Blog
30th April 2007
Off to Houston for work... <start sarcasm>yay!!!</end sarcasm>
Anyway, let me tell you about Houston. Well, the international airport is called 'George Bush International' - enough said! I spent the first week with the rest of the team, basically having my lunches and dinners with all or some of the team. In the first week I was fairly good about hitting the gym a couple of times that week. Despite the gym efforts, I gained 3kg that week, the food portions are MUCH larger in Texas (well, they are reknowned for trying to be the biggest in everything - George Bush Jnr, need I say any more).
Ashika came and joined me for the weekend of the first week (as it was a public holiday in London the following Monday). Below you will see some pictures of us going to the Houston Rockets v Utah Jazz in game 7 of the first round of playoffs. Awesome game and pre-game atmosphere, much better than anythign we experienced with the Sydney Kings back home (or basically any of the sporting events we have been to back home). Let me just say that the cheerleaders alone were enough to justify the event (you will see why in the pictures below).
We also hired a car for the weekend and went to the NASA Space Centre and a mall in an area called Katy.
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| The Cheesecake Factory, a chain of steak-type restaurants in the US. This one is in the Galleria in Houston. |
Obligatory photo with Ashika sitting at The Cheesecake Factory |
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| Strawberry Cheesecake, for dessert. Well, you can have cheesecake any time of day to be honest. |
[Insert cheerleader pre-game video]
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| Toyota Centre Houston, home stadium of the Houston Rockets. |
There were A LOT of people in front of the enterence, where they had all he pre-game entertainment. |
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| More pre-game entertainment | And more... |
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| More still... | |
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| Ashika, holding the tickets to the game. | Pic from inside the stadium. |
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| Rockets warming up. | Pre-game light show. |
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| The cheerleaders strutting their stuff. | Yao Ming gettign ready for the toss. On a side note, Yao is huge in Houston. He comes second only to Tracey McGrady (only just). |
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| Cheerleaders in cowboy outfits. | Cheerleaders again. |
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| More cheerleaders =) | Cheerleader dunking (from a trampoline). |
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| Jazz on the foul line. | 7:37 to go in the final quarter and the first time the Rockets hit the lead. ROckets were down by 16 at one point. |
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| Final score, Houston 99 : 103 Jazz. Well, it was a good game. |
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| Ford Taurus, the car the rental company game me. Ford!!! I know!! I requested a Pontiac Gran Prix. Wanted the Mustang but the there weren't any available for this weekend. |
Well, do you remember that someone said I should have been a model? Well, I think I will try it in some of my pictures =) |
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| NASA Space Centre in Houston. | Two jet planes mounted outside the Space Centre. |
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| Two pictures, pick the difference. | |
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| Me playing with the flight simulator. | Me next the a space suit. |
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| Some random photo. | Ashika posing. |
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| Ashika and I on the train tour of the space centre. | Houston Command Centre. |
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| There is a plate on the wall for each launch conducted out of the Houston Command Centre. |
They build a replica Space Shuttle in order to practise tasks that they need to perform on the real thing. |
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| More of the replica. | And more. |
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| More again. | |
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| 2 old rockets that have been mounted in the middle of the fields. |
Aren't they the 2 bollywood stars who got married recently? |