Houston Cultural Attractions

Growing up with the amazing museums in Chicago spoiled me a bit.  The Field Museum, Shedd Aquarium, Art Institute, and Adler Planetarium are still some of my favorite places to visit.  And living in central Florida for 7 years was like a cultural void in my life - Disney, Universal Studios, and an exhibit about Harley Davidson at the local "art museum" do not a well rounded city make.  Which is one of the reasons I was excited to move to Houston and be near a "real" city again.  And I have to say, so far Houston has not disappointed!  Their zoo was large, pretty, and well tended.  The caged animals had the usual effect on me (depressing) but as far as zoos go, it was really nice!

The aquarium building of the zoo had a lot of really beautiful tropical fish and it was the first time I've ever actually seen an octopus swim out from behind a rock and propel itself up to the viewing window (I'm bummed that I was so transfixed by this rare sight that I forgot to take a picture!).

True to form, they had some Texas themed areas too.  My favorite was this sign!

And then of course they had the standard lions, tigers and bears (oh my!) as well as giraffes, rhinos, monkeys and apes, birds galore, and my favorites the elephants and baby elephants!  There were 2 babies and we were kind of obsessed with them...

After the zoo we hit up the art museum which was actually pretty phenomenal!  They were focusing on collections of realistic paintings that were incredible - the gold threads in the tapestries and the life-like appearance of metals and fabrics was stunning!  My favorite area was the Audrey Jones Beck collection, though.  That woman had truly unbelievable taste in art!  The book above, which I'm probably going to buy next time I head to the museum, actually has an image of my favorite painting on the cover!  We also walked through a really fascinating collection featuring modern sculpture and focusing on ceramics.  I only got to see about half of the museum, so I definitely plan to go back sometime soon to check out the rest!