Santa Monica Pier

Hey Friends! It's been awhile! Over a month, in fact. Geesh! We've been busy moving away from China and settling back into life in the US. We spend our first week and a half in the Southern California area before we made our way back to Texas on a Road Trip. We have lots to share and today we'll start with Santa Monica Pier!

Our first full day in LA we had to take an impromptu trip back to Santa Monica to pick up our camera that I had accidentally left at a gas station the night before. Whoops! Thankfully we called early in the morning, and the employee had put it aside for us. We made our way across town back to Santa Monica and stopped by Bay Cities Italian Deli & Bakery. I had read great things about this bustling, Italian deli on Yelp and knew we'd enjoy it for lunch that day.

The deli was sort of a dream. After being in China for the past 3 1/2 years, seeing a market full of cheeses, olives, deli meats and other fine foods, we were over the moon. We picked up two of their famous, huge sandwiches, the Godmother & the Buffalo Chicken. We tried some mixed olives and kettle chips on the side for a great start of our day.

After the deli, we went and picked up my camera, and headed for the famous Santa Monica Pier.

I was thankful we had a chance to walk down the pier during the day, since it wasn't busy at all. It was quite enjoyable and relaxing. The Pier is on all the "must do" lists when visiting Los Angeles. I hadn't planned on us visiting it, since our list of things to do seemed to revolve more around relaxing and eating than sight seeing, but I'm glad that my forgotten camera kind of forced us to enjoy the pier.

Chara of course loved the pier. She loves America in general. It's so exciting for her to be able to go everywhere with her mommy and daddy. :)

Chara girl met two friends from Shanghai (walking away). They walked up to her instantly and started petting her. They knew the way to her heart, that's for sure. it was also super fun for us to speak Chinese again. (At that point we'd only been away from China 2 days! Ha! But it felt like longer!)

Our favorite part of the pier was, of course, the end, where it overlooks the water. We sat down and enjoyed the view of the ocean and the live music around us, which fills the pier, day or night. It was a relaxing and beautiful way to spend a few hours in Santa Monica.