East Bay People and Places by trc

I have been to San Francisco Bay Area several times (long before SFO was connected by BART) but until this recent trip had never been in East Bay. I am especially interested in Oakland, a place designated by a New York Times article in 2012 as the Last Refuge of Radical America and where in the 1970s the AT&T Unix was first forked at UC Berkeley.

When I was planning to take part in a conference in San Jose, I could not help but started to bug Mike to guide me in the area when I would be visiting him. Mike has been very kind in giving me and my colleague Te-En a day tour around Oakland since we arrived. One day simply was too short, but we had a heck of good time. We tried out, and never missed, almost every kind of public transportation (BART, "Emery-go-round", bus, and Amtrak). We went to see a progressive co-working space, and I got to chat with old and new friends. But the highlight probably was the walk in Panoramic Hill, including the part when we were slightly lost in the woods, and the magnificent view from the hill top.