He's about to turn off the lights. There it goes - you probably can't see us now.
Even darker
Good morning from Houston. This is day one in Houston and we are getting
ready to go out to a cistern. It's sort of like the ones in Istanbul, except
it's in Houston and we're gonna take a little photography class. It is actually
a great opportunity to explore the pretty neat area for about one hour instead
of 30 minutes. Either way, you would have to take a guided tour anyway. But first,
we're going to breakfast.
So we found this place is called Tacodeli and
from what I understand, this is kind of a local chain here in Texas. It's an
Austin-base taco place. We're going to get a breakfast real quick and then we're
going to go to the Buffalo Bayou, which is about five minute drive from here to
start our cistern tour.
Seems like we don't have time to eat there
unfortunately it's a cool place but we're just gonna take it out to our next
destination
Just six minutes before our guided tour so we get a eat fast.
I asked her to surprise me
Oh I can definitely see why people go there
and we just checked in it's officially now gonna wait until it starts
Welcome to the cistern this is a projects to Buffalo
Bayou partnership which is the nonprofit
So we just learned from our guide that this place opened in 1926
and it was used all the way up till 2007 It has flooded a couple of times
especially during Hurricane Harvey when they were having like five to seven
inches of rain. It's built to sustain 2 inches an hour I think that's what it
yes didn't work but hurricane Harvey really really over loaded the system so
it it kind of flooded and you can see right around the edges where the light
starts that's almost as high as the water went up
this place is fascinating we just learned that this whole place holds 15
million gallons of water currently it has six inches of water which is about
gave much and in the full capacity there's actually about six inches of
water from the ceiling back in 1926 Basilio fussen can use this water for a
month and day and a half but right now if the city of Houston use it just to
brush their teeth and have the water running it's gonna last only for one
hour it just fun facts how we use a lot of water nowadays so there's a pipe
where all the water's from the aquifer come in to fill up this whole area
and just in case this any doubt there are 221 pillars in this whole area 13 by
17 I was told I didn't calculated this cistern is also a perfect art
installation place and in the past there are a few art installation that is
supposed to be pretty cool I would like to check out what they had I can imagine
that's gonna be one of the really cool sights and sound to hear and to
experience next our guides gonna give us a few demonstration with the lights and
maybe some screaming session here coming up he's about to turn off the lights
there goes you probably can't see us now even darker start looking at the
reflection room floor there a little bit to keep from getting burn
in
so we learned a little bit unfortunately but not really that that was not
actually a photography workshop it was a time that's set aside for photographers
to come in and take pictures without disrupting a regular tour it's pretty
good yes I'm like really solid too time I and I think I can enjoy it more
although we do talk to the guide and learn more about it yeah otherwise the
guided tour can talk more about history and he's probably the typical thing that
you wanna do but that's like 30 people at max yeah one of the things that he
did talk about was that the BBC came in one day they were doing a documentary on
Jupiter they a location scout thought this would be a great place to interview
the experts so they brought in all their own lighting equipment turned off all
the lights covered up all the exit signs and did all the interviews with the
experts for that show for their BBC specials so I'm actually gonna look that
up on Netflix yes I can find it pretty good day I think yeah yeah good start to
the cool another thing that we totally forgot to tell you this is the only
cistern in the Americas and it is second only in size to the one in Istanbul so
that's a fun fact
we are at the 1940s air terminal museum this was Houston's first purpose-built
air terminal for commercial flight very exciting time for air travel yeah sort
of sort of like when you're watching the show Mad Men everyone would get on the
plane or whatever with the suit and tie on but this was the first purpose-built
terminal so let's go inside
do you think this is real or do you think it's just a prop okay so we've
been told that in just a few minutes they're going to actually take us out
onto the ramp so that we can watch some aircraft take off we had no idea that we
were going to get out onto the ramp and be able to watch these airlines take off
probably mostly Southwest Jets because that's who's here
we originally thought these were just a few planes parked out here but these are
actually nine of United's Boeing 747 max eights that are grounded these planes
are just sitting there doing nothing but they have maintenance that has to be
done on them all the time their tires need to be rotated they have to have
crews go on and inspect them and of course they have to pay for the airport
parking as well so these planes are just sitting here empty and are a complete
waste of money but at least they're not flying in crashing that's always a good
thing yeah this is obviously an art deco building and I think it's a just a plane
landing obviously this is a an art deco and it's just really really cool because
they were built in 1940's and it's just so detailed along the building you can
see all these different sculptures of aviation theme like including planes and
how people dress up and cargo just my favorite architecture style
there's a Southwest flight about to take off and this will be the closest I've
ever been to an airplane that stayed not here goes
well I would say that's totally worth it yes this is such a need small museum and
I'm so glad we're here my favorite part is actually just to hear a lot of
different airlines I never heard before you know such as flying tiger Airlines
and in the trans Texas airlines and all of them that shows like a chart of how
they eventually merged up into one big Continental Airlines something that's a
little did United it's just really neat yeah my favorite part was actually
getting to go out onto the ramp I didn't think that was going to happen and this
guy come over and said you guys want to go out on the replica course we want to
go out on the ramp I think other than going out onto a ramp to board an
aircraft that's about as close I've ever gotten to an aircraft taking off which
is really neat so definitely check out here at the Hobby Houston Airport $5 my
dollars and worth every penny that's a plane getting a fresh paint job
someone's having a quinceañera
quinceanera at the cistern
From what we learned, this actually holds 15 mill
thousand million 15 million
look the city of Houston can this place in hole
are you coming? Oh yeah.
Water from to the '40s!