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Well it is my last day in L.A and didn't do anything terribly exciting. Woke up and left quite early which allowed me to get to Santa Monica by 9am and it was a pretty quick run in with little traffic on a Saturday morning. Parked in one of the Santa Monica parking stations which have heaps of spots and is free for the fist 2 hours and only a $1 for every hour after which I believe is quite reasonable for a major tourist destination. The Santa Monica farmer's market is located on Arizona Ave between 2nd St and the 3rd St Promenade. It was already quite busy when I got there and there was certainly a good variety of produce and I have to say if I lived here I would be visiting whenever I planned on cooking something decent each weekend. Such a contrast of colours and it all looked so fresh! As it was still too early for tourists, I decided to grab my daily Starbucks and go for a walk along 3rd Street Promenade and then down to the famous pier. It was very pleasant due to the lack of crowds and the cool morning air
made it a refreshing walk. There was some sort of bikie gathering/festival just off to the side of the pier and there were heaps of bikers and their loud bikes. Heaps of people on the beachside exercise area which is good to see breaking the normal fat lazy American stereotype.
Headed back to the Manhattan Beach area where I saw a Fry's Electronics store yesterday. I didn't realise exactly how big a store Fry's actually is. It is bigger than anything we have back home and they even have a computer repair area. I looked at a few laptops and there are some pretty light ones with decent specs for under $1000 which make them a bargain compared to prices back home. Next I checked out Manhattan Village which is a really spaced out shopping mall with not really that many stores but heaps of car park spaces! Just across the road is El Segundo Plaza which is the same, a huge space with heaps of car park spaces. There was a Wholefoods store there, a supermarket which I have wanted to visit after seeing it featured on Top Chef tv series. It is a more upmarket supermarket with
more 'organic' stock. Again I was immensely impressed and I would love to live near one. I was impressed by Trader Joe's and Ralph's but I am in love with Wholefoods. They even have bars inside and heaps of cooked food you can take home or eat on site. I dined in at a Smoked BBQ joint and for $11.99 I got a plate of excellent pork ribs, fries and garden salad. Not only was it cheap, it was good too with the meat smoked beautifully and you can see the pink smoke rings on the meat.
After lunch, went back to the hotel to have a nap and have been relaxing all afternoon, watching tv and the NBA playoffs. Dinner tonight will be a quick fare as I need to pack up and leave here about 7:30am tomorrow morning to return the rental car and then check-in for my flight to Seattle from LAX which is always a drawn out affair,
So to sum it up, I've enjoyed my 5 days in L.A immensely. I managed to complete a few more tourist attractions and am feeling nice and relaxed as I am on my own clock. Life
here is certainly higher paced than Sydney but the good weather and open spaces make it a viable option compared to more colder areas of the States. Traffic is terrible but it's no worse than Sydney during peak hours but just on a different scale. There are many more cars but then the roads are bigger with many more lanes. People here certainly drive better and from what I've seen this trip and last, they certainly know how to merge and change lanes much more confidently.
Seattle tomorrow will certainly be different !
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