Bay Area Business Trip 2009

Visiting my company HQ in San Jose these two weeks. Flew in to SFO at noon via Seoul, got my rental car, a green Toyota Corolla (a potential Mazda 3 turned out to be a hatchback, can't accommodate my luggage).

Was initially a bit jittery driving again after such a long break, but it soon came back after 5 minutes. Thank goodness for the GPS, I didn't get too lost. Found my way to the Embassy Suites on 901 E Calaveras Blvd, about 2 miles from the office, and successfully checked in.

Just remembered that an old friend of mine was working in Apple, so I dropped him a SMS, and luckily he was using the same number! We met up for dinner at a Singapore/Malaysian restaurant called Banana Leaf (it's a 20 minute drive from Cupertino), walked around, and parted ways then.

I thought Banana Leaf was way too popular. I didn't know the people here enjoyed Singaporean food so much. A good thing we went in early, because about half an hour later, the place was packed with people who had just got off work. We had spring roll, pineapple rice, and chicken rice.

A mundane two days passed meeting and greeting in the office later, it was Saturday again. Feeling rather refreshed after sleeping at 6:30pm the day before, I actually woke up at 5am, but couldn't get back to sleep, and finally got up at 6am. Hit the treadmill at the gym for 25 minutes and had breakfast. I planned my itinerary to last the entire day, covering all the places I had hoped to visit.

Enough with the boring fluff. I set out at 12, and visited these places:

• Intel Museum on 2200 Mission College Boulevard
• Broadcom and Yahoo Santa Clara were just up the street (near six-flags!)
• Computer History Museum at 1401 N Shoreline Boulevard, Mountain View.
• Google Headquarters at 1600 Amphitheater Parkway, Mountain View.
• Apple Headquarters at 1 Infinite Loop, Cupertino.

Photos and videos to follow!

Ended the day going to Mark's house, going for a hike to a hill top where there is a stunning night view of Silicon Valley (there are photos, of course), and having dinner at a Chinese restaurant in downtown Mountain View to celebrate Mark's birthday - Happy Birthday Mark!

Met Patty while walking around after dinner. Turns out that she lives in Mountain View. Haha, I actually could not recognize her outside the office, but she managed to spot me and came up to say Hi.

Plans for Sunday? Shopping maybe?