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| One of my fave Venice beach homes |
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| $5 massages, anyone? |
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| It's a yellow jedi! |
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| We've beat the parking gods! |
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| Zoltar speaks! |
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| Dancing in the street! |
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| The Whaler's! |
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| I'll be back, Venice! |
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| Gingerbread Court |
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| Hotel Erwin |
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| This shop's all over the Caribbean! |
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| The piano man |
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| Luna and Tico |
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| Sidewalk cafe is best in the summer with your pooch |
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| Boy chasing pigeons |
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| My handsome boys |
Venice Beach and the pier is at the end of Washington Boulevard. The best way to get there is to take the 405 Freeway, and take the 90 freeway all the way to the end; which leads you to the CA1/PCH/Lincoln boulevard. Make a right\north, and left on Washington Boulevard. Meter parking is $0.25\15 minutes; with an hour max. Or you can park on the lot for $5 for the entire day. Because it rained off and on, we found a meter parking just in front of C & O's, which means we have an hour to give Tico his due exercise for the day.
Venice Beach is one of the places that I miss about living in West LA. Food-wise, I love places like the
Whaler's, which is where Bryan and I had our first date. They also have karaoke's at 8pm on Sundays, so that's always fun.
C & O's we like because of their never-ending garlic rolls and at 8pm, they make you sing "That's Amore". So we go here on special occassions. On busy days, it takes about 45 minutes to get a table; so plan ahead. I also like Gaby's Mediterranean, Baja and Cabo Cantina. Sidewalk Cafe lets you dine while your dog is hanging outside the patio. Today, the cafe is enclosed; so no dog fun for owners today. Fig Tree Cafe and The Terrace offers $3 happy hours from 3pm. Around the corners, I also enjoy Hama Sushi, James Beach, Hinano, and
Mao's for a late-night Chinese-food fest. It's a pretty decent Chinese place in West LA. But
Wacky Wok up the street in Abbot Kinney is tops for me.
There's not a lot of
dog-friendly hotels in Venice, but Santa Monica has a few; and is walking distance from here. So bring comfortable walking shoes and your leashed pooches.
Hotel Erwin a chic boutique hotel, but is not pet-friendly, but they are just behind the boardwalk on Pacific Avenue.
Anyhoo, going back to Venice Beach, this place is not for the prissy. But if you want a little piece of LA, you can get it here. It has gotten seedier because of the sprouting "herbal medicinal" shops since the legalization, but if you get past that and their peddling salespeople, Venice Beach is a great place to spend a few hours in LA. And you can shop and do almost everything here. You need a replacement luggage? It's here. Cheap glasses and umbrellas? Here. $10 sweatshirts? 3 for $10 shirts? Board shorts? Ditto. $5 massages, anyone? Take some cut-out pictures? You need your palms read? Here, here, and here. And unique paintings and artworks and crafts are here, from $5 beads/necklaces to sages and incenses. And lo and behold, past my favorite place The Gingerbread Court shops, there's an American Apparel Outlet, and Del Sol, and other "higher-than-you would normally see in Venice" stores.
Then there's the muscle beach, a handful of tennis and basketball courts, playgrounds, biking/walking paths, and of course, the beach. But the street performers are my favorite. There wasn't much of them today because of the rain, but we saw a piano guy, some people playing drums, and the usual 20-something musicians that clearly just got off the bus from some mid-western State somewhere. I say kudos to these kids. The entertainment business is a tough racket to get in; but being in these venues, you'll never know, I could potentially be listening to the next Jewel. I'd say follow your dream, and grant your own wish.
"Your wish is granted" is a card that was dispensed out of "Zoltar", from the movie "Big" by Tom Hanks.
Big is a great movie made in 1988; and it's about a 13 year old boy who wished to be big/taller. And so his wish is granted, and he got to live a great adult life for the next few weeks. I mean, who wouldn't want to be a kid again? Or an adult for that matter? The grass is always going to be greener on the other side of the fence, but for one moment, it would be nice to live both lives.
Our one hour is up, and we RAN back to Washington Boulevard to avoid a $45 parking fee. I was amazed that B and Tico outran me, and I was huffing and puffing running after them. But we made it! The parking police are nowhere to be seen, and we're about 10 minutes late at least.
I gotta say, today was a good day.
We lucked out that rain still have yet to rear its ugly head; so B suggested we also check out a dog park in Playa Vista that he saw down the hill from his alma mater LMU's library; so we drove back on PCH, past Marina Del Rey, and made a left on Bluff Creek Drive. It's called
Oberrieder Park. It's not huge - about 5-6K square feet, but it's clean, and has a separate area for small and large dogs as well. Outside of the dog park is a walking path, and benches and barbeque grills, and tennis court, etc. The park is in the middle of the apartment area of the Playa Vista community. There's a handful of metal benches, and they supply poop bags, and there's a cool water fountain area on the corner as well.
The dogs here are pretty friendly, and about 25% of the dog owners actually did play with their dogs; so that was nice too. But it's definitely not a large area, so I'm actually kind of glad that there wasn't too much dog owners roaming around, because it will probably be hard for B to throw tennis balls across the park without hitting another person. We'd definitely come back to this park again. It has wood chips instead of grass, but is cleaner than Redondo Beach Dog Park.
Playa Vista is a great housing community in West LA, and they offer luxury apartments and condos. At this time, they offer SFR's for $500K and up, which is a great deal, considering how much these houses were a few years ago. And it's an exclusive community, and their amenities are amazing. They have about 10 parks, 2 dog parks, dry cleaners and shops, Coffee Bean's, and they still have yet to build more commercial shops, etc.
And with LMU up the hill and the 90 freeway only down the hill, Marina Del Rey and Venice a few miles away, it would be nice to get in one of those SFR's. Well, I can only dream.
I think I'm also due for a Zoltar visit - you'll never know.
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