Selflessness, Integrity, Objectivity, Accountability, Openness, Honesty and Leadership, any use to anyone?

 

Meaning to Life and Nolan’s Seven Principles

I inferred in my last blog post that corruption, more searchingly describable as abuse of power, is the most likely reason as to why there are next to no sign posts in the capital city of Costa Rica.

Across the water in the United Kingdom news has this morning that the Crown Prosecution Service has filed criminal charges against four individuals holding office in the highest positions of responsibility in the land: persons not only elected but also paid quite handsomely in order to represent and protect the common good. This would appear to be the culmination of an extraordinary sequence of revelations which first began last year in the columns of the London Daily Telegraph. It seems as though the Daily Telegraph’s investigation centred on a computer hard drive containing documented evidence of expense claims made between 2004 and 2009 by members of the British Houses of Parliament, the findings far from revealing very much maternal from a body often referred to as the Mother of Parliaments.

There are 646 members of the lower House of Commons and 392 have now been asked to pay back money that has been “falsely” claimed. So far just three, plus one member from the upper House of Lords, have been presented with criminal charges of… well, theft actually. The four, with boring predictably refute the charges and “robustly” too as if to make it sound like they are so far removed from guilt it is preposterous or a trumped up move by the Crown Prosecutors. It would be very interesting to know if they believe they are not guilty of a crime then would they admit to being guilty of anything: ignorance of the law, minor abuse of power or simply in the end to being an absolutely normal greedy human being which, I remind you, is exactly not what they were elected to be or paid for? Besides that what about the other 389? Would they now support a law that allowed thieves to go unpunished on handing back ill gotten gains – presumably with the proviso that only if they got caught in the first place, of course?

In 1995 the British Prime Minister must have suspected that there was trouble at’ mill because he requested the Nolan Committee examine precisely the matter of people in public life. The committee took six months to make its presentation based on the seven common fundaments of selflessness, integrity, objectivity, accountability, openness, honesty and leadership. Clearly the dictate of common sense was not enough and for a lot of members of parliament neither was the Nolan Committee’s highlighting report.

On the theme of corruption and a look at where it might be going in the future I jump right back across the pond to the United States of America where, as would befit their panache for style of grandeur, they seem to have made a decision recently of monumental proportions in their Supreme Court.

It has been pointed out to me this week in no uncertain terms by a couple of extremely learned American travellers that the Supreme Court made a decision which augurs very darkly for the future of the rights of the individual in that country. Quite simply there will be no limits on groups funding political parties. You could always argue that they are waving the flag for Nolan’s principles of honesty, openness and perhaps leadership, although I do not think the Nolan Committee was offering an à la carte menu but more intended it as a set meal.

President of the Washington-based government-watchdog group Democracy 21, Fred Wertheimer put it very succinctly, “With a stroke of the pen, five justices wiped out a century of American history devoted to preventing corporate corruption of our democracy.”

An awful lot of people in an awful lot of countries would be advised to re-read the Nolan Committee’s report on selflessness, integrity, objectivity, accountability, openness, honesty and leadership but don’t they sound like useful guidelines for living your own life even if the august among us don’t want to use them?

Directionally Challenged Suffer in San Jose

The entrapment conspiracy theory or the triumph of corruption?

I refer purely and simply to the status of the humble street sign in the Costa Rican capital of San José. Quite frankly it is abysmal. It is so abysmal that only the blind would fail to notice such a glaring hindrance to making your way around this city. I am talking specifically of signs for identifying the name of the street although it was fairly apparent in moving around on occasion by car that directional signs were none too common either.

To keep it simple there are four observable facts.
1. The norm is that there are none. Zip nada, absolute desert.
2. When they do appear they are nearly always attached to buildings on the corners at intersections.
3. The majority of the few that exist are difficult to read.
4. Some are impossible to read.

The paucity of these signs in a large city that obviously has sufficient resources and has failed to do anything about it for so long leaves the visitor with only one entertaining outlet on the subject which is to ponder as to why? There is, after all, ample time to do so as you trudge between unmarked street corners trying to work out where exactly you are.

If it is intentional, why so? Is it that it is just not important to San Joseans, is entrapment part of the picture or even exclusion, is it to confuse an unidentified enemy as the British tried by removing all street signs in case the German army should have made it across the channel during the second world war or is it trying to encourage people to tap more into a directional sixth sense?

If it is not intentional then what? Regrettably after consultation with locals it seems that the most likely reason is misappropriation of budgets; plain and simple CORRUPTION.

The story amusingly also encompasses the way in which they identify addresses which traditionally, thereby indicating that this has been going on a long time, do not necessarily use the names of the streets either but a commonly identifiable landmark. The hostel which has been my home for some time was 525 meters east of “La Biblica” (an admittedly well known hospital in the area) and for greater exactitude the address can include “the yellow house on the right”. The amusement value runs further when it is learned that sometimes they continue to use landmarks that no longer exist. I heard of one especially amusing locator, admittedly not in San José, as being: 200 meters west of where Juan’s cow gave birth last year.

This might help to support the theory that they just don’t need them but the inefficiency or corruption theory sounds more likely when you consider that some kind of attempt at signing of streets has happened at whatever low key level at some point in the past. Furthermore almost like a testament to logic from another world if you make your way to the junction of Avenida 14 and Calle 7 you will encounter a scene that is a sight for directionally challenged sore eyes:

Unique street corner sign post AND street plaques

Just makes you want to ask again why though?

 

The occasional helpful street sign in San Jose, Costa Rica	Much clearer now, eh?
Nicely painted corner building with helpful street name plaque	So much better - with a nice new paint over job that is!

Green Shoots of San Jose

 

Costa Rica’s Urban Conundrum

San José is a large capital city and is importantly the fulcrum of an even larger metropolitan area comprising also the separate cities of Alajuela, Heredia and Cartago, actually the capital of Costa Rica prior to 1823.

San José itself has the unremarkable reputation of being a rather tedious and ordinary urban city much like any other anywhere else in the world. However, in spite of the seemingly unspoken prerogative afforded to the motor car here in the downtown area, there are some redeeming features. For example there are some fairly sizable pedestrian thoroughfares, not an inconsiderable number of parks and various areas of other greenery scattered in and about. Considering Costa Rica’s very positive ecological stance it would be a travesty for the national agenda not to have some kind of an influence on its capital city.

At the west end of the city is the extensive La Sabana Park which was in fact the main aerodrome until international flight got very serious in our modern world and they created Juan Santamaria International Airport further to the west in Alajuela. The park is an ideal size for not being able to lose yourself but large enough to feel you have escaped from metropolitan life. At the weekend it is littered with various football (soccer) matches taking place: a clear reflection of the importance of football as the national sport. This however is not to the exclusion of baseball that also has a standing but based on numbers I saw in La Sabana Park football would win; actually “hands down”.

Of the other smaller parks dotted around, one morning I was fortunate enough to stumble across Parque Espana where a school group were practicing for a musical performance. Parque Espana lies a little to the north of the central area in Barrio Amon where the greenery of the park blends very nicely with some distinctively designed housing and hotel structures in the area.

I have also heard directly from the horse’s mouth (a member of a certain management project team here) that the city has some grand plans to make the city more “liveable”. The project focuses on a huge transportation renewal plan and the development of a modern urban transport system in the heart of the metropolitan area. Unfortunately this will take a lot of time and a lot of money and even more unfortunately it is at the dictate of the hands of an imminently changing government.

Meanwhile you can enjoy a current very liveable scene directly from Parque Espana.

Serendipity Leads on to Etymology – Tingo, Tartle, Wabi-Sabi and the Serendipity Vortex

 

Wabi-Sabi and a Japanese Meaning to Life

A missed opportunity by the Greek philosophers and a lost bet of olives

If you stumbled upon this article by chance then you are about to fulfill the most important underlying rule associated with serendipity: that there is no such thing as isolated serendipity and once started you are always on a serendipitous path and possibly even on the edge of the great serendipity vortex.

You certainly weren’t thinking of etymology at this point were you? Therefore the serendipitous rule of continuous serendipity is proved because etymology is exactly where we are going right now.

Doesn’t serendipity sound so Greek based that you would bet your last pound of olives on it? Doesn’t it sound so ideal for those ancient Greek philosophical get-togethers that you would take out a mortgage on a wagon-load of olives to add to your wager?

Well wrong, and you would have lost every last olive!

Firstly the word is derived from Sanskrit and was “invented” in the 1700s by an Englishman called Horace Walpole (actually known to his friends as the 4th Earl of Orford because Horace was such an old fashioned name even in the 18th century) who was, by the way, also responsible for a development known as Strawberry Hill thereby also nicely tidying up a doubt I long had as to where that name came from for a location in the London Borough of Richmond that doesn’t have strawberries or a hill.

However what intrigued me most, as a one-time translator myself in fact, as chance would incredibly have it, in the London Borough of Richmond, was that it has received the intriguing accolade of one of the top ten most difficult words to translate in the English language according to a survey of people who ply their trade that way!

Even though it has to be said that serendipity is clearly the most impressive on the list you do want to know of the full list don’t you?
1 plenipotentiary
2 gobbledegook
3 serendipity
4 poppycock
5 googly
6 spam (I presume they don’t mean the canned meat variety)
7 whimsy
8 bumf
9 chuffed
10 kitsch

Placing the tongue on the other side of the mouth as it were. I sifted out three particularly good examples of words deemed difficult to translate back into English.

Scottish:
Tartle – a verb meaning to hesitate while introducing someone due to having forgotten his/her name.

Japanese (nicely striking serendipitously at the very heart of “Meaning to Life”):
Wabi-Sabi – this is a compound word with a long history, and carries a lot of meaning. Put succinctly, it’s a way of living that emphasizes finding beauty in imperfection, and accepting the natural cycle of growth and decay.
For more extensive background on this sorter of the wheat from the chaff at Japanese parties please take a look at Wabi-Sabi

Pascuense (Not a language spoken just at Easter time but that of the Easter Islanders and if anybody ever reads this who speaks Pascuense would they kindly get in touch) -
Tingo – is the act of taking objects one desires from the house of a friend by gradually borrowing all of them.

Could tingo even be the alter-ego of wabi-sabi – by jingo?!

I will force myself to stop there before I get accused of serentripinfomy (sometimes spelled serentripinfamy).
Serentripinfomy: following a serendipitous path by tracing a sequence of interesting information endlessly.

I am sure that even my mother is now probably verging on turning her back on my blog but perhaps the hidden inference that Scottish is justifiably a language may just keep her on board!

HAPPY HOGMANAY!

Serendipitous Travel In Costa Rica

 

Serendipitously travelling – a notch below the spiritual journey

I was happily minding my own business tucked away in this little corner of San José, actually very near the Vizquez Gonzalez Park on Avenida 14 and Calle 11 if you should be familiar with this city, when I had a serendipitous Skype chat with Peter “The Swede” that threw off numerous serendipitous by-products in a kind of serendipitous chain reaction. I was actually calling back to base camp in Boca Chica and discovered that Peter had turned up for his annual Dominican rest and recuperation. In good Viking tradition Peter does not hang about and upon learning where I was he immediately offered to run roughshod over (another of those Viking traditions) the formalities of a few hundred miles distance and a whole sea to make the same generous offer he made every year when we met up, “Dinner on me!”

A few days later there he was at the airport (Juan Santamaria International Airport, not actually in San José but in Alajuela one of the component parts of this extensive metropolitan area). I had no idea what, other than dinner, he had up his sleeve, although Vikings are indeed usually pictured without sleeves: I simply imagine it must have got terribly in the way of all the killing. I considered -in the knowledge of one of his other Viking traits (he liked messing about on boats)- it rare that he would be interested in San José (which with the gathering momentum of my geography for dummies has well established that we are most certainly not on any maritime coast here and don’t even have a small lake for a dinghy).

Fortunately for everyone, presumably including himself, Peter has given up the oldest Viking tradition of visiting foreign lands and simply taking, proven by the fact he immediately chalked up another free dinner for me as a payment for meeting him at the airport. On the journey to the airport I reflected on that fascinating world (that we can all enjoy at times) of the person with a little knowledge being way on top of the person without any knowledge; the stark simplicity of a world we can sometimes share with computers where there is an enormous difference between zero and one. From Peter’s viewpoint this was my town and my bus route. Though he did soon begin to see the error of that view when 40 minutes into the bus ride we were still seemingly some way off our target of downtown San José for what I had told him was a 25-minute journey.

Later that evening as I heartily consumed the first of my free dinner tickets (in deference to expediency I refrained from taking them both because it is just not possible to consume heartily twice at the same sitting) we talked of our relative situations and came up with an excellent travel plan of taking a journey together up to Costa Rica’s famously most active volcano Arenal and staying at La Fortuna about a three hour bus journey to the north west of San José.

A couple of days later with bags well and truly packed, and as we admittedly made rather a meal out of toast and coffee in our efforts to wake up before trotting off to the bus stop, we serendipitously learned that one of the other hostelers was just about to set off to the very same town of La Fortuna in his rental car to also visit the volcano.

Richard, the would-be doctor and temporarily resident artist, was at that moment waiting for his car to be delivered. Richard, without any Viking roots whatsoever, was unhesitating in offering us space in his Suzuki Alto, not usually one of their chief selling points but we really couldn’t ask him to upgrade just for our sakes and especially at such short notice, and we promptly sped off in the direction of La Fortuna. Speeding because that is what the San José traffic always does and with the aid of the absolutely indispensable GPS tracking device we could not only speed but keep on the right course that otherwise might have been perilous considering all the speeding that was going on.

In the great natural world of balanced energy (although how is it that the forces of destruction and construction are just so perversely asymmetrical?) for every serendipity I suppose there has to be an anti-serendipity and that came in the form of rainfall coinciding with our timed visit to La Fortuna. We had been warned that the non-appearance of the volcano was a common occurrence and we waited three days through a lot of rain and mist and the volcano barely even revealed its ankles.

As we careened around in our poncho protective gear we had our first experience of the world-renowned Costa Rican rain forest and were delighted to distinctly hear the volcano on one occasion as it belched out a deep rolling gaseous sound mixing perfectly into the swirling atmospheric mist. It was either the volcano or the as yet unseen Costa Rican Yeti but as far as we were concerned whichever it was it steadfastly remained completely and utterly out of sight!

Bridge View on way to La Fortuna

Volcano and lava flow we didn’t see

The ankles of a very active volcano central Costa Rica

Looking through the trees

Can you see the wood for the forest?

Inside in the dry Soda El Rio, La Fortuna

Spacious Suzuki Alto parked at Cabinas Rosimary, La Fortuna

Lots of rain lots of fast flowing rivers

La Fortuna church at the center

Flora and fauna of all kinds in the province of La Alajuela, Costa Rica

A swinging bridge through the forest

Viking Peter – boatless

You can’t hear it but it sounds good too!

Everything grows in its own way

Wet and growing

Trees, trees, trees

Poncho, poncho and flat cap

Pause for bio-thought Doctor Richard between rock and a hard place

A new Costa Rican friend

Comfortable inexpensive lodgings for the travellers

Serendipitously travelling – a notch below the spiritual journey

John Lennon, John McLeod and Inspiration

 

Give Now a Chance!

When I delved (wouldn’t it be nice if the past tense of delve was actually dolved?) into the “travel” concept last time around I could not help thinking of John Lennon and his often pertinent musings on the quirkiness of we humans. I knew that he had something to say on the subject, but what exactly? So I took a little journey into the land of other people’s views of travelling and without taking so much as a single step away from my computer I enjoyed a little trip within the trip of which I am sure John would have thoroughly approved.

“Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans” is what John actually said along with many other apposite pieces that I entertainingly found at John Lennon Quotes. It wasn’t long before I came up with the author of what I was actually searching for; “It’s the journey that’s important, Not the getting there!” The poem is so very good I present it in its full deserved glory here:

Life, sometimes so wearying
Is worth its weight in gold
The experience of travelling
Lends a wisdom that is old
Beyond our ‘living memory’
A softly spoken prayer:

“It’s the journey that’s important,
Not the getting there!”

Ins and outs and ups and downs
Life’s road meanders aimlessly?
Or so it seems, but somehow
Leads us where we need to be,
And being simply human
We oft question and compare….

“Is the journey so important
Or the getting there?”

And thus it’s always been
That question pondered down the ages
By simple men with simple ways
To wise and ancient sages….
How sweet then, quietly knowing
Reaching destination fair:

“It’s the journey that’s important,
Not the getting there!”

I am sure you can easily imagine the draught of inspirational air as I flitted through many of John Lennon’s astute observations to this, a poem of poems.

The uplift could have taken me no higher when I discovered that this John has not only produced a whole string of inspirational and motivating poems but somehow or other from his near starting point in life as disabled… very well done the Johns!

John McLeod’s inspirational poems

A Handbook of Modern Travel for Dummies – Beginners and Advanced Versions

 

Interesting Interactive Travel for Dummies on a Budget and Interesting Interactive Travel for Advanced Dummies with a Slightly Bigger Budget

This is after all at least a kind of travel blog so I thought I would add “Interesting Interactive Travel for Dummies” and “Interesting Interactive Travel for Advanced Dummies with a Slightly Bigger Budget” as two more titles to my own recognition of what could be a usefully growing “For Dummies” series. That in itself has put me to thinking about other possible titles such as an obvious but not unprovocative “Meaning to Life for Dummies” but for now let me keep to the subject directly in hand.

Before we travel too far, however, I think it would behove us well not to ever lose sight of the reality sustaining line “It’s the journey that’s important, Not the getting there!“

The Handbook of Modern Travel for Dummies – Beginners Version
1. Carry a lightweight computer or netbook.
– OR DON’T because many of the establishments offering accommodation have a communal computer for use by the guests or for that matter just pop round to the closest internet centre.
2. Identify the place you want to go to
– OR DON’T which if you read a recent post A Spiritual Journey to Central America you will be able to easily extrapolate that you could just pitch up to any airport, bus or train station at random and ask the person in charge what destinations they have and make your selection from that.
3. Identify and book some budget accommodation in the area you have identified that takes your fancy
– OR DON’T and simply book into the first place you stumble across when you arrive at your destination.
4. Get to your destination
– OR DON’T, especially at this point not forgetting that it is the journey that counts will make you realize that it immediately renders the preceding or any advice that I could give on the subject as obsolete.

Which leads me directly to my second title on the subject: “Interesting Interactive Travel for Advanced Dummies” and the considerably shorter handbook:

The Handbook of Modern Travel for Dummies – Advanced Version
1. Carry a passport
2. Carry some money
3. Set off

Budget is a fascinating word because it is clearly a euphemism for cheap but in this particular instance I am going to grant it some rare additional value. I have noticed that web searches are far more effective with “budget accommodation” throwing up all sorts of possible places to stay whereas “cheap accommodation” tends to land you nowhere at all or in the complaints pages for hotels.

Apart from saving money, which despite the amazing differences between us is a uniquely uniting phenomenon and bonds budget travellers better than glue, it directly lends itself to enhancing the interesting interactivity part of the trip as the traveller is always seeking to pave the way for the best deal from their next travel move.

By way of my own practical example I have found that the Lonely Planet guides and reserving hostel accommodation in Costa Rica works so well that I cannot help but think that it must work just as well anywhere they have Lonely Planet guides and budget accommodation which seems to be just about everywhere.

Not only has the internet -the greatest friend of interactivity and information seekers- been born and come to full maturity since I last bought a Lonely Planet guide but the company now offers the service (and presumably for some time past) of downloading selected chapters of their guides in pdf file format at a far cheaper rate than buying the entire book for a country that you may only wish to visit a part of. Unfortunately, I only discovered this after I bought the complete 788 page voluminous guide for the whole of Central America covering a total of eight countries so it is with a degree of begrudgery therefore I pass on this tip realizing I could have saved myself considerable unnecessary weight and back pack space.

I have discovered here in Costa Rica that the hostel format of accommodation serves the interactivity feature of my trip magnificently. The hostel itself often provides travel information as a selling point and then there is the wonderful opportunity to interact with the other guests usually in the informal communal kitchen setting where there are absolutely no obligations but it is almost impossible to avoid an exchange of further useful and interesting information. On top of that they very often have an assortment of styles of accommodation meaning that you are not strictly limited to the dormitory bunk bed option but also private rooms and then private rooms with shared bathrooms with the price ranging in tandem with the level of comfort and privacy afforded.

Here in San José I have stayed at two hostels that have served me very well indeed, both fulfilling the important criteria mentioned above. At JC and Friends and Hostel 1110 I found all this as well the all important clean and organized surroundings together with very friendly and helpful staff. I can thoroughly recommend either, as well as the Lonely Planet guides of course, and for the more advanced you already know – just get going!

Very friendly staff entertaining the guests!

Costa Rican Transport and the San Jose Racing Circuit

 

Admiration from German and Japanese Industry Just-In-Time Experts

The motor car and bus dominate the transport scene here in San José. There is a quirky rickety little single railway track with a quirky two carriage train that slowly passes very near-by continually sounding its horn and quaintly tingling its bell in warning because there are no level crossings and I suppose also because it does run right in the middle of the street. If the trains were a frequent occurrence I would imagine it could become irritating but seeing as they are few and far between the fanfare of its passing adds another dynamic dimension to the local bustle and an almost romantic yesteryear dimension in contrast to the humdrum of the all-pervasive motor transport.

It seems to me that Cost Ricans are drastically different animals when they are behind the steering wheel. In the limited time I have been here they appear to be amiable, placid, polite and considerate when you meet them in person but I would not describe them that way if I were to judge their temperaments based on their car driving.

On the bigger scale I get the impression that they have completely given up on a concept of car and pedestrian integration. It seems to be starkly one or the other. Where the car roams they not only have thrown up their arms in surrender to its power but have arranged things to accentuate its dominance. Thankfully there are some extensive pedestrianised central thoroughfares where you can walk mostly oblivious to this other dualistic landscape.

The overriding objective seems to have been to speed the cars on their way as much as possible thereby encouraging drivers to believe even more in their right to priority. Most of the roads are one-way. Traffic lights hang up high often at difficult-to-see angles when you are not in a car seemingly intentionally denying the pedestrian the opportunity to anticipate whether a car is about to stop or start at junctions. Then the road surface seems to be maintained in surprisingly good slick-asphalted condition, at least here in the downtown district, in complete contrast to the poor pedestrian who has to negotiate over and around countless holes of every magnitude to get to wherever he or she might want to go on the sidewalk. Next come the gulleys separating the roads from the sidewalks. I suspect hat this was not intentional but set up to handle the not infrequent torrential downpours but all the same adds to the sense of alienation between car and walker. On top of this there is very little on street parking which certainly creates less of an eye sore but my goodness the greatest beneficiary is the motor driver who can whisk through the city just as fast as he likes with the only impediment to his progress being that of the traffic signals.

This whole observation came to my attention because of the surprisingly narrow margin of safety I noticed when trying to cross the road. I haven’t seen anybody injured yet, though at he same time I have yet to see a single old-aged, infirm or invalided person have a stab at such a challenge. It could be I haven’t seen it because none has ever made it to repeat the exercise!

If you put your foot on the road you have the sense that any hint of hesitation could be your undoing. You will be allowed time to cross but it is an interval that demands an efficiency level that even German and Japanese industry would admire. I brought the subject up with Geraldo the resident maintenance man, a man with dual US Costa Rican citizenship and he was quick to agree that it was a problem. Excusing it by being a gap in Costa Rican education but swiftly added it is notably worse in Mexico – “Dios Mio!”

San Jose, Costa Rica Earthquake a tad smaller than Tokyo but a lot bigger than Tampa!

 

Siesta destroyed by earthquake!

There is a sense when writing a blog that it is a kind of news report and if that is the case then the report should be of the moment. So here it is of the moment. Hot on the heels of this morning’s blog post and perhaps because of the energy drain of that little exercise in conjunction with the usually well rounded Costa Rican lunch I was lying on my bed having a very welcome siesta only to very soon have the odd sensation that the bed was shaking. I thought some fancy trick was being played on me: although wide awake I actually decided I was asleep. As the shaking intensified my thoughts jumped to this morning’s recollections of Tokyo and Kita-ku wondering if perhaps that was inducing this surreal experience. At the same time I had to acknowledge how my geography for dummies level of knowledge had failed me so badly recently and so could it after all be that Costa Rica has earthquakes and if so how strong do they get? I now decided I was awake and acted as if I was by leaping from the bed to stand in the door frame just in case I really was awake and just in case it really was an earthquake but just as the earthquake shook itself out.

So hot off the press is it that I cannot find data on the internet yet but the local residents inform me they think it was about 4.3 on the Richter scale and the TV reports that it was at precisely 15.20 (21.20 GMT) that a very strong (actually muy muy fuerte) quake was felt in the area . In respect of real live reporting I will take that figure as given and pass right over the fact that in the real world of news and science you have to readjust the figure up or down depending on where the epicentre was.

SAN JOSE, COSTA RICA bigger than Tampa by a tad but smaller than Tokyo by a lot

 

The San José about-to-be weather system

What is San Jose like then, do I hear you ask? Already you know about it being perfectly centrally located making it ideal as a capital city which it so appropriately is. You also know that it is up a bit. So now you are manifestly better informed than I was just a few weeks ago. The population is closing in on 350,000 which would put it at number 53 in a trans-USA list of cities, just ahead of Tampa in Florida and number 11 in a trans-Tokyo list of districts, known as wards or ku, actually precisely between Shinagawa-ku and Kita-ku (which is an extremely circuitous way of getting the under-mentioned put personally very favoured Kita-ku a rare mention).

Like any other large city it is centred on a thriving shopping area but the sanitised concrete shopping malls of further north in the hemisphere have yet to make their mark and nowhere is there a preponderance of towering buildings indicating anything like a financial centre. The roads are arranged in the manner of the North American grid system although the numbering and signposting are of quite a different order. I would put it down to being lulled in to a false sense of security by the presumed easy-to-follow grid system, although if you consider my not being able to catch a plane to its intended destination and not noticing that San José was several thousand feet above sea level might lead you to a different conclusion, but in the first few days I don’t recall ever having got so easily lost in a city before.

I think there were a number of other contributing factors which I will now list in my own defence, chiefly because I can. Firstly, most of the streets are lined with two storey buildings close to the sidewalks making it difficult to get a bearing on the horizon, the sun, as you will learn, is more often than not behind the clouds further diluting the bearing option, the roads are ostensibly in a grid system but their ever so gentle undulating nature can imperceptibly divert you from any kind of bearings that perhaps you thought you had especially from time to time when the grid system actually deviates from being a grid system, a grid system that does not ascend or descend in straight numerical order but depending on which side of the city you are in pairs of odd and even numbers and then most significantly of all an almost complete absence of street signs.

The people move amicably about, all seemingly without any problem as to their bearings, at regular northern hemispherical moderately bustle pace and in appearance they are clearly genetically dominated by their Spanish roots.

There are two features which perhaps define a city more than anything else, following its location: its weather and its transport arrangements.

You will perhaps recall me saying that this month sees the onset of “summer” well rather like in the British Isles one could say “Oh yeah?” There seem to be three weather environments; sunshine sometimes, rain fairly frequently and then that which imposes dominance: about-to-be. By this I mean it is about to rain or get sunny with the about-to-get sunny variant mostly flattering to deceive. The one almost faultless consistency is that it is far more likely to rain in the afternoon and evening than in the morning. Even though I was brought up in the notorious about-to-be and take-your-pick British Isles weather system I can say with certainty that the uncertainty of the about-to-be is more intense here. The extremely welcome and redeeming feature though is that the temperature comfortably allows shirtsleeve apparel whether it is sunny, raining or about-to-be: guess which one you get wettest with though?

Comments on the transport system will be arriving shortly.

San Jose, Costa Rica bustling with Spanish roots and about-to-be weather