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Houston Texas,
A Week in May
The Main Street Experience
What was great and what wasn't.
Copyright Findawish.com
05-23-04
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Introduction:
We traveled, we experienced, we made it back. A
look into our trip to Houston Texas from the 11th through the 17th.
While business and the complications of the
stay at the Hotel dominated our agenda, we did take a full day to be
tourists.
Our first stop was the Park. We could
have taken the Metro there with a $2 all day per person pass but we chose
to walk. We saw the many, many medical colleges, some old style
buildings and experienced the humidity. To be honest, at first it
was like being in a steam room but it really wasn't that bad with
temperatures around 85. We made it to the park simply because it was
on the way to the zoo. To be honest, we almost didn't look around in
the park. I mean, after all it was a park. Our first
impression though, was that it was very clean, well maintained and we saw
plenty of officers in the area.
The zoo was a zoo but definitely worth
exploring, especially for the low price of $7 a person. That's a
steal. They were building onto the zoo when we were there and I
definitely want to go back to see the African Jungle addition.
The animals are close to you and except for
the gorilla that was sick, he was 51 years old after all, we saw all of
the animals, birds, fish, etc... that the displays claimed to be in the
area. There are plenty of park staff on hand to ask questions and
the entire time we were there they acted like a tourist, not bothering
anyone or being over bearing. The elephants and the giraffes seemed
to steal the shows but probably because you could get the closest to them.
The aquariums, rhinos and large cats came in second.
One thing we were wondering about was the
large cat displays...there was a tunnel that lead right by them were kids
loved to hear their own echo, high-pitched and all. We're not sure
how much the big cats can hear that but hopefully they can't hear much of
it. It didn't bother us but we see how much pets are bother by it in
homes and can't help but relate that to the big cats.
On a side note, the zoo had great food and
you could eat well for $10 a person.
I give the zoo an A.
I wanted to see the gorilla and was disappointed. :( Poor me.
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From the zoo we went back into the park.
There is a mock up of the Washington Monument, including the large water
pathway, that seems to fit in nicely with the setting. Kids were
playing the water, though the concrete is embedded with rocks sharp enough
to make walking on them uncomfortable. Most were wearing their shoes
or sandals. The main body of water was absent of people, maybe
because of the weird ducks or the small patches of algae floating on the
surface.
While we didn't see if there was a price, a
mini train ride around the park was available and we saw a least 2
different trains while we were there making several loops. Everyone
on the train seems to be enjoying themselves and that's a pretty good
ratio for 45-60 people to seem happy.
Another feature of the park was one I wish we
had available when I was a kid. If I would have been a little more
prepared I would have taken advantage of it even though I've grown up a
bit. It was a water display. With water jutting out of the
ground in soft, well distributed sprays, water falling out of concrete
palm trees, a circle of water being sprayed in synch with the rest of the
exhibit, dozens of happy faces playing in the water it was hard to stay
away from. The display is large enough for adults and, through it
design, perfectly set up for kids...lots of kids.
The park had a Japanese Garden section, though
it didn't represent a very accurate garden because it was not well kept.
The plants were kept well enough, though, its just that the whole point of
the Japanese Garden is perfection.
I give the park an A+.
You could spend days there. It's peaceful and safe enough that
people go there regularly.
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Across the park and through some road
construction (it appeared to be caused by the construction of a monument)
we made it to the museum district. We spent so much time at the zoo
that the exhibits were closing. This brings me to my only complaint.
Why is it that exhibits are always closing early??? There were
hundreds, literally, of people trying to get in after they had closed.
As a service industry you would think they would serve the public to the
best of their abilities.
In any case we made it into the butterfly
museum. This sounds off character for me and I must admit I wouldn't
have went there if I hadn't seen it on the advertisement channel in the
hotel. After paying $6 a person, we made our way through the
butterfly's that were frozen in time within colorful displays, and past
the live hatching stations where butterflies were being born. Then,
the best part. If I remember right there are only 6 other places in
the US like the facilities we experience. Inside a "biodome" of
sorts that included jungle like vegetation, blind cave fish, a large water
fall and the fresh smell of rain we saw thousands, no tens of thousands of
live butterflies. They were flying everywhere. At first it was
hard to focus past all the butterflies that were flying but soon you
realized, the first time you tried to sit down, that there were thousands
of butterflies that weren't flying. They were all over the flowers,
the leaves, the trees and occasionally they were dodging the live birds.
When I think of Paradise I think of a setting much like the one that you
can experience in the butterfly museum. Within the dome there are
iguanas birds and some ants that I would imagine came from outside the
dorm as, while harmless, they were in quite a few spots in Houston.
Since butterflies usually don't live more than a few months, as you can
learn from the displays, all of the butterflies are flown in from all over
the world, mostly South America, in their cocoon stage. I can't
remember the exact term for the stage.
After walking up the path you enter the
real world again, air-conditioned of course, and get to read about other
insects including a detailed explanation of the killer bee phenomena and
projections on where it will go next. From fire ants to ancient
bugs, many displays are worth reading.
I give the Butterfly Museum
an A+. Even though it is relatively small, the experience shouldn't
be missed. I can't think of many times when stress wouldn't melt
away just thinking of such an environment, let alone sitting in one.
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We missed the other museums
including the sports museum, the museum of natural history, the IMAX
experience and so on. It would be worth returning to view these
exhibits.
Going into the NASA side of
the museum, though the main entrance, is a large sun dial with an
interesting water display in that it sounds like a helicopter the way the
water flowing over the concrete laps off of the pond below.
Though another entrance there
is a 5,000 lb granite globe, with the continents etched into it, held up
by water pressure from a 1.5 horse power pump. The globe freely
rotates like the earth on its axis and you can stop its rotation and spin
it the other way. It is really impressive and reminds us that water
is quite the substance.
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After the day at the park, zoo and museums,
we walked back to the hotel. Even though we had been walking all day
long, it wasn't that big of a deal to walk back. Especially after
sitting on the edge of the concrete resting our feet in the cold water of
the monument area in the park. We could have taken the metro,
though, and it went by twice as we were walking back.
Next up was dinner. After trying to
figure out how to get down to the Gulf of Mexico, we decided to we were
too hungry to travel too far. We took a cab back over to the
University Center with the intention to eat at The Crawfish Restaurant.
Everything we had read about the restaurant said it had first class
seafood and was rated the best in Houston several times in a row by
several food critic organizations. The problem, though, was that it
was closed.
El Meson.
After walking around the block we settled
for a small restaurant outside of the Center...just across the street.
We were met as if we were the only customers in a month, but the place was
nearly full. The hosts were extremely excited to seat us as the
Cuban restaurant El Meson. Instantly our waiter appeared letting us
know of the specials. We ordered some shrimp appetizers and some pop
(sodas). We barely had time to start a conversation when our drinks
arrived. Before we really were settled in, our appetizers arrived.
Looking around, I noticed that the table
that had been seated just 5-8 minutes before us was already receiving
their main dishes. We still had a few shrimp left (a hefty 10 large,
not extra large, shrimp in sauce for $9) when our main dishes arrived.
We had wanted seafood and thought we had
settled on El Meson. Instead, we had the best dining experience I
have every experienced outside of my wife's restaurant...though I must
admit it is a very, very close second. I could not imagine that
Crawfish place being better. The food was perfect...absolutely
perfect. Even my wife the picky chef thought so. The service
was unbelievable; fast, polite, helpful, encouraging and personal without
being weird. Even the mango cheesecake was exceptional.
The entire meal was $53 for two including
the 8% tax and we left with enough food to have another lunch.
El Meson can't get a high enough rating.
A+
The experience was so good that we are
going to bug
www.findawish.com enough to get them to list the restaurant for free
in the Texas section of their site.
We titled the article Main Street because
everything was around Main Street. While we realize that there are
almost 4 million people in Houston, making it the 4th largest city in the
world, and that we only saw maybe 100 square miles, intimately, of the
600+ square mile city, our Houston Texas experience was an A+ and a must
adventure for those seeking the experiences we had.
You can see a break down of the
cost of our trip here.
Sources
We had such a great trip that we are
planning another one in the near future. We were that impressed with
Houston Texas.
My Pledge
As you may notice in the many articles to come, I absolutely can not
stand people that have an opinion about something they know very little
about or didn't take the time to research before giving their opinion. I
pledge that I will not write a single article about a subject that I don't
know enough about to see several sides of the issue. If you think I am
missing something,
I'd love to be the first to know about it.
Introduction |
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