Review of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston: Our first trip to the Lone Star State!

 

The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Texas

John Steinbeck:  “Texas is a state of mind.  Texas is an obsession.  Above all, Texas is a nation in every sense of the word.”

Texas as a state, from someone who grew up in the Northeast, always had a mystical quality to it.  Whether it’s because of the slogans “Everything is bigger in Texas” or “Texas: It’s like a whole other country”, I’ve always wondered about the alien culture that exists in Texas, full of cowboys, football fanatics, and people with heavy southern accents.

Well, like most assumptions, most of these turned out to be untrue.  Culture was definitely not alien, but rather, it was just like any other American city we’ve visited elsewhere.  We didn’t run into cowboys saying “Howdy?” or “Y’all”, and we didn’t see crazed football fans running around in team jerseys going all rabid and nuts.

We felt a certain familiarity with the city of Houston, a very cosmopolitan city full of people, traffic, restaurants, and shops.  In short, a city just like New York City, Chicago, or Philadelphia…

Our desire to make a stopover at the city of Houston was for three reasons:  1) To visit our nephew who lives there, 2) To visit my wife’s friend who is a fellow artist, and lives there, and 3) We always wanted to visit Texas, as we never got a chance to, thanks to its distance from the Northeast.

After checking out of our hotel in downtown New Orleans the morning of December 9th, we took the then familiar, I-10 going westbound.  After about an hour into our trip, we got hungry, so we decided to stop for lunch and to fill up our car with fuel.

We found a gas station that also has a Popeyes.  After filling up on fuel, we went inside for some lunch.  Now, we’ve had Popeyes elsewhere, but not at the state where the restaurant originated from!  

We ordered a shrimp lunch with red beans/rice, and a new menu item, a blackened chicken sandwich with mashed potatoes.  Both the shrimp and the blackened chicken sandwich were good, about what we expected elsewhere.  The red beans and rice, on the other hand, was way better, with more red beans and sauce.  

Whereas elsewhere, it usually tastes a bit dried up, with too much rice but not enough red beans, in Louisiana, the same side dish was awesome.  It was really flavorful thanks to abundance of smoky flavored red beans and sauce!  We savored our foods then went on our way west, towards Houston.

We arrived near the outskirts of the city, and noticed immediately how busy the area was.  There were traffic jams when we got to about 20 miles outside of downtown!  By then, our car needed fuel again, so we pulled over at Love’s, a gas station.  

To our pleasant surprise, the price of fuel was the lowest we’ve seen since the start of our trip at $2.42 per gallon!  I already loved Texas just for that!  Thank goodness Texas has plenty of oil refineries, reducing the price of fuel in the state.

We headed towards downtown, fully aware of the increasing traffic with every mile we drove.  By the time we arrived at downtown, it was full-on rush hour.  Traffic had come to a crawl, and it reminded us of New York City.  

Looking around near the downtown and the suburbs, we got the sense that the urban sprawl was making its mark.  There were new developments and new retail stores everywhere.  There were plenty of restaurants selling all kinds of foods.  

We passed bunch of high rises on our left, continuing towards west side of the downtown area.  Traffic was still very heavy by the time we got off the exit, towards our nephew’s place.  The drive after exiting from I-10, took about 15 minutes.

We arrived at our nephew’s place, and pulled into the apartment complex with a gated entrance.  I tried calling his apartment, but was not successful, when we saw our nephew walking towards us.  What a perfect timing!

He opened the gate, then asked us to park at any spot where there isn’t a covered carport.  We found one, and we parked.  After moving our stuff for a short 2 night stay, we got inside his place, a two bedroom unit.

We promptly ordered some Chinese food from a local restaurant nearby (our treat for letting us stay at his place).  I have this motto I live by:  Whoever gives me free food or free lodging is my best friend.

We picked up the food and a 6 pack of local Texas beer (Shiner), then absolutely devoured the food.  It was good times with family over good food and drinks.  

The next day, we wanted to visit the Museum of Fine Arts in downtown Houston, so we headed out around 11 a.m.  We weren’t so sure about our lunch situation, as we’re not too fond of museum food (think salads, deli sandwiches, etc., but costs way too much for small portions), so we decided to eat something near our nephew’s place.

We found a Japanese supermarket (Seiwa Market) that sells lunches and it was also about 2 blocks away.  We went inside, bought a fish bento box and some sushi.  We were happy we found an inexpensive food but also tasty food!

Afterwards, we headed out to the museum via I-10 once again.  Traffic, even on a Saturday morning, was bad.  The closer we got to downtown area, the more traffic we ran into.  This was just like New York City!!!

What should’ve taken no more than 20 minutes took over 40.  Ouch…

We arrived near the museum and noticed how beautiful the place is.  There must’ve been over 10 different museums, all built right next to each other, vying for attention.  It looked like someone would need a good week just to visit all the museums downtown.

I let myself wander in my thoughts, when I remembered that I needed to find parking.  After going  around the block few times, we gave up finding street parking, so we pulled into a parking garage, about a block away from the museum.  

After parking, we used the underground tunnel to walk over to the museum.  The tunnel was something out of a Twilight Zone, with all kinds of funky neon lights.  It illuminated our faces with a yellowish/greenish, alien-like glow, which we both got a kick out of.

The underground tunnel connecting to the museum

The tunnel led directly to the ground floor of the museum, and to the admissions booth located at the Nancy and Rich Kinder Building.  After paying $19 per person, we started our tour.  The lobby area was impressive, full of depth and vastness, thanks to tall ceilings.  It also had works of modern art displayed throughout.

Lobby area, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston 

We continued onwards, passing another art work, that looked like an entrance to a portal to another world, with its bright green, orange, and blue colors.  It indeed was eye catching!

At the end of the corridor, we made a left, to check out the Audrey Jones Beck Building, housing European art until 1920.  We walked upstairs to see them and we loved their collection!  We got to see many works of Monet, Manet, Renoir, and other masters.

Here are some samplings below:

Wait, there’s more:

After admiring these masterpieces, we walked downstairs to the ground floor of the same building to see the Greek & Roman antiquities.  It’s always fascinating to see pieces that are several hundreds of years old, somehow surviving all these years, for me to see them.  Just to see the meticulous craftsmanship, not to mention the countless hours of work that went into these pieces, speak volumes about the high cultures of Ancient Greece and Rome.  

After contemplating what it might’ve been like to be an artist during those times, we moved along to check out the Asian art section, located at the Caroline Wiess Building.  The thing that really made us stop on our treks was the impressive screen art at the entrance to the Asian arts.

Screen art at the entrance to the Asian arts

The impact of changing seasons on trees were exhibited in an artful, and beautiful manner.  It was mesmerizing…

After enjoying the art work, we moved inside to the Chinese art, Japanese art, then to Korean art.  As a Korean-American, my wife and I have never seen such an extensive collection of art about the Koreas.  It was really beautiful and certainly made both of us proud, to see these works of art.  

At the end of our tour of Asian arts, we were ready to go home and relax!  By then, we had walked/browsed three plus hours at the museum.  We were looking forward to eating some Houston Mexican food with our nephew for dinner.

In conclusion:

The city of Houston turned out to be a very cosmopolitan place, and honestly we felt right at home.  It was a very likable city full of great places to eat, things to do, and most importantly, we were happy we got to see our friends and family.  We wouldn’t hesitate to visit the city in the future…

One of the best things about the city is the abundance of museums, all nestled in downtown in close proximity to one another.  Museum of Fine Arts is one of those excellent museums featuring an impressive art collection, rivaling many of the most well known art museums in the United States.  We were totally impressed by it, and we think most people will.  

From the extensive European collection, to fine Asian Arts collection, there are so many things to see at the museum.  We highly recommend this one!

Thank you all for reading and happy trails!

Jake

Wandering Money Pig 

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