am to catch my 7:30am flight. After 3 hours of flying, with additional 1 hour and half of waiting for my connection flight in Portland, I have arrived in San Jose.

It’s only my 2nd night here right now, but already encountered many interesting incidents. Especially on Saturday night when I went to watch a football pre-season game at San Francisco. I have to say, football games are definitely not for Asians. At least not watching them live. Walking around half the stadium, I saw less than 5 Asians. It was all white, black, and brown.

Unlike normal football games, this pre-season game featured the SF 49ers vs. the Oakland Raiders. Since both teams are from the Bay Area, with only one bridge separating them, fans from both teams showed up for the game. Of course, matters evidently get ugly with a mix of rivalry fans in the same place. Saw couple fights broke out that made me feared for my life since I’m a major minority in the stadium. I doubt people would notice or cared if I got stabbed there and then.

On the way out it was even more stressful. Imagining more than 45,000+ people trying to leave one parking lot at the same time. It took us nearly 1 hour to move about 10 meters. We saw people taking out their portable BBQ and setting up a grill while waiting to exit. No wonder so many people drove their RVs to the football game. It’s actually convenient and smart. In the end, it took us nearly 3 hours to get home for a drive that is only 35min according to google map.

That will be my last time watching a football game live. Unless it’s in the box seats and have helicopters picking me up.

 

My cousin’s house. Houses are so clean because it doesn’t rain much here.

 

The backyard, with a swing and a fish pond (on the right.)

 

The neighborhood.

 

Some other interesting things I’ve learned about San Jose and the Bay Area these two days are:

- The water here tastes weird. Vancouver truly has the best tasting tap water.

- Highway is the way. Everywhere you go, it will involve a rather long drive on the highway.

- The highways have ridiculously short merges for on-ramps. You’re expected to merge into the highway at 65+mi/hr within 5 meters. Without crashing!

- Driving fast is a must. You’ll get yourself killed if you drive at or below speed limit.

- Public transportation means carpooling with your co-worker or neighbors. Bus is just a myth.

- Bridges are not free.

- In an Asian supermarkets, all customers are Asians. All workers are Mexicans. And the white guy you see is just lost and trying to ask for directions.

- A 600,000 USD house is considered cheap and bad. A 1.2mil USD house is only average.

- Crossing the bridge from San Francisco to the other side feels like entering a different world.

- The only weather forecast at San Jose is sunshine or slight cloudy. A few drops of rain is a storm.

- In areas with larger population of Chinese, U-turning on streets is allowed.