Tr avel report HOUSTON
bandstand-style structures, where free concerts are held in the summer.
Pieces of public art and sculptures give the area a splash of colour, and at Kinder Lake in Discovery Green, kayaking and paddle boarding is available.
We enjoyed dinner at the excellent Mexican restaurant Xochi, recently set up by restauranteur Hugo Ortega. As the Americans like to do, we went out for breakfast at the stunning Dunlavy restaurant, set within the Buffalo Bayou Park.
Crispy bacon and poached egg never tasted better.
The cistern within the park is not usually open to the public, continuing to hold 15 millions of water when functioning at full capacity.
But we were given a sneak peak of the venue, also used to house art installations. The child inside you will not be able to refrain from testing out the 17-second echo it boasts.
Next was the city’s must-see attraction – the NASA Space Centre.
If visitors were in any doubt about what goes on at the huge complex, the sight of a space shuttle piggybacking on the top of an aeroplane puts any doubts to bed.
The fascinating tour shows off the iconic Mission Control room, which fans of Apollo 13 will immediately recognise. The room has been kept as it was during those formative space missions, including the famous Apollo 11, which happened 48 years ago to the day of our visit.
But the most impressive stop on the tour was the Saturn 5 rocket, the biggest ever used by NASA.
Ushered into a hangar through a small door, the sheer scale of the rocket hits you with nearly as much force as it takes to get the thing into the sky.
Being an Oldham lad, the lyrics of the Inspiral Carpets song of the same name came to mind.
Saturn 5, you really were the greatest sight. Then it was on to the similarly huge NRG Stadium, normally used for the rodeo and as the home of the Houston Texans American football team.
Having watched many Manchester derbies in our own city, it was a strange experience seeing the two teams, separated by less than five miles, take to the field 5,000 miles from home.
The sensibilities of the American soccer fans are fairly baffling to us visiting fans, as is the sight of salesmen offering beer and candy floss direct to our seats.
But they seem to enjoy the match despite its ambling, pre-season pace, and a derby is always going to be competitive.
From low to high culture, the last day of our trip included a stop at the city’s Museum of Fine Arts.
The go-to attraction in the museum is Pixel Forest and Worry Will Vanish by Swiss artist Pipilotti Rist.
The multimedia experience features lights hanging down from the ceiling, wall high projections and an ambient music soundtrack embracing all of the senses.
Beanie cushions are on hand to allow visitors the chance to process what is happening in front of their eyes.
Any trip to Houston would not be complete without a trip to a barbecue restaurant, and we visit the brilliant Jackson Street smokehouse, in the backdrop of the Minute Maid stadium used by the Houston Astros baseball team.
Craft beer is also very popular in this part of the world, and we visit the 8th Wonder Brewery, a growing firm which is selling beer all over Texas.
The humidity in Houston meant a cold glass of beer was more than welcome to those of us not used to such high temperatures.
July and August are the two warmest months, with temperatures often reaching 100 degrees.
The availability of air conditioning historically made Houston an attractive destination for business, and it is still a vital tool to its economy.
We stayed at the four star Westin Galleria hotel based out of the city centre, popular to shoppers as it is joined to the huge Galleria shopping centre.
Our near nine-hour flight with Singapore Airlines went like a flash, with an in-flight entertainment system and food and drink ensuring passengers did not want for anything.
Visitors staying for more than a few days may want to visit Dallas, San Antonio or Austin while they are in Texas. But a trip to Houston won’t present any problems for tourists wanting to see where many space journeys began, and to taste a slice of Texan life.