Hello...San Jose...

Flight from Logan Airport Boston, Massachusetts to San Jose Airport, California that Sunday afternoon mengambil masa hampir 7 jam. That is how far the two cities are..Note the caption of US map below taken from my seat's display panel - one can do wonders with a digital camera! Seronok....
Untuk sesiapa yang tak ambil Ilmu Alam bab Amerika Syarikat masa kecik2 dulu, ini lah gambaran peta negara tersebut dimana Massachusetts is on the east coast and California is located on the west coast of United States...Time difference between San Jose and Boston is 3 hours terkemudian. Jadi dengan Malaysia perbezaan nya 15 jam. Kalau kat San Jose pukul 7pagi hari Isnin, member kat Malaysia dah nak masuk tidur - pukul 10malam hari tersebut. Dan....pagi raya kat sana, kami di sini masih belum buka puasa. Hish...sedih jugak nuuu. Kami menaiki one of US many domestic carrier - JetBlue.
Service was not bad...at least we got more than peanuts. The steward (pramugara) understood that we were fasting & he began bringing in food to us only when it was time for breaking fast.This is one 'mat salleh' who got out of his peanut shell! Alhamdulillah kami selamat sampai di San Jose. We stayed in Double Tree Hotel which is just walking distance to my husband's office. Likewise in Boston, the process of handing over takes place during this time. Double Tree Hotel is a family of Hilton's, but what's funny is that the rooms don't come with a fridge - pelik kan? Normally we'ld see a small fridge at the bottom of the coffee maker and condiments. Anyway, eating out is no problem in San Jose. Banyak restoran yang caters for muslims - ada Chinese, Moroccon, Turkish, Pakistan and Malaysian ( Red Kuali runs by a Malay lady). Just a note on the amount of baggages that are allowed by US carriers: only 2 pieces of luggage to be checked-in per person. Each luggage must not exceed 50pounds. Rasa nya berat tuu.. tapi kami masih kena excess baggage.. of course la kalau rice cooker, comforters and seterika pun masuk sekali!

I even brought along ketupat segera & serunding - just in case our stuff from Boston terlajak sampai selepas Raya. I think the ketupat segera is very much sinonim to Melayu as I found nothing of its kind at any of the Asian grocery shops - be it Thai, Chinese, or Koreans. And the Melayu or Indonesian community here doesn't have the volume for our delicacies to be imported in. I am surprised to find a halal meat & groceries shop run by an Afghan family here in San Jose known as California Halal Market. Even the Afghans are growing in numbers here....the Chinese, Indians, Koreans & Japanese jangan cakap laa.. I might be wrong in my assumption of predominantly Spanish speaking people in my previous posting ....
San Jose was founded in 1777 as El Pueblo de San Jose de Guadalupe. It was California's first civilian settlement and was California's first capital in 1849. Currently, it is the information capital of Silicon Valley. San Jose has grown to be Northern California's largest city - even larger than San Francisco, that "other city" just 45 minutes in the north. San Jose is the 10th largest city in US - hard to believe looking at the size and state of San Jose International Airport. Growth has been more horizontal than vertical so it lacks the normal cluster of towering skyscrapers. It is the heart of Silicon Valley with big names such as ebay, Adobe, Apple, McAfee, HP (Agilent) & Cisco to boast.....