I climbed aboard the light rail today and headed downtown to nose about. The light rail here is certainly nothing like Metro (or BART), but it does the job. One feature that it does have above the others is a convenient way to take your bike along. There on the right side of this blurry photo you can see it: a bike rack in every trolley. Cool!
The San Jose Gay Pride Festival was going on today (and tomorrow) and I stopped in, but compared to the festival on Pennsylvania Avenue in DC, this one was rather disappointing — just a few booths from various organizations, but the lemonade and Thai chicken was really good. I moved on, walking around downtown, taking in the San Jose Art Museum; but my favorite piece of art was hanging in the huge atrium of the Adobe building.
You can just make it out, there behind the windows — a huge representation of a color palette from an Adobe software product. It’s amazing how some ubiquitous things can so easily become art when looked at in a different environment. In fact, the art museum exhibit I liked best was about the bulbous, blobby design of consumer products. “Blobjects” has only one more day to run, so it’s a good thing I caught it!
I was struck by how empty downtown San Jose is. It’s much like some other downtowns (the finger points at you, Phoenix) that have been supplanted by suburban malls and attractions. But San Jose’s downtown is not run down or dirty, it’s lovely and clean… it just seems to cater to a weekday crowd.
