Category: San Jose

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Temple of Music

Ceiling of the acoustically perfect band shelter in
Morazan Park, San Jose, Costa Rica

“Temple of Music”
Morazan Park, San Jose, Costa Rica
Photographed last week on a trip to San Jose.

The Morazan Park was built in 1887 and was the place where New Year’s Eve festivities were celebrated in the late XIX century. Also music recitals were held in this place and still are nowadays.

This is why in 1920 an investment was made for the construction of the Temple of Music, which has an almost perfect acoustic.

The temple was used for political speeches and also for the exchange of the Power of the Republic. Nowadays, several concerts are presented, from the National Symphonic Orchestra to contemporary music groups.

The Temple of Music is a duplicate of the Temple of Love and Music of Versailles. Its Neoclassical design was made by the architect and painter Jose Francisco Salazar, who also designed the Club Union, the Law School of the University of Costa Rica and the Drugstore of the former University.

The above copied from:
http://www.costaricaexplorerguide.com/php/atracciones2.php?idm=2&atract=65

See the glass building behind the band shelter? It’s Holiday Inn Aurora.
The last night of my 2010 Caravan.com tour of Costa Rica was there and
I’m spending two nights there this week on a “Concrete Jungle” photo trip.
This photo copied from the web.

My trip this week will be to photograph old churches and other interesting or historic old buildings in central San Jose on my walking tour. I discovered a great app for my phone to guide me on many walking tours of San Jose from GPSmyCity.com   with my personal guide, maps, and voice directions each step of the way. Wow! Travel has gotten easier!

I hope to be adding a lot more photos to my already existing photo gallery on San Jose and also to the gallery of Costa Rica Churches. 

The rainforests and cloud forests are my favorite parts of Costa Rica, but sometimes it is exciting to plan on a city visit too! And there is a lot in San Jose for my short Thursday-Saturday trip. Getting there by bus of course!  🙂  Then some taxis though mostly walking. 
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More Birds on My Tree & Little Theater Experience

See also my other posts of tree birds:  Animales Fantasticos,  Arbolitos de Pajaros and still one more coming!

LITTLE THEATER EXPERIENCE
For you guys back in the states who think I just live with the birds and have no social outlets, you couldn’t be more wrong! Sometimes I have too much going on to live the slow, simple life I’m here for. One group I belong to is expats that take charter bus trips to San Jose for cultural activities plus some local recreational activities. Last week we went to the San Jose Little Theatre Group for a very interesting little play titled The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time. It was about a teen boy with Asperger’s syndrome that was a little emotional to me since that was one of Juli’s problems. But I enjoyed it and our group of 40 filled the theater which we had to ourselves. It was a late afternoon private performance and then we went to an Argentina Steak House for a very good dinner before returning to Atenas. Thanks to Tony Phillips who puts these trips together!

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The Stewart’s in Costa Rica

Lucinda, Emily & Tim Stewart
At Veritas University in downtown San Jose, Costa Rica

It was a fun privilege to have lunch with these three Stewart’s today in San Jose. They were here partly because Emily is in a 3-month International Studies program at Veritas University. Plus they had a vacation weekend together at Puerto Viejo on the Caribbean coast and Tim & Lucinda a little getaway at Arenal Volcano. Wow! I’ve had 6 different visitors from Tennessee in less than two years! Maybe they haven’t forgotten me in Tennessee yet.  🙂

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La Bohéme Opera Sunday Night

Teatro Nacional Stage seen from Balcony
They asked us to not take photos during the performance.
Note the screen for subtitles. Opera was in Italian and subtitles in Spanish!
(What did you expect in a Spanish-language country?) I understood maybe 30%.
Thanks to Amazon Kindle I had read it in English before the performance
AND watched it on YouTube with English Subtitles, so I was ready!  🙂
Our Atenas Group in the Balcony of Teatro Nacional

Atenas Expat Retirees on Bus to San Jose

Opera Program Book
And oh yeah, it was a fabulous performance! Perfect in every way!
The arts are very important here and done well in every medium.
And I’m interested in something other than just birds!  🙂

Outside Teatro Nacional
(Photo made earlier than today’s visit.)

Inside Lobby of Teatro Nacional
(Earlier shot. It was packed full tonight!)
There is a great little restaurant off the lobby but packed tonight,
so Anthony and I ate burgers at McDonald’s across the street. Shameful!

We went to a 5:00 PM performance and our bus was back in Atenas by 8:30 PM. Nice!

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Another Expat Trip to San Jose

Yeh! It is kind of like the senior adult trips we had at both First Baptist & McKendree Village when in Nashville. And a lot of fun! Focus this time was indigenous people art work that we were not suppose to photograph. I honored their rule (though some did not). Bought nothing!:

NAMU is the Bri Bri indigenous language for Jaguar and name of shop.
Not allowed to make photos inside. Lots of masks, baskets, carvings, etc.

Afterwards we stop at “Porky’s”
for a choice of 50+ hamburgers & 100’s of beers.

This was my second trip with this group, the other being a Central American Art show I shared about in one blog post. July 31 I’m going with the music lovers of this group of expats to San Jose for a performance of the opera La Boheme. That should be interesting since I have not generally cared for most operas, but think I will like this one. I’m reading the English translation of the script now thanks to Kindle! The men get together for dart tournaments but that has not interested me yet.

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San Jose Hospitals Today

Entering Hospital Mexico, the largest in Costa Rica
and a public hospital
MRI at Public Hospital Mexico

Hospital room at small boutique private hospital, Clinica Unibe.
We saw another similar one called Hospital Metropolintano.

In and out of the van at about 5 hospitals

Clinica Biblica, one of the two largest private hospitals along with CIMA.
We also visited Hospital Catolica, just a little smaller.

An absolutely wonderful Senior Adult Apartments with all levels of care,
great views, and near the second largest mall in Costa Rica.
Verdeza Apartamentos
I would love for this to be my final home before death! Great program!

More tomorrow as we head for San Ramon, a town a little larger than Atenas to visit more of the local healthcare facilities and hear more from Paul and Gloria Yeatman and eat lunch at their house.

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Healthcare Tour of Costa Rica

Wednesday & Thursday nights at Adventure Inn in San Jose
A small family-owned, non-chain hotel with good prices!
Adventure Inn San Jose

Because the tour starts at 7:30 in the morning from this hotel, I came the night before like probably most of the participants. Walter’s Tours and Taxis in Atenas takes me for visa renewals usually and so I used his services to get to this hotel today. Door to door friendly and efficient service at a reasonable price and I did not have to fight the San Jose traffic! Saturday morning they will pick me up in San Ramon where the tour finishes. To save money I may use the public bus in future but it seemed more of a hassle with a suitcase and changing buses in San Jose. Kind of nice to be chauffeured!

The tour that starts in the morning (I’m writing Wednesday night) is sponsored by Paul & Gloria Yeatman who do the blog/website/newsletter titled Retire for Less in Costa Rica. One of their posts tells about Healthcare in Costa Rica and this tour description.

Tomorrow night I will report on the first day of the tour, all in San Jose. So keep reading. I expect most of the participants to be people from the States and Canada who are considering retirement here. The Yeatman’s do this in conjunction with another guy who does a relocation tour of Costa Rica, different from the one I took. More about it later too. Tonight I rest, eat in hotel restaurant, do some computer work and play and read. It is fun to be away from home even when you live in a paradise! 🙂

A quote from the founder of my former clinic in Nashville
where caring people still struggle with the
broken American system.
It is good to now live in a country where healthcare and education are
more important than wealth and military. It makes a difference!
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Why “No Me Gusta San Jose Driving”

Why I don’t like driving in San Jose? It is a big, busy, congested traffic city! Especially on Friday afternoon when I had my last doctor appointment and these photos were shot through bus window on Route 1. Downtown was actually more bumper to bumper but I didn’t think to snap a shot there. It took an hour and a half to get to Atenas at 4:30 where during the day it is sometimes just 45 minutes to drive the 38 miles. 🙂   In addition to people leaving work early on Friday, many in the city go to the beach for the whole weekend making it nearly bumper to bumper all the way to Jaco. To facilitate this, the main highway/freeway, Ruta 27, has all lanes going west for a couple of hours Friday afternoon and all lanes going east for a couple of hours Sunday afternoon as they return. Interesting!

Just one more reason I do not have the high expense of a car and get around by bus, taxi or walking: healthier, cheaper, and less stress! And I can get the occasional rent car for a trip or when I have guests.

AND Costa Rica is STILL One of the Best Places in the World to Retire as now reported by U.S. News & World Report with above link to a Live in Costa Rica Blog article. Or go directly to the U.S. News & World Report Ranking of Costa Rica for Retirement. 

¡Ciudad, Pueblo, Bosque, Montana o Playa
Costa Rica es Pura Vida!
¡Me Gusta Mucho!
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Christmas in San Jose Photos

Big Cities like to do everything bigger and better and San Jose, the capital and largest city in Costa Rica is no exception. See a few photos of Christmas decor and events by Tico Times:

http://www.ticotimes.net/2015/12/25/photos-christmas-2015

Tico Times photos – this of the lighting of tree at Children’s Hospital

AND MY DAY AFTER CHRISTMAS?

I’m hoping to stay home all day with no interruptions to the many things I want to do and some rest! 

WITH CHRISTMAS COMES THE WIND!
It actually started some a couple of weeks ago, but it is here full force now! I’m having to keep the sliding door screen closed and my garden door with no screen closed because so many leaves, flowers, bugs and dust blow in! This will be the norm through February or March with it getting more dusty the longer we go without rain. And if Turrialba erupts again, we will get ash or gray-black dust! That is just part of living in paradise!  🙂

And the crazy thing is that it is during this windy, sometimes dusty period that we have the most tourists and snowbirds trying to get away from cold weather up north. I think I’ve decided I like the rainy season (Jul-Oct) or “green season” better and it’s two shoulder periods (May-Jun & Oct-Nov) which have very little rain but are greener and more pleasant. So for the next 3 months or so we put up with wind, dust and snow birds! Then tranquility begins again!  🙂

And for my Canadian friends: