Mayfair Secretary Trunk

Sister and I went to Fashion Island. We went into Restoration Hardware and I thought the most beautiful "desk" ever!



This "trunk" desk is so unique.  I love the design.  You can adjust the opened angle, or even close the trunk if you want.

Giant Wheel at Irvine Spectrum

After dinner, we went to Irvine Spectrum. Dr. P went to Nordstrom to return something, and I went to Anthropologie next door. Then Dr. P came in to Anthropologie, found me, and was like "let's go let's go". Go where? He grabbed my hand and took me the Giant Wheel right outside of Anthropologie.



He said, "Would you like to go on the Giant Wheel?"  Then he took out 2 tickets that he already bought!  What a surprise!!

[Costa Rica Honeymoon] [Day 8] TACA Airline San Jose, Costa Rica --> LAX

It was time to say goodbye to Costa Rica. As much as we love this beautiful country, we were just started to miss http://www.eileenlikestoeat.com.


Chicken Dinner

We were sooooo glad that they served dinner pretty soon after we got on the plane because we were so hungry. I really like TACA airline. Service was so friendly, and their food was really good.

[Costa Rica Honeymoon] [Day 8] San Jose International Airport (Juan Santamaria)

Our flight http://www.eileenlikestoeat.com was at 5:20pm. But there were other people in our tour group who had earlier flights. So we still got on the bus at 7am and got to the airport around noon.



There's a small food court in the airport.  This was our only food option.

[Costa Rica Honeymoon] [Day 8] Restaurant Anaconda

Restaurant Anaconda
Manuel Antonio, Costa Rica
(506) 2777-0584
http://www.costaverde.com/facilities.htm

It was our last day in Costa Rica.  We had breakfast with the other people from our tour group who also stayed at our hotel.


Typical Breakfast

It wasn't on the menu, but a lady at our table asked the server if we could have the typical Costa Rican breakfast.  I don't know why they didn't have something like this on the menu.  It was soooooo much better than their "American" style breakfast.  Love the bean and rice and plantain.

[Costa Rica Honeymoon] [Day 7] Animals in Manuel Antonio

On our walk back to the hotel, we saw more animals.



I like sloth.  I think they have really cute face.

[Costa Rica Honeymoon] [Day 7] El Avion

El Avion
Manuel Antonio, Costa Rica
(506) 2777-3378
http://www.costaverde.com/avion01.htm

We woke up in the early afternoon after our morning nap.  Time to go out to find some food.



At first we wanted to take the bus into another part of town.  But while we were waiting for the bus, it started to drizzled.  We didn't know if a storm was coming or not, and decided to just stay near the hotel.

[Costa Rica Honeymoon] [Day 7] Restaurant Anaconda

Restaurant Anaconda
Manuel Antonio, Costa Rica
(506) 2777-0584
http://www.costaverde.com/facilities.htm

Day 7 was a day at leisure.  We still woke up early to have the included free breakfast at Restaurant Anaconda.


Desayuno Continental
Tostadas, pan de banano, jugo de naranja y cafe o te.

I had Continental breakfast with ham, cheese, and toast.  I put everything together and made my own breakfast sandwich.

[Costa Rica Honeymoon] [Day 6] Restaurante y Bar Las Gemelas

Restaurante y Bar Las Gemelas
25 m Antes de la Musmmanl
Quepos, Manuel Antonio, Costa Rica
(506) 2777-5238

After leaving the national park, we went into to town searching for a lunch spot.  There were a few restaurant in town.  The two big ones were full of tourists.  We took a look at the menu at their doors, and thought prices were on the higher side.  We saw a local old man just hanging out at a street corner, and decided to ask him for a suggestion.  He walked us over to a smaller restaurant called Las Gemelas.  He said that this is more of a local spot with good food and reasonable price.



We grabbed a ocean view patio table.

[Costa Rica Honeymoon] [Day 6] Manuel Antonio National Park

Manuel Antonio National Park
Parque Nacional Manuel Antonio
Puerto Quepos 6350, Costa Rica
http://www.manuelantoniopark.com


I went on hiatus for 3 weeks.  I took me a while to get used to the new working schedule of waking up at 5am and working 10 hours day.  So now I am back to write some more.

I was really looking forward to visiting Manuel Antonio National Park because I read that there are monkeys everywhere.  For those of you who do no know, monkey is my favorite animal.  I took SOOOOO many pictures on this tour.  Get ready to see LOTS OF animals....



People from our tour group stayed at 3 different hotels near the national park.  We took the bus to this hotel to pick up the last group of people and started walking toward the national park.  The national park is only 5 minutes walk from this cute little hotel.

[Costa Rica Honeymoon] [Day 6] Restaurant Anaconda

Restaurant Anaconda
Manuel Antonio, Costa Rica
(506) 2777-0584
http://www.costaverde.com/facilities.htm

Breakfast was included with our stay at Hotel Costa Verde.  We headed over to Restaurant Anaconda at 7 in the morning.



The sun in Costa Rica goes down early, but it also rises early.

[Costa Rica Honeymoon] [Day 5] Restaurant La Cantina BBQ

Restaurant La Cantina BBQ
Manuel Antonio, Costa Rica
(506) 2777-0384
http://www.costaverde.com/facilities.htm

Restaurant La Cantina BBQ is one of the Costa Verde Hotel's restaurants.  But actually it's not in the hotel, but across the street from the hotel.



It gets dark very early in Costa Rica.  Usually around 6pm it's already dark outside.  We got to the restaurant around 5-ish.  It was still empty, but later the restaurant filled up.

[Costa Rica Honeymoon] [Day 5] Hotel Costa Verde

Hotel Costa Verde
Manuel Antonio, Costa Rica
(506) 2777-0584
http://www.costaverde.com

After a very long bus ride, we finally arrived at our hotel in Manuel Antonio.  Only 6 of us from the tour group upgraded to the "superior package" with "superior" hotels.  I have to say, the upgrade was totally worth it.  Our hotel looked so much nicer than the "standard" one.



This was the first thing we saw when we arrived.  They found a boa constrictor on one of the pathways in the hotel.  The worker was going to put the snake back to the forest.

[Costa Rica Honeymoon] [Day 5] Tamarindo Beach --> Manuel Antonio

We stayed at the all inclusive resort for 2 nights, then we traveled to Manuel Antonio.



A lot of buttons to push when driving a big tour bus!  It was a full day bus ride.  We left around 7am, and got to Manuel Antonio around 4pm.  I was REALLY glad that I had the worst case of traveler's diarrhea the day before, but not on the day of the super long bus ride.

[Costa Rica Honeymoon] [Day 4] Barcelo Langosta Beach

Barcelo Langosta Beach
El Robledal, La Uruca
Tamarindo, 1150, Costa Rica
(506) 2653-0363
http://www.barcelo.com/BarceloHotels/en-GB/Hotels/CostaRica/Tamarindo/LangostaBeach/Home

Day 4 in Costa Rica sucked BIG TIME for me!  I pretty much spent the entire day either in bed or in the bathroom.  Dr. P's tummy issue started before me, and it also ended before me.  I didn't want Dr. P to be stuck in our hotel room with me.  So poor Dr. P had to hang out by himself all day at the resort.



Dr. P thought I should at least eat something for the day and dragged me to lunch.  I grabbed some vegetable and rice.  Even though I was pretty sick, I still thought the veggies were good.

[Costa Rica Honeymoon] [Day 3] Barcelo Langosta Beach

Barcelo Langosta Beach
El Robledal, La Uruca
Tamarindo, 1150, Costa Rica
(506) 2653-0363
http://www.barcelo.com/BarceloHotels/en-GB/Hotels/CostaRica/Tamarindo/LangostaBeach/Home

We arrived at Barcelo Langosta Beach around 3pm.  This is an all-inclusive hotel.  I was really looking forward to staying here for the endless buffet all day long.



The hotel staff welcomed with with some fruity drink.

[Costa Rica Honeymoon] [Day 3] Monteverde --> Tamarindo Beach

Our next destination is Tamarindo Beach.



The bus ride should take about 4 hours, but we actually took about 7. We really didn't enjoy being stuck on a bus for that long. :-(

[Costa Rica Honeymoon] [Day 3] Hotel Vela Fonda Galleria

Hotel Fonda Vela Galleria
Apartado 12-5655
Santa Elena, Puntarenas, Costa Rica
(506) 2645-5125
http://www.fondavela.com

It was our last day in Monteverde.  We woke up super early to get breakfast before the tour bus come to pick us up from the hotel.


Omelet con queso, jamon y tostada ($5.00)
Ham and cheese omelet with toast

Even though I absolutely loved my Tipico breakfast the day before, I wanted to try something different and ordered Ham and Cheese Omelet.  The omelet was alright.  Not bad, but nothing special about it.  I should've just order the Typico.

[Costa Rica Honeymoon] [Day 2] Hotel Fonda Vela Fireside Room

Hotel Fonda Vela Fireside Room
Apartado 12-5655
Santa Elena, Puntarenas, Costa Rica
(506) 2645-5125
http://www.fondavela.com

We really enjoyed our food at Hotel Fonda Vela's restaurant the night before, and decided to return again on our 2nd night there.



With a fireplace in the room, and a candle on the table, the small dining room was cozy and romantic.

[Costa Rica Honeymoon] [Day 2] Hotel Fonda Vela Hiking Trail

After we got back to the hotel, the rain had stopped. So we thought we would go out and explored the hotel's hiking trail a bit.



We spotted this giant brown rodent when we stepped out of our hotel room.  What is the name of this animal?