phoenicia international food store where you can find anything from mexican to armenian cuisine we're in this place called phoenicia and it has a lot of international food just to prove it they got sunflower seeds from russia lots of food choices houston is famous for its museum district the city's cultural heart home to many museums galleries and community spaces most famous of which is the museum of fine arts one of the largest art museums in the u.s and the 12th largest art museum in the world based on square feet of gallery space the permanent collection of the museum spans more than 6 000 years of history with approximately seventy thousand works from six continents at the southern end of the museum district you will find one of houston's oldest parks hermann park it's a 445-acre urban park that was created on acreage donated to the city by oilmen and philanthropist george herman the park features the mary gibbs and jesse h jones reflection pool numerous gardens including the japanese garden and mcgovern centennial gardens which is a great spot if you want to take some nice pictures besides that you'll find the houston museum of natural science picnic areas golf course and mcgovern lake an 8 acre recreational lake with pedal boats and don't forget about the miniature railway it will take you around the park and it's pretty convenient hi what's up what's your name ? where are you from houston texas oh you are located hermann park yes we actually live in bay town and that's about 20 30 minutes away okay to the east what's your tell me your favorite place in houston um well this has become yeah this park we come here like almost every sunday and this is just something we do as a family of four my husband and my son and we come out here ride the train we do the 30 minute paddle boat ride and it's not as easy as it looks it is like a full 30 minute workout but we really enjoy it because you can come here have fun and you don't have to spend a lot of money the highlight of the park is houston zoo it's a fantastic zoo and one of the best that i've seen it houses over 6 000 animals and receives 2.1 million visitors each year making it the second most visited zoo in the us kids will certainly enjoy feeding the giraffes houston is a green city and it has 337 parks like buffalo bayou park buffalo bayou park is a 2.3 mile long municipal park located along the banks of the buffalo bayou near downtown we're enjoying our day in buffalo bayou park beautiful downtown skyline and this is the bayou what's it know for uh floods floods when the uh we had the really uh big flood if you can imagine this was all underwater okay come to jog in buffalo bayou park it's a jewel in the middle of the city with bike and running trails along the bayou memorial park is another popular park one of the largest urban parks in the u.s 1466 acres we are in memorial park in houston and because we're in houston you can see things like this gun shell you know just in the middle of the park on the roadside bam bam it was opened in 1924 this park is very well maintained and clean well i'm going for a jogging memorial park there are lots of facilities to enjoy like a golf course bike paths a pond and even a driving range let's look at other parts of the city uptown uptown is a business district representing more than 11 percent of houston's total office space and a major shopping area it's also known as the galleria for the vast retail complex with its mix of designer boutiques chains and department stores plus a year-round ice rink have you seen the line to a gucci store well there it is for you there's a fantastic park in the neighborhood gerald d hines water wall park it has a huge semi-circular fountain definitely a fun spot to check out if you're in houston it's sheer size of the side to see combine that with a mist coming from the water and it's a serene experience the surrounding courtyard is a wonderful place for his troll another part of town is midtown it's known for its young crowds bar and nightlife scene gentrification of the district started in the early 2000s fueled by an influx of young residents and the development of a vibrant nightlife despite that the district continues to face issues of crime inadequate infrastructure chronic homelessness and geographic disparities in public investment is houston pretty bike friendly they're trying to be as you can see we got the the bike routes but it's not everywhere it's just kind of in random parts the galleria area the midtown area downtown and the med center are really good so how do you see this the city changing over the years i started seeing an influx because it did uber every day and so i saw an influx of new plates from virginia illinois california new york and then i started you know i had caught on some of the news articles that had came out on the google article feed that elon musk bill gates and jeff bezos had all moved to texas elon musk they say is supposed to be building some sort of city on the outskirts by pasadena bill gates he's been buying land from from austin down to conroe area they say he's been buying up a lot of farmland with bezos his amazon things have been popping up on corners just like mcdonald's i see a lot of things changing in between that time just in one year so it's and i like y'all i never am on this side of the camera i'm always behind the camera y'all are the first people i've actually done this for ever in 30 years so i like y'all the texas medical center is a 2.1 square mile medical district in south central houston it's the world's largest concentration of health care and research institutions that employs over 106 000 people hosts 10 million patient encounters annually and has a gross domestic product of 25 billion dollars houston is known for its world-class medical institutions like memorial hermann health system the largest non-for-profit health system in southeast texas that consists of 17 hospitals eight cancer centers three heart and vascular institutes and 27 sports medicine and rehabilitation centers this is the houston astrodome this used to be the primary sports venue for the houston astros and for the houston oilers in the 2000s both the baseball team and the football team said that this stadium no longer fulfilled their requirements and the astros built a new baseball stadium downtown texans were provided this stadium that holds about 72 000 people astrodome sits there totally empty now this one's only used for american football they have another Stadium downtown for strictly for baseball it's called minute maid park what about rodeo how often do they have a rodeo here the houston rodeo is an event that takes place at the end of february in the first of march every year they have bull riding horseback riding horse you know where they ride bucking horses and the like houston is known for its space and science contributions nasa's john space center is the home of mission control and astronaut training space center houston is a science museum that displays over 400 space artifacts including the mercury 9 gemini 5 and apollo 17 space capsules houston is home to dozens of universities and colleges including university of houston sam houston state university and several private institutions like rice university a private secular institution with a high level of research activity how do people get around the city the metropolitan transit authority of harry's county also known as metro provides public transportation in the form of buses light rail and high occupancy vehicle lanes metro's local bus network services approximately 275 000 riders daily with a fleet of over 1200 buses they also have a park and riot system houston is the only major city in the u.s without zoning laws houston's housing costs are among the lowest of the major u.s metro areas median sales price of a single family home in houston is 314 000 according to the houston association of realtors this is 19.4 percent lower than the national average however if you got money to spend there's no shortage of luxury homes take a look for example at river oaks it's one of the most expensive neighborhoods in houston it was established in the 1920s by brothers will hug and michael huck this community became a well-publicized national model for community planning real estate values in this community range from 1 million to over 20 million houston has a very hot and humid climate how do people get away from the heat let's ask them what do you do to get away from the heat drink plenty of water and jump in the pool jump in the pool stick to the shade plenty of watermelon go where is air conditioning and snow cones and some days only go out at night the city's nose trains due to hurricanes and floods and we got caught up in one of these and this is what it looks like just outside the city you can experience texas history from the tallest monument column in the world at 570 feet the san jacinto monument commemorates the battle of san jacinto the decisive battle of the texas revolution it's located about 16 miles east of downtown houston the monument is stopped with a 220 ton star while you're there you can also visit uss texas bb35 it's a museum ship and former united states navy new york class battleship it was launched in 1912 and commissioned in 1914. in world war ii texas courted war convoys across the atlantic shelled axes held beaches for the north african campaign and the normandy landings among other things it was decommissioned in 1948 now it's a museum ship a great thing about living in houston is that just an hour away is an island city of galveston it's located on the gulf coast connected to the mainland by several bridges galveston is a popular place for surfers swimmers and party people there's lots of different beaches and resort properties they look something like this how much is a house like that in 2022 they range from 450 000 to 1 million the galveston bay area has some of the best attractions in the state including moody gardens giant glass pyramids that house sharks monkeys and other animals and schlitterbahn waterpark, the beaches are clean and well maintained but the water is murky so don't expect it to be like florida because it's not the city has a special laid back vibe let's see what it's like where you guys from san antonio texas yeah we've been here for three days already wow all right what's uh what's your favorite thing to do here just drive around and you know that's it that's right but galveston is more than just beach if you walk around you'll find some great art galleries and street musicians let me show you the kind of atmosphere the city's got we really got lucky because this weekend they're having galveston art gallery weekend and it happens only every six weeks so we'll get a chance to look at some on pieces of art not that i'm a big connoisseur but still it's really nice i love it here each day but if it's very convenient that you can go on a cruise right from the port of galveston the kima boardwalk is a 60-acre texas gulf coast theme park filled with excited entertainment located less than 30 minutes south of houston the boardwalk is built entirely along the shores of galveston bay and clear lake there's a number of restaurants fun rides for all ages midway games attractions a charter yacht a 400 slip marina and multiple shops you can get a coffee and walk around to watch the sailboats is houston a safe city not really dependent on the neighborhood crime can be a major issue when it comes to intentional homicide rate it's 11.8 murders pair 100 000 people so it's almost twice safer than chicago philadelphia detroit but it's still pretty concerning remember the galleria mall we mentioned earlier well let's look at the reviews under it it seems like it's not very safe so let's sum it up houston has a booming job market low cost 11 and sunny weather all year round it's a great choice for building a life and raising a family however it's extreme heat vulnerability to hurricanes crime stats and legendary long commutes can be turn offs for some the hot and humid summers are a worthwhile trade-off for houston's pleasant winter weather in houston we're staying with our friends phil and swatlana do you guys want a short tour of my friend's house let's do it hey guys we're in houston and we're staying with our friends phil and so atlanta and i wanted to give a tour a short tour of the house so let'swalk inside this was the spacious living room with a nice tv but we were staying upstairs wonderful let's go upstairs okay we're staying in a different room but that one's not very tidy right now this is all of set lana's work here she likes to keep up with all these to have all these baskets along the fence here and have flowers in it and make it kind of be homey oh yeah look at that got a grill yeah this is our little uh retreat away from the rest of uh civilization back here looking at houston from 1998 to up to this date how much has it changed i think people that have been away from this place for 20 years they come back and say oh my god because there's more high-rises downtown there's more interstates than it's the same interstates but they've been widened from like two lanes to you know like six lanes on each side it's amazing how many california license plates you see now wow i mean people are leaving these places to where there's high taxes especially high taxes texas doesn't have a income tax most of the other states have an income tax where texas mostly they get the state gets its revenue from sales tax and from property taxes right so depending on how much you want to spend for a house determines how much taxes you're going to pay so if you got a a million dollar home here you're going to pay every year three percent of that what are some of your favorite things to do here i like to go bicycling a lot it's not too far from here about five miles you can you can put your bicycle on your car or put it in the back of your truck and there's like a paved trail that runs like 30 miles down uh san jacinto river like a nature trail and you can go ride your bike without because they you know uh there was only like four or five months a year that they could go out and play golf that's right you have a nice house oh well we enjoy stay with you guys yeah we're glad you guys came and uh like i said it was a lot of fun having a lot of energy around the house okay okay thanks for watching guys and let me know what you think about houston i'll see you in my next blog :)
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