First stop - LA

I arrived in LA Friday night. Since we were flying out of LA, it made the most sense to come a few days early and relax before my 14-hour flight to Hong Kong and then onto Hanoi.

I'm staying in Santa Monica and on Saturday I decided to head over to the 3rd Street Promenade for some breakfast and people watching. They had a bunch of tents out for their earth day festival and lots of folks were out and about. I then went and walked thru Palisades Park which is right on Ocean Ave. overlooking the beach.

While on 3rd street, I came across this person dressed up as a tree person. The picture doesn't really do it justice since he really was disturbing.

Saturday night, we drove out to Pasedena to go to The Dining Room, Michael Voltaggio's restaurant. For those that don't know, Michael Voltaggio was last season's winner of Top Chef. Let's just say that the dinner was fantastic. The presentation was spectacular, and the food was really, really good. After dinner, we went back into the kitchen and had a chance to meet Michael and thank him for a great meal. Really great guy. Very laid back. The couple we were with was from Manhatten Beach and he suggested we go to a new sushi place called Sashi and to tell the chef (Morimoto's suez chef) that he sent us. So, Debby and I are going tomorrow night before we head to the ariport.

Today, we met a friend of ours from the China trip for breakfast and then I walked down to the beach, rented a bike, a rode down the beach toward Venice. I took a few snapshots from my blackberry, but I think I had the settings wrong b/c the pictures seem kind of dark.

This was my favorite. I don't know if you can see it, but you've go the "Shul on the Beach" next to a store called Unruly. Love it. If only there were a medical marijuana place on the other side. There were tons of them along the beach in Venice.

More shots along the beach trail.

I don't know if you can see it in the picture above, but there's a guy on the left in white shorts that is hanging upside down. He actually climbed up that rope upside down. Crazy. Below is a view of the bike path from Palisades Park in Santa Monica.

The best is after my 10-mile ride, 5 miles of which were against the wind, I then had to walk up this to get back to my hotel. My legs were jelly just trying to get up there.

Tonight, I'm getting together for dinner w/ my cousin and then planning to chill out by the pool tomorrow. Maybe I'll even ride a bike again if I have time. Our flight doesn't leave until 11:50pm Monday night so we have another full day here. (I should have come in yesterday, but originally thought our flight was leaving today when I booked my flight)