Click to see entire photo set…
My Singaporean friend Biao offered to give me a tour of Yahoo! in Sunnyvale while I am in San Francisco. Since he was busy working on the next-gen advertising platform for Yahoo! (possibly Panama), we arranged to meet somewhere closer to him.
Google Maps made it really easy for me, as it gives really detailed travel information whenever you’re in a metropolitan area. For instance, from my downtown hotel to the Sunnyvale Caltrain station, it gave me the cost of public transit, travel time (factoring in schedules), and a breakdown of buses and trains I had to take. You can check out my actual journey here.
I loved the train rides, especially the Caltrain, since it blew through all the picturesque scenery San Francisco had to offer. I really love the west coast, the weather was perfect, people seemed friendlier, and the sun… oh how I miss the sun, coming from a wintry land. I was even inspired to do a solo lipdub along the way, so if you feel like torturing yourself with some bad Milli-Vanilli, check in later.
Since I arrived early at the Sunnyvale station, I took a gamble on the bus getting closest to the Yahoo! campus. I had recalled from Paul Stamatiou that Lockheed Martin was just next door, so I picked the bus that got me in that vicinity.
At Yahoo!, I checked in at the reception and got a little purple sticker tag. Biao showed up soon after, and we had lunch at the Yahoo! URL’s cafeteria. Lots of cuisines to choose from, and my grilled chicken pasta costs about $5. Soft drinks were free, and so was coffee. I loved the Asian Iced Expresso, which tasted like Vietnamese iced coffee thanks to the use of condensed milk.
Since the only other campus I’ve ever visited was Apple’s, the Yahoo! campus itself was smaller, but more spread out. There was a basketball and a volleyball court for those inclined, with foosball tables were in every building. We finished off with a picture by the Yahoo! campus sign, which felt touristy, but necessary.
There’s plenty more to see in my photo set if you’re interested. Thanks Biao!
