FLIP + CHING

Costa Rica Trip Recap Continued

Posted on May 15, 2019 by Ching under Travel.

The day after our all day excursion was our recovery day. We pretty much spent the whole day relaxing at the resort pool. On the bus ride home, our group talked about getting up early in the morning to feed the monkeys. Well, it wasn’t firmed up so I didn’t know it was happening. Anyway, a bunch of them went and I didn’t know about it so I missed out.

I was more disappointed because I was up anyway and could have gone with them had I known. I just couldn’t go by myself because Brian was dead to the world, which I thought was how everyone else would be considering how late we got back the night before.

We pretty much just spent the whole day hanging out at the resort and drinking at the pool. The pool bar doesn’t really get you drunk because their drinks are pretty weak. Brian once asked me how the drinks are. I was like, “They all taste the same except in different colors!” LOL.

We volunteered to hold the line for dinner that night. That’s something else that is a bit different with this resort. They don’t take dinner reservations. The restaurants open at a certain time and if you want want to eat there, then you just get there a few minutes early to be in the line. They take so many people at a given time so there are dinner waves. If you get there late, then you’re pretty much not eating dinner there. Your options are the main buffet, which is usually not bad, and the sport bar (yes, sport bar with no “S” at the end). Basically, if you want to try the restaurants you have to get in line and, preferably, early so you eat at a decent time.

Brian and I decided to go back to our room early that night so we could clean up and come back down early to line up for dinner. We came back down as the wild pool party was wrapping up but ended up missing most of it. It was no skin off our backs, though. Neither Brian and I are party animal types and I heard it was pretty wild (as in, women were taking their tops off and everything).

Here are a couple of pics of the pool party. It was winding down at this point.

Some of our friends hadn’t gone up to their rooms to change yet so we hung out for a bit. I ended up double-fisting mojitos before dinner.

Pre-dinner selfies at the pool bar…

We got a nice table by the beach.

I wish we could have gotten more pics when it was still light out. The sun sets really early in Costa Rica. It sets so early that they actually close the pool at six o’clock at night. That seemed really crazy to me at first. But it’s dark at six so I get it. It’s probably not safe for people to be swimming around in the dark.

So this restaurant is actually the buffet close to the pool that we’ve been eating lunch at almost daily. It turns into a steakhouse in the evening.

Here’s a pic of the menu.

Here are some pics of food.

Jay had to rush off to a poker tournament at the casino so I couldn’t get a pic of this quickly enough before he took a bite and had to skedaddle.

At least we had time for a group selfie at dinner. You’ll see several of these throughout the course of our trip.

Here are pics of the schedule at the lobby, which tells you what activities are happening at a given point in time.

After dinner we decided to go to the casino to heckle the guys. Some of the group changed into more comfy clothes. I didn’t change because I was already comfy. Tina and Brian showed up in the same shirt completely unplanned.

The crummy thing about the casino is that, although it’s on resort property, it’s not technically run by the resort so you had to pay for your drinks.

Another group selfie just ’cause.

Just me and Brian this time.

Brian and I called it an early night because we were still recovering from the day before and I was determined to get up early the next day to feed the monkeys. The guys were up late, though. Marc, Kirk, and Jay made it all the way to the final five. I’m not sure how Marc and Jay fared but Kirk took second. I thought it was impressive that all three of them did so well.

These are pics of the Monkey Bar that I took the next morning. It’s one of the landmarks on the monkey trail.

Here are some pics of the cute Capuchin monkeys.

…and me feeding them.

They really like hard-boiled eggs and grapes.

Here are some better up close pics that Jay took with his phone.

Here’s a pic of our monkey-feeding crew.

Except for Kirk and Alicia who were still in bed and Jay who is behind the camera. The next post will feature the jet ski tour that Brian and I went on later that morning. Stay tuned!

To be continued…

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Costa Rica Trip Recap

Posted on May 13, 2019 by Ching under Travel.

Woke up to this amazing view on our first morning in Costa Rica.

Besides the view, I was also greeted by a giant dragonfly. This thing was as big as my foot. I was scared to go out on the balcony at first. This would be the first of many creatures we’d encounter during our vacation.

Speaking of creatures, the housekeeper also left us a few surprises in the form of adorable towel animals.

As far as surprises go, this was my favorite one.

It’s a delicious concoction consisting of ice cream, Kahlua, and coffee.

I looked for this lady and the special coffee treat every single morning of our stay. Alas, I guess it was just a Monday morning thing.

I had I think two or three glasses. They were yummy!

Here are a few pics of the resort property.

A few pics of our photogenic group.

Brian and me, at the pool.

This black and white one is one of our faves.

Here’s a selfie we took before dinner that night.

We took multiple dinner selfies. I liked that we got together for dinner every night.

Although, I think we forgot to take one at the Japanese restaurant on our first night. It was a favorite of several people in our group but Brian was not a fan. We actually hit the buffet on our way back to our room so Brian could eat something.

We liked the Italian restaurant much better.

The first table selfie we took was without Reniece and Marc (at the end of the table). This one has our entire group.

This is the first of many food pictures you’re about to see.

The next morning was the day of our Arenal boat tour, hanging bridges, and hot springs adventure. We woke up super early.

Here’s Brian getting his coffee fix. You know he can’t function without it.

The breakfast buffet opened a bit before seven so we were able to grab a quick breakfast before getting on our tour bus.

Brian packed some bread to go — because you never know. We didn’t expect to return to the resort until eight o’clock that evening and we wanted to be prepared. The tour included lunch and dinner but we wanted to be prepared for anything. We didn’t want to go hungry.

Here’s a selfie we took aboard the nice tour bus with a nice photo-bomb courtesy of Marc. A much better one follows.

This next one has Jay, Marc, and Reniece behind us, with Justin and Tina taking their own selfie in the back row.

Here’s one with Becca in it too, and with Justin and Tina looking at the camera this time. We are missing Kirk and Alicia because they wanted to sit up front instead of at the back of the bus with the cool kids.

This was a very nice tour bus. It was fully air-conditioned with big picture windows and its own bathroom.

Brian at the Swiss Travel office where we picked up two more couples who were staying at other resorts. It was also a bathroom break before we embarked on our long ride to Lake Arenal.

Quick selfie at the wind farm on the way to Lake Arenal.

We made another pit stop at this lakeside restaurant along the way because the bus ended up getting a flat tire.

We got to enjoy this beautiful view as we waited for them to replace the tire. I never would have guessed this was in store for us from looking at the restaurant’s facade.

Besides the fabulous view (see the two selfies above), I really liked how authentic this restaurant felt.

After the tire was replaced, it was time to go to the actual restaurant where we were scheduled to have our lunch. The food was delicious but the atmosphere was not nearly as cool as the first restaurant.

Pictures of our lunch follow.

I’m not sure what this dessert is called but it was amazing. It was, hands down, my favorite part of our meal.

Tina and I took some fun pics across the street after lunch.

Then it was time for our boat tour.

Here’s another creature we encountered. They called them caimans.

Here’s a picture of us trying to get a selfie with one of the caimans in the background. The next one is just a regular selfie.

We lucked out that it wasn’t too cloudy that day. Our tour guy told us that there are some days that it’s so cloudy you can’t see the volcano, which is sad because it’s kind of the whole point of the boat tour.

Here’s a pic of me and Brian with Arenal Volcano in the background.

Here’s a selfie of me with Jay in the background.

And a final one that we took after our boat tour.

Our next stop was Mistico Arenal Hanging Bridges Park, which also offered great views of Arenal Volcano from high up in the jungle canopy.

We hiked about two miles and walked across 16 hanging bridges.

Taking a few selfies along the way.

Our final adventure of the day was Titoku hot springs.

It was a nice, relaxing finish to a full day.

After lounging at the hot springs, our tour guide took us to Heliconias Restaurant at Kioro Suites and Spa for a buffet dinner. It was already dark by the time we got there. I wish we could have gotten there when it was still light out because the restaurant has great views of the volcano. The resort property looked nice also but we couldn’t fully appreciate it since it was dark out.

After dinner we still had a 3 hour ride back to our hotel. It was past eleven o’clock at night when we got back. It was a 16-hour day altogether. At dinner we talked about having some drinks when we got back to the resort but we were all so beat when we got back we all just retired to our rooms. There was plenty more drinking and adventuring to be had the next day and the rest of the week.

To be continued…

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Travel and Arrival Day

Posted on May 8, 2019 by Ching under Travel.

We were so excited when it was finally time to depart for Costa Rica. I think Brian and I hardly slept that night, with all of the pent up energy from the Jo Koy show and everything. We both woke up early the next morning and, despite the sun not being up, we were both eager to head to the airport.

We had originally planned to take an Uber or Lyft ride to the airport to save money on parking. Brian checked around 3:30 AM while I was getting ready and there were plenty of cars around. However, by the time 4:30 AM rolled around and it was time for us to head to the airport, they were nowhere to be found. I think we hit the dead spot where people are transitioning from the late shift to the morning shift. Those who have been up late, driving all night had finally turned in, and the morning shift hadn’t gotten on yet. I think had we waited until 5:00 AM, we could have gotten a car, but Brian, the nerd that he is, has to be at the airport several hours early. We ended up having to drive ourselves.

I took a picture of our luggage while we were waiting in line to check in our big suitcase. I was amused that our bags made it seem like we were going to ZINCON.

Here we are at the gate with our new friends Justin and Tina Huntington and Kirk and Alicia Short. We’d known Kirk and Alicia for some time, though we hadn’t really hung out much. We met Justin and Tina for the first time at the pre-Costa-Rica-trip meet-and-greet at Chicken N Pickle the week before.

There were ten of us who went on the Costa Rica trip. Marc and Reniece (upper left corner in the pic above) traveled to Costa Rica from Tulsa with Jay and Becca. The rest of us (Justin, Tina, Kirk, Alicia, Brian, and I) traveled from Wichita.

Anyway, that’s the reason there’s only six of us in these enroute-to-Costa-Rica airport selfies. Here we are finally making it to the resort.

We found refreshments!

After we all got checked in, we went to grab a quick lunch from the buffet (while they got our rooms ready) and then we got changed and hit the pool and beach.

Food, drinks, pool, beach — pretty much in that order.

Here are some pics of the beach.

Here’s the view from our room.

Here’s a selfie we took at dinner that first night.

The first of several group dinner selfies.

To be continued…

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Pre-Costa Rica Trip

Posted on May 6, 2019 by Ching under Life.

The blog is about a month behind right now but we are almost caught up! Whee! I’m posting about the day before we left for Costa Rica so you know what that means. The Costa Rica trip recap is coming up very, very soon.

The Saturday before we left for Costa Rica was full of regular Saturday stuff like my two Zumba classes (Aqua Zumba at VASA Fitness at 8:45 AM and Zumba at Andover YMCA at 10:30 AM) but then we also had to squeeze in a few other things like getting our nails done and beach-ready and then also a comedy show at the Wichita Orpheum. Yes, a comedy show!

When we were originally planning our trip, we had considered flying out of Tulsa with Jay and Becca (and Marc and Reniece) to save some money until we realized that we really couldn’t fly out of Tulsa because we had tickets to Jo Koy’s Break the Mold tour the night before. It turned out okay because, by the time we pulled the trigger on the trip, the airfare had gone up so we weren’t going to be saving that much money anyway compared to flying out of the Wichita airport. And, we really should be supporting our local airport so we can get more flights.

But I digress… We knew we had a super busy Saturday (more busy than usual) ahead of us, so we went straight to the nail spa after my Zumba class. As luck would have it, we ran into my friend Teresa who just finished getting her nails done. What a treat! We had to take a selfie (groupie) obviously.

Here are some pictures from Jo Koy’s Break the Mold Tour on Saturday night.

Here we are waiting in the lobby with a bunch of other early birds.

One of the funniest observations I made is that there were several Filipino people who were there in the line waiting to get in super early. The irony of this is that Filipinos are notorious for being late to EVERYTHING. Apparently they will be early for Jo Koy.

Here’s a pic of me and my friend Angela.

Here we are with the rest of Angela’s fam. Anyway, we just took a few pics. Pics before the show are okay but they are forbidden during the show. This rule (as well as the heckling rule) was enforced strictly. They actually walked a woman out of the show towards the beginning.

Brian and I hit the Hill after the comedy show.

We enjoyed some reverse happy hour snacks and drinks.

We couldn’t stay too late though because we had an early flight to Costa Rica (via Houston) the next morning. Next post we will start the first installment of our Costa Rica trip. #VacayWithJayJay #CostaRica2019 #PuraVida

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Society of 1895 Luncheon

Posted on May 1, 2019 by Ching under Events.

I thought now that I’m not longer working in Kansas City, I’d finally be able to make it to one of these. No such luck.

Brian had to attend by himself again (for the third year in a row).

On the plus side, he ran into one of my Rotary friends there. Here he is with Tony Durano (above pic). Brian is always really good about taking pics at the event to make me feel like I’m there.