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Comfort Food:
The first Chinese food restaurant I went to here was, shall we say, not up to Vancouver standards. I didn't even try looking for a good restaurant for 6 months after that. Fortunately Lynnethe has a friend from Taiwan who owns a restaurant who was able to recommend one in my neighbourhood. And boy was it good. I hadn't had fried tofu or BBQ pork for 7 months and was in serious withdrawal. Last week I went to a different one close to my office, hoping it would be ok. I got lucky again, well sort of, I ordered ma po dofu and was pleasantly surprised. Despite it being served like a soup (definitely not eaten with chopsticks) it was quite good. I may have to go there again this week. I should mention that I have been to an upscale Chinese/Japanese/Philippine/etc. restaurant called Tin Jo (pronounced tin ho) that was very good as well. I'm told Lynnethe's friend doesn't cook unless there are people visiting from China, otherwise her restaurant serves 'Ticofied' Chinese food, I guess that's not much different from the Chinese/Canadian Cuisine restaurant you see in Hope, yup, been there, done that. Food Fact: Ticos usually have small (about the size of a hand) corn tortillas with their meals. Once the meat (usually chicken) is cooked it is cut up and wrapped in the tortilla with hot sauce (if you so desire). Very tasty. I must admit that they think I'm a bit weird when I add bits of onion and tomotoe to my wrap. Art Attack: One weekend I finally made it to the Art Gallery in Sabana Park. On a beautiful sunny Saturday I wandered up to the blinding white building at the end of the park. Which, it turns out, used to be the main terminal building for the original airport. Now, this was nothing as involved as the tour(s) to the Museo del Oro. In fact I was in and out in 45 minutes, and that included sitting through on of the performance art pieces (on video). I will be honest I was disappointed with the collection. Some of the pieces were very good, including the abstract ones (not my favourite art form), but generally they weren't worth the $5US admission (you get a better deal for the same money at the Museo del Oro). There were three items that I quite liked. One was an abstract 'sculpture' of birds in flight; it was made from rods suspended vertically from cables with bent machetes attached in pairs at differing intervals. I didn't even realize they were machetes until I trotted up to the second floor and got a closer look. Very cool. Another was a wooden carving of a puma that stood waist high, I want one. The last was an entire room that the walls sculpted (in metal I think) displaying the history of Costa Rica. It was originally done when the terminal was opened by a visiting French artist. The best thing was that I still had lots of time in the day to wander downtown and do a little people watching afterward. Tico Music: I managed to hook up with one of the other Canadians here who knows a bit about the music scene. She took me out for a "bohemian night on the town" as she referred to it. We went to El Pueblo, the centre of nightlife here. On any given weekend there are hundreds of Ticos, young and old wandering about this area drinking, dancing and enjoying themselves. I had been there a few times with Lynnethe and her friends, however they tend to like the discos so I hadn't seen much of the other sights. Judith, the other Canadian, and I went to one of her favourite haunts for wine and great, and I mean really great, Spanish guitar music. The entire evening was spent there, going next door to an artist's shop (with the artist), wandering around to another bar to get wine when the other ran out and bringing it back with us. There was an excursion to one of the higher class establishments to check out a particular guitarist she wanted to see then back again to the small "hole in the wall" coffee shop/pub. It was a very entertaining evening and I have come to recognize and enjoy Spanish music even more. We followed it up with an evening at the Jaz Cafe a coouple weeks later. I had the priviledge of seeing the violinist from Editus, who you ask? Editus is the Grammy winning group for Latin American music. This violinist was conservatory level quality good. I was so impressed I have started to for some of their music, they have a website, but I can't really read it since it is all in Spanish, bummer. Miscellaneous Bits: I finally managed to spend a couple weekends just relaxing, very enjoyable for me and my pocketbook. There's nothing better than sitting on the chesterfield with a book, a bowl of popcorn and a Coke on a sunny day with all the doors and windows open. Well, you may have other ideas on that, but I'm sticking with the book idea. Last week one of the guys in my office officially became a Tico. He is from Ecuador but moved here many years ago, married and had children. He was welcomed by another 'naturalized' Tico, my boss. It was a little entertaining watching an ex-Canadian welcoming an ex-Ecuadorian to Costa Rica citizenship. Now say that 5 times fast. One Saturday I joined the iado class after karate as some friends had come to check out the dojo to see if they wanted to join. It started out with the usual bokken techniques, step slash, wipe off the "blood", etc. After about 1/2 an hour the instructor took us outside to try it for real with his sword. He and the other 2 instructor/students set up plastic bottles filled with water on a sawhorse. Then one by one the bottles were sliced in half. We were each given the opportunity to try it. One of my friends was quite the natural as she only knocked a bottle off once and managed to slice most of them with one stroke. Very cool, very wet. I now see the thrill of slicing something with a sword, even though it is a pretty anachronistic weapon nowadays. Now if all my enemies would just stand still and hold a bottle of water in front of their heads I'll be laughing. |
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