Venice beach

Today we headed down to Venice beach. The promenade has hippie after hippie selling wares and art (often junk) opposite normal shops like American Apparel and various food halls and snack shops. About half way down we get accosted by a couple of guys who offer us free cd's. Well almost free, after having a quick listen on their portable mp3 players they ask for donations. I actually quite like the track he played so we give him a donation but then they all swoop and we're suddenly surrounded by 2 more offering their own cd's. We back away as gracefully as we can :)
Further down the beach we pass numerous "medical" marajuana stores. It seems to me that you pay these 'shops' $40 and they basically sign you a medical note and give you an amount of hash. Its legal in LA to own less than a gram anyway so I guess this is all legal too anyway.
After a while we reach the famous muscle beach but as its after labour day its frustratingly empty.
We head back to Santa Monica pier for lunch and some sunning on the beach for the afternoon and then head back to the hotel for our final evening in LA. We head back to the Fathers Office bar and this time manage to get a seat and eat a really great burger that was worth the second chance.
Tomorrow we head to Santa Barbera, our first long distance drive and we're looking forward to putting the top down and having the wind in our hair.

Hollywood!

Today I'm off to visit hollywood. We set off down Santa Monica boulevard and all we can hear in our heads is a certain Sheryl Crow song. It doesn't look good at the start as its overcast but the fates are with us and after about 30 mins the sun does indeed come up.

Hollywood is ok but not mind blowing. We fail to find Bill Murray's star on the walk of fame but I do spot Ivan Reitman's and a host of stars belonging to Star trek cast members. We have a quite look at the hand prints outside the Chinese theatre and I'm happy to see that my hands are the same size as Arnie's although I'm a fair bit taller so maybe thats not a fair fight ;)

Lunch consists of a burrito from a food truck which tastes great and then its back to the car to head to Burbank for a free tour of Warner Bros studios curtesy of work. The tour is good fun. We get see the tricks of the trade and stand in Central Perk from Friends. Lots of the locations have been used in various films and tv. Theres a mini lake not much larger than a home pool that was used to simulate the ocean in free willy!

We head back to the hotel via Sunset boulevard looking at all the bars and shops. We pass the reasonably famous Whisky-a-gogo but it looks shut at this early time.

The evening is spent having cocktails and sliders (mini hamburgers for non-US people) and then heading out for a nice italian at a place called Laco. I order a chicken pesto lasagne which is delicious.

Paul

Day 2

We feel much more human now although we're desperate for breakfast. We head out down Montana Av. until we find a Starbucks where we have a wonderful time listening to a right-wing local discussing some alternative (read extreme) approaches to foreign policy with some of his acquaintances. We gobble down some yogurt and plan our day. Shopping and the beach - hell yeah!
We hit the 3rd street shops and we don't make it very far before we make our first purchase, the very first shop! We buy some natty grey corduroys for me. The second shop we buy a gorgeous leather skirt for my wife.
Luckily for our wallets thats all we buy but we continue down 3rd until we hit the bi-weekly farmers market. We peruse the wares for a bit and end up buying some peaches. It all looks lovely though and we make a vow to visit the farmers market back home.
We head back out to the shore and walk along until we get to Santa Monica pier. Its a pleasure pier and we find a pleasure arcade that  has a selection of older arcade machines such as Galaga and Pacman. At the end they have - OH MY GOD - a pinball section that has Star wars Ep1. This is a pinball 2000 machine that had a monitor in the translate (the upright part at the back) that is pointed down at the glass of the table. The effect is to make it look like theres a video playing in midair over the table and the table components. I almost pass out with excitement! As the ball passes over certain switches the game can make it look like you hit objects in the screen. This is only the 2nd time I've seen one of these and and the first time I've had a chance to play one. Alas, on inserting a coin it becomes apparent that the machine is in a bad state of repay and its unplayable. After confronting the pin ball wizard about the poor state of this beautiful machine, I get a refund and play some Addams family and World tour poker instead. Neither is in great condition but they're playable. I do terribly but my wife quite likes the look of it and decides to have her first ever game of pinball!! She's a natural - like she is at most things. Unlike me, she's good enough to win a free game is kind enough to share it with me with us doing one flipper each. We then play a little skeeball - yes i know, we'd never heard of it either - and she kicks my butt.
After the arcade we have a look around the theme park and the rest of the pier. We take lots of photos, mainly of birds sitting on things, and then we get a hotdog and hit the beach. Excitingly, a bird swoops down and steals our little pot of mayonnaise. We are powerless to do anything but watch it fly off and marvel at its well-developed palate.
Its quite windy which nicely offsets the heat and we sit sunbathing for a bit. We try the water but its a bit cold for my tastes. If it wasn't so windy it'd probably be fine I expect.
We head back to the hotel and take a swim in the pool. Its 84 degrees which is lovely.
In the evening we head back to the high street area and find a lovely Sushi tapas restaurant of some repute. We try some salmon sashimi and a tuna dish that has us rolling our own maki rolls. We finish it off with a teriyaki style omelette with noodles and some prawn dumplings. Yum!
Tomorrow we plan to hit Hollywood!