Costa Rica

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Costa Rica (literally "Rich Coast"), officially the Republic of Costa Rica, is a country in Central America, bordered by Nicaragua to the north, Panama to the south-southeast, the Pacific Ocean to the west and south, and the Caribbean Sea to the east. Costa Rica was the first country in the world to constitutionally abolish its army. It is also the only country in which both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans can be seen from the same point.

We spent a week there and it was great. We did a 3 day eco-tour and 3 day in an all-inclusive resort, would have preferred to do more touring but it was still excellent. The tour guide, Claudia, was very knowledgeable and did an excellent job conducting the tour in both English and French.

Costa Rica's landscape is spectacular, Mountains (volcanoes) everywhere, some very young. Two-thirds of the population live on the central plateau, around 5000 ft above sea-level, with very moderate temperature (23°C). We like that part a lot.

We slept under one of these volcanoes, Arenal. Actually, we stayed at a resort at the foot of the volcano, the view from the front porch was completely occupied by the volcano.

During the night, there was this very loud rumble, we jumped out of our beds and ran to the window. Ok, ok, no lava flowing out of the mountain, good, go back to sleep. We found out later that the mountain does this quite regularly, it is just let out some steam and ashes and that is how the mountain grows in size. They generate electricity from geo-thermal power (and also hydro electric), and they have lasers pointed at the mountain to detect it expanding due to unusual high pressure, in which case they just let out some steam elsewhere to reduce the pressure, pretty neat.

The boys of course have to point out that we are in fact older than the geological formation, it being only 38 years old.


That was the second volcano that we visited, the first one was Volcán Poás, it is situated in the Volcán Poás National Park.





I was surprised to see the Taiwan flag flying there along side the Costa Rica flag, turns out the park is twined with some park in Taiwan. If you see a Costa Rica flag in a Park in Taiwan, send me the details.



Do you know that Costa Rica produces the best coffee in the world? Or at least they claim so, and I can see why. The rich volcanic soil allows them to grow coffee year round, and we had ample opportunity to taste it while we were down there.



Oh, have you seen the boys lately? To say that they have grown is probably the understatement of the century.


For more pictures, click on the Picasa Web Album.

Costa Rica

Love that Smart Car

Easy on gas (diesel), fun to drive, what's not to love !!
http://www.smart.com

Back in Shanghai after 25 years

Twenty five years ago, Shanghai had not had new development for over a decade, and the old houses were still there, except with much more crowded conditions. Houses that were meant to hold one family held two to three. One of my relatives had two generations living in what was the master bedroom, by the way, I meant the father and mother in one bed, with the son and his wife in another bed built on a platform above the parents' bed.

Shanghai now is a non-stop construction site, with large apartment complexes being built everywhere, people and traffic, including a very modern subway system, on a backdrop of tall office towers, billboards, western and Chinese stores, and did I mention people? Lots and lots people.

Shanghai has always been full of people, except 25 years ago, they were all on bicycles, now it's cars and motorcycles. Pollution is bad, and being here in one of the worst heat waves doesn't help at all.

I woke up at 7:00, thought I would go to the back of the hotel, which is on the bank of the Yellow River, to take some early morning photographs. Forget it! The humidity was so bad my camera lens was completely fogged up. Can't see a thing.

Solved the problem by going into the Shangrila Hotel and taking the pictures from their second floor windows.

(pictures to be posted later)

February Poker Game and Birthdays Party

Well, it is a tradition now. Every February, the neighborhood poker boys gather together to play a game of poker, but because it also happens that four of us happen to have our birthdays in February, the poker night is also an excuse to celebrate each others' birthday.

Now, normally this is one night that we can banish our better halves to some place miserable like the neighbourhood pub so we can have the place to ourselves. This night however, we were treated to a pre-game celebration, with snacks, cake, and ice cream, how can we refuse? (Not that it would make any difference anyways.)

Going from left to right:
Aaron, Paul, David	Bernadette, Liz, Jennifer	Ross, Liz, Joe

Sing Happy Birthday

Oh, yes, we did play poker afterwards. All I remember was that I had a great time, and even came out ahead a bit. Seem to recall that Aaron walked away with a big sack on his back...