Houston - Back To History

“Ok, what’s next?” I waved Sam Houston, who firmly stood in front of the Visitors Center.

“Mmm…Holocaust Museum…tempat yahudiiii...”
Yup, they held an exhibition of Muslims that helped Jews during the occupation of Germans, from their side of story lah. So this museum was built in remembrance of those who were dead during the World War II.

Admission was free, means no donation was given to them la kan. Once entered, they had your bag inspected and ensured that neither photography nor videography were permitted. So no picture lah ye. The next thing you know, you were surrounded with Jews, not other than Jews. (Sweating…)

There was a young lady that escorted a group, who described and explained on each and every photo of the tragedy, and expressed how she felt. True enough, regardless what religion you are with, war shouldn’t be existed. Peace, no war! Judging from all those pictures, yes, humans were being unfair to each others. But I shall keep what I thought bout Jews la ye…lu pikir la sendri…Heil Hitler!

We later walked out from the back of the museum and saw an old railcar and an old Danish fishing boat. These two transports were used to depot Jews and other victims. They were hidden under the decks, to escape from Nazi. (Hmm…I am so badly wanted to see how Auschwitz look like. Poland anyone?)
“Next?”

“Forbidden Gardens tu esok kan? Then kita gi San Jacinto Monument tu la, skali ngan tempat Battleship tu.”
We set the GPS again and headed to San Jacinto, which a bit outskirt from Houston, La Porte. We suddenly amazed with the radio station where all played songs came with title and singer’s name appeared on your player. Awesome huh?
Cruised along the Pasadena Highway to Battleground Road, we ended up at one shallow road where you can see water on your left and right! Macam kat Bukit Merah tuuuu! The road was in between of the sea or lake or river or whatever it called! Can you imagine a croc crawling crossing the road? (Ok, there was no croc.)
“Camne monument tu bleh ada kat depan sana, seberang laut ni???”

“Takde plak kata kena ikut feri, tapi dah nampak dah monument tu…” I read our buku hikmat again and again.

We turned back and looked around for locals. Damn you GPS! More and more cars approached. Hmm…the GPS could have been right, it maybe a shortcut.

“Takpe, kita belasah je la…lagipun, how bad it can be, depan tu dah sah-sah nampak monument tu.”

YES! THAT MONUMENT WAS F**KING TALL! The tallest building in Texas kot. You can see it from all over La Porte.
We drove onto the ferry and guess what, it had no gate! You had to trust the braking system! (Toyota hybrid can’t never excel with this challenge. Hehe.) With splashing of sea water onto your windscreen, in 5 minutes, you reached the other side.

We continued as per guided in GPS and saw the entrance of San Jacinto Monument. Anyhow, we turned right to the Battleship entrance first, since it closed at 6.00pm. We parked our car and did our usual mission. Took as many pictures as we can!

This ship was once a battleship of Texas that known as BB35. Along the side of the parkway, there were facts and data bout this ship on its protection, guns, and defense. We didn’t go onboard to check on it, but we did go into the souvenir’s shop, that almost to close. (But I managed to grab a fridge magnet to bring back home!)
Then we saw San Jacinto’s statue and snap few pictures with it.
We later turned back to San Jacinto Monument, to have a closer look on it. Again, THAT MONUMENT WAS F**KING TALL AND…TALL! The monument was gigantic, even the end to end walls can’t fit in your camera!And there was a museum inside it! We paid for the lift that brought us to the observation deck, where it was located 489 feet high, just below the “lone star”. (From the “lone star” on the top to bottom, the monument was 570 high.) An old lady sat on a chair (yeah, in the lift), later pushed the button and spoke in a very thick southern slang, that you didn’t even wanted to care to hear. Pity her…hundreds of ups and downs in a day.

From the observation decks, we saw the battleship that we went to see just now. The sea that surrounded it, the park, and the whole Le Porte, I believed. If you took a closer look of the walls, next to the observation window, it was a mixture of sea shells. (Err…can we go down now?)
We went into the museum and yes, you can find lots of info on San Jacinto who fought for Texas. Sam Houston officials’ attires also were displayed. The miniature of Texas village and villagers, were so cute and stunning.
Ok, enough with history. Let’s jumped out and snapped more pictures!!!
We had to make a move since it was getting dark and quiet. We didn’t use ferry this time, but we used Sam Houston Tollway instead. We saw one advertisement that enlightened how cheap a house in Houston. $40k for a house??? Ok, please don’t convert dolar to ringgit la, but $40k for a house is damn cheap! $32k for BMW Z4??? I am sooooo wanna live here!
After a very long day of history learning, we decided to have our dinner at one of the famous seafood restaurant, Pappadeaux (pronounce as Pappa-Do). I was a bit unsure why people kept on asking us to have lobsters in US, so why not, I asked hubby to get one for us.
Too many people, in a very crowded place, we had a to-go (tapau la maksudnyer). We got a pack of dirty rice, veges, and red lobster! Looked enough for both of us, we took it back to the hotel.
At the hotel, we ate like Texans. The lobster was super delicious…but,

“Eeeeeeeeeeeiiiiiiii ape niiiiiiiiiiiiii???” hubby shouted!

“Daging!!!” he continued!

“Tapi sedapkan nasik ni? Tolak tepi je la…bukan babi tu, sebab dalam menu takde babi pun…” I separated those small tiny meats from the rice sambil melahap tak sedar diri lagi.

“Tapi diorang ada served katak and alligator…” hubby added.

We looked at each other. Dot. Dot. Dot.