Basically, my sister and I flew into the airport here and stayed 2 half-days/nights and didn’t do much in the city.

San Jose is pretty junky, but I suppose it has its charms in places.

I saw a lot of American things in San Jose like Payless Shoesource, Converse, Levi’s store, KFC, McDonalds, Burger Kind, Subway, and Wendy’s. Nowhere else in Costa Rica did I notice these things.

We stayed at Hotel Aranjuez in the Barrio Amon neighborhood both nights we were there, which is a little up from downtown and fulls of hospitals. The hotel was nice, and cheap.

The last night we stayed in San Jose we got there in the evening and we went and had dinner at Tin Jo, which serves pan-Asian food. I had some stir-fry bok choi, shiitake mushrooms, and hearts of palm and spicy ma po tofu. We also had spring rolls as a starter which were pretty good, and for dessert I had an exotic sample of fruit sorbets. The sample included lemongrass and mint, passion fruit, orange with basil, papaya colada, and blackberry with anise. Yum! Tin Jo was a pretty fancy place with tablecloths and table candles and whatnot, but it wasn’t super expensive.

It’s a hassle to have to get transportation to the airport, but I suppose it’s nice that our taxi only cost 7,000 colones (or about $14). There’s also public buses, but they drop you off downtown at a bus station, and then you have to fend on your own. Also the public buses run sort of far from the airport terminals. I took a public bus when we first got there, but the taxi was definitely easier.

Taxis within the city are relatively cheap and very easy. Hotels, shops, and restaurants will call taxis for you. It’s the simpliest way to get around since there aren’t really any labeled street addresses in the city.