LA - Day 2 Beverly Hills & Santa Monica

First up on our agenda for the day was to check out Rodeo Drive and the Beverly Wiltshire, which is the movie made famous by the movie Pretty Women. I love that movie and one of my favourite scenes is the one where she goes shopping on Rodeo drive, so I definitely wanted to make sure we checked it out. Rodeo drive itself is actually a long street, but the portion with the shops on is quite small. It was fun to walk up and down and check out some of the expensive cars and plastic faces :)

Beverly Wiltshire

After that we made our way to Santa Monica. This part of LA is really cool, and has a very different vibe to the rest. It's very beachy and everyone seems quite laid back. We checked out the Santa Monica Pier which was absolutely packed. We didn't actually realise that the next day the LA marathon would be taking place, and it ends in Santa Monica. So I think it was even busier than normal. We rented bikes from a place right by the pier and then cycled along the beach bike bath towards Venice beach. This was a really nice cycle all along the beach in a bike lane and was a nice way to see some sights. 

After about 15 mins we started seeing the start of Venice Beach. I know most people would've seen or heard of Venice Beach, but it's even more crazy than you can imagine. There are people everywhere selling all types of things and people performing and walking around. One thing Jeremy and I noticed is the amount of homeless people in the US. I'm not sure if it's just because you become so unused to seeing them while living in the UK, or because we weren't expecting it, but it is really prevalent everywhere we have been so far. Venice beach definitely has it's fare share of homeless people and a lot of them are along the street selling things or begging. Although in Venice beach it doesn't seem as out of place really. We stopped at the skate park to watch the people skating and some of the guys there were really impressive. We spent a good while watching them do tricks. One of the cool things about Venice beach is just the sheer number of things going on. There are the handball courts, muscle beach, people skating, rollerblading it's just endless. You basically spend most of your time turning your head trying to look at everything. It was fun, and the photos probably don't do it justice.

Venice Beach Walk

After we had seen all we thought there was to see, we headed back towards Santa Monica to drop our bikes off and hopefully check out the sunset. Unfortunately we couldn't find much in terms of bars along the beach, but eventually found a sushi place with an outside section where you could kind of see the sunset. It was really nice to relax and take everything in, but the place was a bit overpriced for what we got. It was nice enough though and one of the waiters was the guy that played the Sherminator in American Pie, which was the only 'celeb' we saw. Guess American Pie didn't pay that well after all. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1CgGxPWyI0

Once the sun had set we decided to head to the 3rd street promenade which is a pedestrianised shopping area in Santa Monica. We had a good time wandering around and listening to the various singers and performers who were all playing on the streets. 

It was a good way to end of what was a really fun day in Santa Monica.

LA - Day 1 Sun Glorious Sun

For our first full day in LA we started it as any true star would... with a hike up Runyon Canyon!
With all the delicious food we have been eating we have been trying to keep active at the the same time, so we thought it would be a good way to kill 2 birds with one stone. Get some exercise and some amazing views at the same time. If you happen to watch any trashy E reality show, you would've no doubt have seen a 'celeb' kick start their fitness routine with a hike up Runyon. *cough, cough* Kardashians... (not that I watch that of course)

Anyway we got to Runyon, waited an age for some parking and then got hiking. There is 3 routes I read, the easy one, the difficult one and one called the hero. Unfortunately there isn't really a proper map so we went with one that looked difficult but not crazy. Turns out we took the hero one (I think) but luckily for us we did it the other way round to everyone else so I don't think it was as tough as it could've been. We were going down all the steep uphill bits that everyone else was dying on.

But it was a really good hike, and the views of LA are amazing from up there.

Views for days

Gotta get a selfie

After a quick shower and change, we made our way to the Hollywood walk of fame. Although it was very busy with tourists it was fun to see. The stars go on for ages, although the most famous stars tend to all be clustered around the Chinese Theatre. This was also interesting as in front of the theatre there are a lot of stars hand and footprints and signatures. We spent a good while just checking these out. There are also quite a few street performers along the stretch some of who are really good. We saw a girl doing some dancing to Michael Jackson who was impressive.

Griffith Observatory was next on the agenda, which is up there as an attraction on the LA lists for some great views. The views were good and the park surrounding the observatory looked like it would be a good place to explore, but I think after already seeing views in Runyon, we weren't as impressed. Although you did get some good views of the Hollywood sign which is cool to see! We didn't quite stay for sunset, although I'm sure that sunset from there would be impressive.

LA is known for good sushi, so we decided that's what we would have for dinner. The airbnb owner recommended a place called Sugarfish to us, and I had read it was good so we decided to check it out.
They have a few branches around LA, so we decided to check out the Beverly Hills one. The restaurant itself was quite low key, but the sushi was amazing. They have a 'trust me' menu that is recommended so that's what we went for. They choose a few different types of sushi and bring them out. All the fish was really fresh and very tasty. When we arrived we had to wait for a table as they don't do reservations. They have a bar outside though so we people watched all the rich people while we waited, which is always fun to do. We also got chatting to the people next to us about where to go for some drinks after and they recommended some places in West Hollywood to check out. So after dinner we hopped into a cab and made our way to Laurel Hardware but unfortunately the queue was crazy so we ended up in Hudson. This was a pretty cool place, sort of looked like an old train carriage and had some good music and very strong drinks! Most places in USA seem to free pour any spirits you order. We stayed for a few drinks and then headed off home.