As small business month is quickly approaching I was thinking how wonderful and vibrant a community…read moreJapantown San Jose is. There so many seasoned and new diverse small business owners here in the heart of Japantown. Classic Loot, Zonkey, Roy's, Santo Market, Taqueria Corona, Minato, Hukilau, Kazoo are among my families favorites. We have also enjoyed and welcomed new businesses too like Banne (yummy sourdough) and Furbaby Fancy petgrooming (the most posh and elite pet grooming experience) into our rotation as well! I should have just listed all the businesses here! So proud of the businesses that contribute to our community!

There's definitely a lot of history, community love, and shops and restaurants here. It's smaller…read morethan the other Little Tokyo in LA and Japan Town in SF (I think), but because we came around midday lunch time on a Tuesday after Fanime, not many stores or restaurants were surprisingly open? Maybe it's due to being after Memorial Day or because most of them were night time dinner service only restaurants. Either way it's much cleaner than Little Tokyo in LA and with less jump scares and trash everywhere. Easier to find parking and more affordable, in a sense, than Japan Town SF. Stopped by the Japanese grocery store and Santo Market while we were here. Fun to kill a couple of hours, I suppose. I just gotta come back here again when more things are open !

"As my artist's statement explains, my work is utterly incomprehensible and is therefore full of…read moredeep significance."―Calvin San José has a long line of, shall we say, questionable Public Art (PA) projects; everybody knows about the giant dog turd statue Quetzalcoatl―or as I like to call him Quetzacaca ( goo.gl/lvswBr )―in the Plaza de César Chávez. Let's also not forget the Fallon Statue debacle ( goo.gl/wKEv0g )―and don't get me started on the mangled shopping carts (goo.gl/vbB6NE) passing for a statue on the corner of Alma Ave and Almaden Rd. Need I go on?! So, whenever CSJ does something right I love to point it out. I first read about Ursa Mater (aka Mama Penny Bear) in the Merc from my buddy Sal Pizarro's column. Ursa Mater is a gigantic piece of coin art that was put together by Hayward-based artists Mr & Mrs Ferguson. She first made an appearance at last year's Burning Man festival and is now prominently displayed in Paseo de San Antonio―just east of Plaza de César Chávez, right by Bijan Bakery. The statue of Mama Bear and her two cubs sits at least 10-12' tall and is completely covered in 200,000 pennies ($2,000 worth) to make up the bears fur. It's pretty cool to look at from afar, and even cooler up close. I suggest getting here quickly to check her out, as she will only be on display until the end of May. And then we'll be back to staring at Quetzacaca forever. FOL...

I like to think that these represent the bear on the California flag. The name Ursa Mater…read more Is an excellent play on words by the artist. Ursa Major is Latin for "greater she bear" So Ursa Mater translates roughly to "She bear of matter" ( I only understand a very small amount of Latin so this may or may not be the exact translation). The bear and her cub are made of pennies so it seems the artist's intention was to make a realistic mother bear out of " matter" , hence the name. Also behind the pennies is a concrete core. It's as if these bears have a real fur made out of metal. As the previous reviewer said, there are are a lot of bad San Jose art pieces, but this one is fantastic. Just an edit: it seems to be gone now. Very sad.

I have come here for the Halloween special and their regular guided tours…read more For their Halloween event, I highly enjoyed it! They make a lot of effort to decorate and set up a spoooky ambiance. The cast were really into character and it was really fun. I also enjoyed their Halloween styled drinks - it truly set the mood! For the regular tours, I was pretty disappointed. For the following reasons: - tour was WAY too big (could not hear and it was hard to follow along) - tour content was a bit lacking. I came in with a rough idea of who Sarah Winchester was and didn't learn much beyond that. Might be different if you don't know anything about the area though - tour guides were kind of cranky. Our tour guide seemed pretty annoyed throughout the whole thing and I saw multiple other tour guides (ours included) yell at guests which was super awkward Nonetheless it is amazing to have such a historic landmark nearby. The staff do an amazing job of preserving it and it is very well maintained. You can tell they all take pride in working their and in conservation of the house, which was nice to see

I was here for an event and we were able to explore the house on our own. There were people around…read moreand you could ask questions about various rooms and things in the house. It was neat, but I think a guided tour would be the way to go. Some highlights were the door to nowhere, the gardens, and the great hospitality. It would also be awesome to visit at night too to really get the essence of the spiritual aspect. I hadn't heard of this place until the car ride over from the hotel, so I wasn't prepared for what was in store. I'd assume most people going here have some idea of why they're here. Overall, I enjoyed it and appreciated the beauty of the building as well as some of the stories told.

A must for the winter holiday season. The return of the penguins was nice. The whole area should…read morecontinue to be closed off and turned into pedestrian-friendly Christmas town. Thank you

I have been going to Christmas in the Park pretty much all of my life. It has changed a lot, little…read moreby little every year. Some people might not notice the little changes but I have. It's free and a San Jose tradition and always a treat to walk around and get into that festive Christmas spirit. There are hundreds of decorated Christmas trees around the park and also wonderful lights strung around the park as well. I love checking out the different organizations that have their trees there and also the wonderful displays. I love how some of the displays have been updated year after year with new modern versions. They also have added lots of more food, drink and merchandise vendors and a lot of them are pretty good as well. I do miss having the little replica of the San Jose Light Tower and also the snow machines in the park. I hope they bring both of those back at least. But I know Christmas in the Park keeps on evolving and having new and exciting things every year. I look forward to visiting the San Jose tradition year after year and making more new memories. By the way, there's free parking in the city-owned parking garages for the first 90 minutes. Or you can park on the street for free after 6:00 p.m. as well.

5 stars because it's free and I enjoyed my time…read more Pretty chill art museum I liked all the variations of soccer balls and one painting really caught my attention. I appreciate that it is free. They close early so go before 5pm. I was late and only had 30 minutes to end it that was enough time. I ended up sitting outside and just journaled about my day. Such a relaxing evening.

I love this museum. I actually went here before as a field trip for Girl Scouts. I love they gave…read morethe football memorabilia. They even do events here too: I went here for a wedding. They have beautiful walls to take a photo ops.

Lupe the Mammoth is a cool (not so) little structure on the Guadalupe River Trail about 4 miles…read morefrom Alviso. There's not much around the area, so unless you are biking or jogging on the trail, it might seem out of the way to view such a simple little-known monument. But it has a neat little story behind it for anyone interested in art, science, history, or nature, or even just cool quirky attractions that are free of cost. A guy came across the collection of bones while walking his dog along the trail back in 2005. How awesome is that, it's like finding a dinosaur in your backyard! The actual remains can now be found at the Childrens Discovery Museum in San Jose where they can inspire kids to "dig for fossils" and explore the past, but the unique sculpture on the Guadalupe River Trail marks the setting of this magnificent discovery. And it is far from ordinary. It's beautifully crafted out of bent steel pipes, and almost twice the size of the actual baby mammoth remains. The area and the exhibit itself are not run down by trash or graffiti or shady characters, so it makes for a pleasant experience and worth checking out. The area is actual pretty quiet and scenic, besides the Trimble Road highway (there's an underpass that connects the trail if you're looking to cross the busy street). It's surrounded by business parks, with private parking only. So there is no parking at the exact location of the mammoth statue. However if you're driving, there is free street parking on Seaboard Ave (6am-10pm), next to the nearby 76 gas station, within walking distance... Though the sculpture can easily be viewed from Trimble Road, please don't stop on the street (illegally) and block traffic. This isn't the most exciting attraction in San Jose so you shouldn't have too high of expectations. But if looking for a low-key outing that won't cost you a penny, this is a great option (to appreciate this work of art in person, not just through photos).

Columbia mammoth spotted along the Guadeloupe Trail! Ok, actually it is only the whiff of a memory…read moreof a memory locked in a skeleton fossil over 12,500 years old. A sculpture of a mammoth made of what looks like curved metal bars sits under a tree waving at commuting cars trundling along the street. It is massive and I think quite cool. I hope the city makes it a habit of putting more sculptures and works of art along the trail. There is a small information board that gives you the low-down on Lupe, her discovery, and how old it is. A cool snippet of one of the coolest cousin to elephants that used to wander in Silicone Valley in the Pleistocene period. Tres cool! The large metal structure isn't in the best location, but can easily be visited by joggers, walkers and bicyclists wandering along the Guadeloupe trail where is passes through the city of Santa Clara.

Desire is a public art installation located in the Willow Glen District of San Jose. It is one of 3…read morepieces purchased as part of a downtown beautification effort. Desire, created in 2014, is the work of San Jose artist Jeff Owen. From the artist "My sculptures combine the past and the present. I have a deep affinity toward the materials I work with, a wonderful sense of emotion, feelings, and dreams for what the material was once used for and now what it will become in my hands. These feelings direct me on my path. My processes emerge with patterns. Taking one piece of steel; adding to it, deleting from it, constantly discovering the metal's unique appeal. When a sculpture encompasses all of my creative energy, it is finished. My technique is brute force, decide-at-the-moment. The interesting shapes of metal; the patterns, textures, and grains; all entice me. I am fascinated with form. My aspiration is to create sculpture that is completely unique; that no one has done before. I resist conformity and mass production. My art is as individual as I am." The sculpture is both complex and simple with the rust of the corten setting off the red orb in the center. Desire is best part of a larger trip and there are plenty of shops and restaruants in easy proximity to it.

My friend took me here to celebrate my bday and it was such a cute and fun experience!! We did the…read morecandle making and pressed flower candle holder class! First we chose our scents and blended color and scents into our two candles and then from our leftover we got to make a special mini candle combining all of our candle wax! The color came out cute for the combo one! Then we glued on pretty pressed flowers into the glass to hold our candles!! It was so fun and a great place to yap away and craft together! Emir also holds other craft classes in the studio as well which all look fun and interesting!

This was a great experience. I got to spend some one on one time making these cute little frames of…read morepressed flowers! Plenty of flowers and leaves to choose from. The facility was clean and warm. The restrooms were separate but also clean. Emir was awesome! He made us feel welcomed and explained everything thoroughly. I'd take more of these classes. :)

Totally responsive upon initial request. Came and looked at job, very quick with quote. Very fair…read moreprice. Work is quite outstanding, down to minutest detail. Very agreeable to work with, had 5-6 exchanges of ideas, with John the customer is the driver, John delivers what he says he will in the time he says it will take. HIGHLY RECOMMEND for mural work, small scale (mine 250 sq ft), or large.

Very creative, professional, easy to work with, and the work is very widely appealing.read more