Sushi anyone?

Buenas Noches a todos donde sea que estes... (good evening everyone wherever you are..)

Ok so today was my birthday (this is David by the way) and i had to work, I honestly had a great day today. I showed up and all my employees said happy b-david day..lol.

You now may be wondering what do I do for a living... well, i am the assistance supervisor for an outsource company, and I have under my responsibility 16 people that report to me and I report to my boss and he reports to I don't know who...

Anyways, the reason I'm writing this is because I wanted to share with you guys that I found a great Sushi restaurant in Heredia. Now, if you have been to Costa Rica, you will notice that there are not that many good Japanese Restaurant around here, or maybe I just haven't been to yet! I think maybe after living in Vancouver, BC, where Sushi is great, I just can't take crappy sushi.

The restaurant is called "Kabuto" and there are two, one in front of Universidad Nacional in Downtown Heredia, and the other one is in La aurora in Plaza Aurora.

Everyday I drive by it and i see a lot of people going to it, well, today since it was my birthday Steph took me there, and that was awesome because she does not like Japanese food that much, and when we came out I was in awe.

To begin with, the waiter was extremely nice, polite and courteous, he asked what we wanted and we order and paraphrase and so I thought that was nice because here in Costa Rica the restaurants lack costumer service. The food did not take long and it Great!

We were pretty happy with the taste and the service and we knew the total cost at front. You might be wondering what I mean by that, well, here in Costa Rica the restaurants usually charge you extra taxes, but if you want more info, visit our website.

At the end of the night, I was very satisfied with the service and the way we were attended.

I highly recommend it for you guys to try it.

Bye for now

David

The smaller things in life...

Hola todos! It's Stephanie again! So todays blog will be on the smaller things in life here in Costa Rica; the water, internet, cable/satellite, food, etc. Hopefully you will find it useful, I like to make things as practical as possible so you can apply it in your life. If you are planning to move to Costa Rica, and you have sort of decided where you would like to live (mountains, beach, or city as mentioned in previous blogs), then there are a few things you need to be aware of.


WATER: Your water bill in Costa Rica will be very cheap when compared to your bill in the US. David and I pay approximately $5-$8 per month (last month's bill was 2,352 colones which is about $5), and I take long showers! What you really need to know about the water here, is that it is very difficult to find a home that has a hot water tank. We do not have hot water in our house, and often have to boil water to clean our dishes or wash extremely dirty clothes. If you are like me and HAVE to have hot showers, you can purchase a "termo ducha" (thermal shower head) at major grocery stores such as Hipermas or Pricemart here in Costa Rica. You can attach this shower head to your shower and PRESTO hot water! Just keep in mind this is an electrical shower head, so you do not want to play with it. I would suggest you turn it on and keep it on, I don't even know how to turn mine off! LOL. You can, however, find a home with hot water, it will most likely be more expensive though. Places such as new gated communities and condominiums usually have hot water.

CELL PHONES: There is only one cell phone company in Costa Rica, and that is ICE (Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad). There are two options you can choose from with this company, TDM or GSM. There is a long waiting list for both, so you could be waiting anywhere from one month to over a year to get your phone connected.

If you chose TDM (Time Division Multiplexing) or "all technology," you can get it sooner than the GSM phone, because not as many people use this system anymore. It is slower and cuts out more, you cannot send pictures or get the internet on your phone through here. Reception is poor in many places.

GSM (Groupe Spécial Mobile) is the most popular choice, with this option you can receive or send photos, surf the internet, it has better reception and better technology. The down side is the waiting list. There are not enough phone numbers in Costa Rica, and so you could be waiting up to a year, maybe longer, to have it connected.

INTERNET: There are four providers for internet services here in Costa Rica. There is Racsa who offers dial up internet service only. They have a maximum transfer speed of 56kb (kilobytes), which is quite slow. ICE only offers ADSL internet services. You can purchase different speeds for different prices. The down side is that it depends of port availability, which means it can also take a long time to have it connected. We signed up for ICE ADSL in October of 2008, they did not hook up our internet until May 2009. The other two are through CableTica and Amnet. You must have cable with these companies in order to purchase internet, and these two companies do not offer services in every area.

CABLE/SATELLITE: Which cable company you use may depend on where you live. If you live in the larger areas, such as Alajuela, San Jose or Heredia, you will have more choices than if you live farther out. CableTica and Amnet are the two cable companies, and SKY is the only satellite company. It doesn't take long to have your cable or satellite connected, usually they can be connected within a week.

ELECTRICTY: The only provider of electricity is ICE; it's nationwide and pretty cheap. Last month we paid 9, 818 colones for electricity, which is roughly $20 American, however the price did increase slightly this month. This month we will probably pay about 11,000 colones ($22). You can find a home for rent which includes cable, electricity, and internet so you don't have to hassel with all these companies. Almost every home has cable, electricity and water. If it doesn't, don't move there!

One last note, you will not find a home with heat in Costa Rica. We live in the mountains where it is cold and rains all the time, and we had to purchase a small electric heater on our honeymoon in Miami last year. Heat is next to impossible to find year, but it is really not needed.

Coke in a BAG!!!!

IT IS TRUE!!!

So today Steph and I were sitting at a soda (local restaurant)having a piece of fried chicken in Belen, Heredia and we got to talking about more tips for you guys and for the Costa Rica website. Stephanie asked me if she could drink out of the the glass coke bottle with her meal rather than use the cup and I said "sure, I don't see what is so fun about it." Well, then we realized that it is very hard to find coke in the US or Canada in glass bottles.

After having a good time with our inside jokes we realized that here in Costa Rica, the local corner store (pulperias) will literally give you a coke in a little plastic baggie, because they have to return the glass bottle to the factory where it came from. Crazy eh? Yeah I know.... what do you do? Have fun I would suggest....

The first time Steph came to Costa Rica in 2007, she was shocked when she tried to buy a coke at the local store. They poured the coke out into a plastic baggie, gave her a straw and kept the glass bottle. Steph could hardly speak Spanish at that time and was REALLY confused. She rushed back to my house, opened the door and started yelling "Coke in a bag! Coke in a BAG!" And reached out her hand with the bag to show me. I laughed for days because to me it was normal- I was used to coke in a bag.


DON'T WORRY, here in Costa Rica we also have plastic bottles and aluminun cans so if you are not so confortable drinking out of the bag... you do have other options...

Ahhhh.... traveling... what a great experience! Wouldn't you agree? Anyways, I thought I would post a pic of Steph actually holding one, and also if you guys are wondering what kind of ice cream she is eating, it's called "CHOCOLETA" (pronounce = Sho-ko-le-ta) in case you want to have one for the little price of Ç 350 colones ($0.59 USD) isn't that cheap?

ok.. for more updates... check back soon!

~David