SAN JOSE, Costa Rica – Bottoms are big in San José and, indeed, in all Costa Rica. In case yours isn’t significant enough to be noticed, a girl can actually buy padded bum enhancers. Just ask, at a lingerie store, for a “bloomer relleno” (Spanish for stuffing). That out of the way, there are other important things a visitor should know about San José.

San José de la Boca del Monte had its beginnings in the 19th century, when free land was allotted to anyone willing to plant coffee. The early settlement was so insignificant and impenetrable the Spanish conquerors didn’t bother to fortify San José. In 1948, President José Ferrer abolished the country’s superfluous army. Today, San José, smack-dab in the centre of the country, is surrounded by coffee cafetals, banana plantations, cloud forests and mountains, stretching east to the Caribbean and west to the Pacific. San José remains a colonial city and, culturally, has yet to go beyond its sleepy beginnings. And therein lies its charm. Yes, there is a McDonald’s overlooking a main square — a hideous cement slab – where families congregate on weekends to throw grain at zillions of pigeons. Pretty well, everything worth seeing is within a 15-minute walk of Central Park, the heart of the city.

Read the entire article by Donna Jean McKinnon of www.thestar.com here…

WNS (Holdings) Limited (NYSE: WNS), a leading provider of global business process outsourcing (BPO) services, today announced the launch of its delivery center in San Jose, Costa Rica.

While the establishment of the Costa Rica center marks WNS’s entry into Latin America, it will also serve as a nearshore center for global clients with North American operations. The center is able to provide multi-lingual services in English and Spanish and will provide the complete suite of WNS services including finance and accounting (F&A), customer service and research and analytics.

Read the entire article on cnnmoney.com

Kathleen Cameron calls herself a birding enthusiast. Her fascination with avian creatures began when she agreed to accompany a friend on a birding trip while in Ohio.

“I thought birding was not very interesting and geeky, but I gave it a shot,” she said. “While driving to the birding destination, I wanted to stop and look at deer. We stopped, and I saw a sandhill crane, and I was really surprised.”

Read the entire article by SABINA DANA PLASSE here…

Luxury Living International Magazine leads-off it’s “Best of Paradise” series with The Best Spa Residences in the Caribbean, Latin and Central America.

In the past, the words “tropical” and “paradise” elicited visions of sea breezes rustling the palm trees along ivory white sand shorelines and pastel-blue waters, sailboats cruising by. Now, for most people, it still includes all of that…but may also include an amazing massage or exotic spa treatment on a pier over the azure blue water or herbal rainforest mud

bath. Could hours of relaxation and self-indulgent quiet time spent in a tranquil spa environment while receiving soul-renewing treatments really be yours for a lifetime? For those who love to be pampered at a world-class spa there are now more choices of second and vacation home communities offering spa facilities than ever before. Luxury Living International magazine shortens the list for you with its Top 10 Spa Residences in Paradise, the finest places at which to own property—and indulge— in a piece of the pampered life in the Caribbean or Latin America; from Costa Rica to Grand Cayman and Mexico to Antigua. The feature story is currently online at www.luxurylivingint.com part of its new “Best of Paradise” series.

Read the entire article here…

The Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad (ICE) said it will begin selling 3G cellular lines in the second week in December and away from its traditional practice, there will be no need to register before going to an ICE agency to get connected.

The announcement was made by Adolfo Arías, director of ICE’s División de Servicios.

To get the most out of the 3G service, a user has to have a 3G phone.

Retailers in Costa Rica are readying their stock of 3G phones to be connected to the 950.000 lines ICE will be making available.

A 3G phone is basically very similar to a GSM phone, using the same bands for transmission. Where it differs is in its ability to transmit large volumes of data and at high speed, which allows the sending and receiving of video files, video chat, photos and music, among many other features.

3G phones also include WiFi allowing connection to the internet and use “Windows Office” tools, as well as being great entertainment devices to play music, watch video, high resolution cameras for photos and videos and play video games.

Original from insidecostarica.com here….

Nov. 5 (Bloomberg) – Costa Rica’s foreign direct investment will return to 2008 levels after falling about 30 percent this year, boosted by tourism and investments in ports and telecommunications projects, said Marco Vinicio Ruiz, the country’s minister of foreign trade.

“I visit companies all the time,” Ruiz said in an interview at Bloomberg’s headquarters in New York. “They say they are ready to go to Costa Rica, they’re just waiting for the board to approve that.”

Ruiz, 55, is in New York for an event to attract money to the telephone industry, which opened to private investments this year. He will travel to Singapore on Nov. 7 to present bid opportunities for a concession of a port in the Caribbean Sea, which will be the country’s biggest.

Foreign direct investment will be about $2 billion next year, in line with 2008, after plunging this year as the global recession reduced tourism and spurred companies to halt spending plans, Ruiz said. The investment, which accounts for 7 percent of gross domestic product, is the main driver of the Costa Rican currency, he said.

Read the entire article by Fabiola Moura of www.bloomberg.com here…

ScienceDaily (Oct. 30, 2009) — Quality-of-life in nations is measured using an index of ‘Happy Life Years’, developed at Erasmus University Rotterdam in The Netherlands. This index combines average appreciation of life with average length of life. Costa Rica is on top with 66.7 and Zimbabwe at the bottom with only 12.5 happy life years. The USA rank in the sub-top with an average of 58 years lived happily. Canada outscored the U.S. with an average ranking of 64 years.

Rank lists are published periodically on the World Database of Happiness. The latest rank list counts 148 nations and covers more than 95% of the world’s population.

These findings are presented at the 3rd OECD World Forum, 27-30 October in Busan, South Korea. The focus of this conference is on measures of social progress other than GDP. This measure of Happy Life Years is such an alternative measure.

Detailed list of countries and their ‘Happy Life Year’ score.

Costa Rica featured at Medical Tourism Congress

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This year’s Medical Tourism Congress (Oct. 26 – 28 in Los Angeles) features Costa Rica in its portrait of the growing trend of going overseas for affordable care.

In the video, we see Bob (his last name is not provided) from Orlando, Florida as he flies to San Jose, Costa Rica, to have a double knee replacement at Clinica Biblica, one of the top rated facilities in a country known for its high-quality care.

Read the entire article by Erin Van Rheenen of examiner.com here…

I spoke with a real estate agent yesterday to see whether we have any realistic prospect of selling our house in this economy. I mentioned to her that we would be leaving the area, so of course she wanted to know our plans. “We can’t afford to retire here,” I explained, “so we’re looking at moving south of the border. We’re considering Mexico, Panama or Ecuador.”

There was a silence at the other end of the phone line. “Oh,” she said, “you’re about the fourth or fifth person who’s told me that in the last couple of months.”