h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

What do mean "there's nothing to do in San Jose"?
Are you forgetting Great America?
And what about the Winchetser Mystery House?
And all the fabulous monuments to capitalism at their worst!
And the overpriced chain restaurants! And the most poorly designed freeway system in history! (That, in and of itself, is the most entertaining thing around if you ask me) Not to mention the highest property values in the country!

And you say there's nothing to do in San Jose?

I think the rationale for the lack of things to do here is that we're all so busy working that we wouldn't have the time or energy to actually do something even if we wanted to. I know all I do is go to work, go to gym, go home. Repeat ad infinitum.

One more thing to do...if one were to go to Monterey, one could visit the fabulous Monterey Bay Aquarium. Lots of cool fish, otters, jellyfish, etc., there.

Yep, San Jose is a quiet little city centre (or downtown and the Americans call it), there are a couple of points of interest if you happen to be in the area and you like technology (why else would you be in Silicon Valley).

1. The Tech - all cool science museum type thing but with lots of things to play with, very cool... if you like that kind of thing.

2. NASA Aimes Reasearch centre - a free museum in PaloAlto near San Jose with all sorts of NASA stuff like a 1/3 size space shuttle model, moon rock and the like.

If you're looking for somewhere cheap to stay, i'd recommend the YHA Sandbourne Hostel in a nearby park...

there are a few other cool places of interest that I am just find out about (surprise and alarm! Consternation! Uproar!) like the Children's Discovery Museum! Man! I wish I had lived in San Jo as akid because we didn't have anything nearly as cool in ghetto- a** Stockton. Also, the Rosicrusian Egyptian Museum is pretty amazing, as is the San Jose Museum of Art in downtown. But if you want a really good laugh, I suggest taking a tour of the public art all over the city. Starting with Quezalcoatal. Only in San Jose could a sculpture that looks like a huge pile of dog poop be considered art!

The Rosicrucian Museum of Egyptology (I think that's the official name but could be wrong)is way cool. They've created a whole mock-tomb in its lower level that is quite impressive. I highly recommend stopping in for anyone who finds his or her self in San Jose.
And the weather in San Jose is pretty darn nice, too.

i've lived here for 5 months, and i still don't understand how going south on 880 from alameda somehow lets me end up going north on 280. are there any east/west freeways up here? everything just says north/south, but i know that going north on 880 from santa clara just takes me to milpitas. would it seriously kill them to put some logical signs somewhere?

Now that I've lived here for 20 years, I'll have to check out some of these places that have been extolled here. Hate going downtown, but have done so for the opera in the wonderfully restored Fox Theater (that's a theatre for you who speak English).

Very fond of going to see all that water - rather deterred by all the cars, and their insane drivers on Hwy 17, between us.