This past weekend, we visited the city of Houston, the last big city left in Texas that we hadn't seen yet. Over the course of the weekend, we saw an Astros game, visited NASA, and took a short drive out to Galveston Island (more on those later).
Houston is the biggest city in Texas, and the 4th biggest city in the U.S.A. While navigating the freeways, the place reminded me a lot of Los Angeles.
Christy experienced her first baseball game ever when we saw the Astros vs. the Washington Nationals. She hadn't even seen a Taiwan baseball game before. She told me that, in Taiwan, you don't really have a team to root for, because the teams are just named after companies. For example, you might have the Chen Dong Burger Kings vs. the Wong Ding McDonalds. There's no home team against a visiting country. It's really pretty lame. Anyway, the Astros just barely won the game, beating Washington 6-5 on the Friday night game. The kids, however, didn't enjoy the game. They wanted to leave the entire time.
I guess the best thing about Houston is its close proximity to the beach. Galveston Island is about 45 minutes south of Downtown.
Houston is the biggest city in Texas, and the 4th biggest city in the U.S.A. While navigating the freeways, the place reminded me a lot of Los Angeles.
Christy experienced her first baseball game ever when we saw the Astros vs. the Washington Nationals. She hadn't even seen a Taiwan baseball game before. She told me that, in Taiwan, you don't really have a team to root for, because the teams are just named after companies. For example, you might have the Chen Dong Burger Kings vs. the Wong Ding McDonalds. There's no home team against a visiting country. It's really pretty lame. Anyway, the Astros just barely won the game, beating Washington 6-5 on the Friday night game. The kids, however, didn't enjoy the game. They wanted to leave the entire time.
I guess the best thing about Houston is its close proximity to the beach. Galveston Island is about 45 minutes south of Downtown.
(Pictures: 1. A view of the Houston skyline, taken from the car. 2. The "Minute Maid" Stadium, which I believe was formerly the Astrodome. 3. The Astros in action. 4. Sara and Kyle bored by the baseball game. 5. Some more Houston skyscrapers.)
It's the same in Japan... teams owned by companies and named for them. It's most likely because Taiwan was owned by Japan before WWII and introduced the sport to the island after the turn of the century.
ReplyDeleteYou went to Houston and didn't hit up their China Town?!?!
ReplyDeleteAnd Galveston beach is a joke man, if you want nice beaches you gotta head way down south to South Padre (Not to be mistaken for Padre Island/Mustang Island).
Rent a decent beachfront condo for a few days and hit up Mexico while you are down there. I don't know how the border town down their is doing though, might be infested with drug cartel violence, best to look it up before going.
In Korea, the teams are also named after companies, but they have home stadiums and locations. For example, the Lotte Dragons are sponsored by the Lotte Group, but they are located in Busan. So, there is at least a possibility of building up some fan loyalty.
ReplyDeleteA minor note, Minute Maid Park is new. It replaced the Astrodome (the old, original domed stadium.
I would like to go to South Padre Island, but it's a nearly 7 hour drive from Austin. 7 hours is pure hell when there are two kids in the car. So Galveston is about as far as we could manage in the few days were were gone. We'll probably hit Corpus Christi next.
ReplyDeleteYeah, the beaches at Galveston weren't great, but at least having a beach is better than no beach at all, like Austin.
All I know about Taiwanese baseball is that the lights are so bright we do not even need to turn on ours, they set off fireworks at the end of the game and create far too much traffic leaving the parking lot.
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