We love reader recommendations and this week, we have a good one! The restaurant is called Ramen Moto and it is located at 2320 W Alabama St. Houston, TX 77098. A great location in the middle of Upper Kirby. Good to note is that is is OPEN LATE, until 1am every night, and closed on Mondays. Take note that it is not open for lunch, with hours starting at 3pm. Our reader recommends the Ramen and the Katsu Curry, but a quick check of the menu shows Ankimo, Takoyaki, Tsukemen, and an extensive Kushiyaki skewer lineup. I’m always looking for somewhere good that’s open late, so I am excited to give it a try the next time I’m out and about in town. Thanks, Dr. Joe, for the restaurant recommendation!
Right now through September 15, there is a special exhibition called “Meiji Modern: Fifty Years of New Japan” being held at The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. This exhibition offers an extraordinary look at Japan’s Meiji era (1868–1912), when the country emerged from near-total isolation to enter a modern, global period. Over these pivotal decades, Japan experienced major social and political shifts. The exhibition brings together nearly 200 remarkable works of Meiji art from more than 70 public and private collections. We went to check it out on Friday night and it was very impressive! Be sure to see the golf-leaf folding screens of the Tigers!
The Houston Rodeo’s international committee is already busy recruiting our new rookie class for 2025. Applications were taken a few months ago and on Monday August 19, these applicants attended a Rookie Meet and Greet, which is a kind of interview process with the management team. There are a limited number of open spots so it is a bit competitive to join the international committee. Successful candidates will be announced in the next couple of months and then training will soon begin. Next year’s Houston Rodeo is slated for March 4-23 with the first 8 days or so “international days”, the days we have special programs and events for our international guests.
Houston was directly hit by a hurricane on Monday July 8. Most people though Hurricane Beryl would not be so destructive because by the time it came to Texas, it had ‘weakened’ to a Category 1 rating. (In contrast, Hurricane Harvey was a Category 5.) Beryl traveled through the Atlantic Ocean and peaked at a Cat 5, leaving much destruction as it traveled past Grenada, Jamaica, the Cayman Islands, and Tulum. Texas could see it coming to our shores but did not expect it to make a sudden sharp right turn and go straight up through Houston. But it did!
Beryl made landfall near Matagorda with the east side of the eyewall impacting Brazoria County. It produced wind gusts over 60–70 mph (97–113 km/h) with a peak gust of 97 mph (156 km/h) in Brazoria. Significant impacts from Beryl took place in Surfside Beach, where siding was completely ripped off from the second story of a house. Multiple A frame homes along the beach were mostly destroyed as a result of Beryl’s winds. Numerous other structures suffered extensive damage within the town. In Lake Jackson, Beryl’s winds peeled back roofs, knocked down chimneys, and destroyed exterior brick facades.
As Beryl tracked into Texas, Houston was directly impacted by Beryl’s eyewall. More than 2.7 million lost power. Over 8 in (200 mm) of rain fell in and around Houston, but that was enough to make several bayous fill up, overflow, and flood the streets downtown. It was quite the disaster and many went days and days without electricity, while many have to deal with massive clean up from downed fences and trees. School and work was all canceled, as were all scheduled meetings and events. It was time to take off from work and go around to all our rental properties and help everyone clean up. It’s scary to think that this is just the BEGINNING of hurricane season.
For Koh and Susan’s 30 year anniversary, they decided to go somewhere they have never been, and since they were short on time, they picked a place that was tropical, not too far, and reachable by Southwest Airlines (they love Hobby Airport!). Have you ever heard of the island of Aruba? It is off the coast of Venezuela. Southwest flies through Orlando in order to reach there. Aruba is actually a part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands! It is only 20 miles from the north tip to the south tip and at it’s widest, it is only 6 miles across. There are two official languages there: Dutch (sole language for all admin and legal matters) and Papiamento (spoken language by the locals) but everyone also speaks perfect English and Spanish. Incredibly, all kids learn FOUR languages growing up in their education system! If you go to Aruba, we highly recommend all the things we did: take an all day tour with ABC Tours Aruba, do a private Seabob snorkel trip with Tio1 Adventure Aruba, rent a car and visit all the different beautiful beaches, watch the sunset from the northern tip, stay at the Embassy Suites Aruba. ABC Tours will bring you to all the major sightseeing spots: the lighthouse, the natural bridge, the gold milling fort, the first Dutch church, into the National Park to see the caves and to swim in the Conchi Natural Pool. They will also serve you lunch during the tour and bring you snorkeling at Baby Beach. Highly recommended! Tio 1 Adventure will guide you on your own Seabob to see the sea turtles and all kinds of tropical fish. We were lucky to even see a manta ray swim by! In total, we were there for 5 days and 4 nights, which was plenty of time to catch all the major sights plus relax at our resort by the beautiful pool. If you have never been to Aruba, put it on your list of places to visit next to Turks and Caicos!
