If you're visiting Los Angeles, do yourself a favour and take a trip to Santa Monica Pier.
Its centrepiece, the 329-metre-long wooden pier, which celebrated 100 years last September, has all the history and charm of a bygone era.
It's great for people-watching, getting a bite to eat, catching some sun and ocean air or chatting with the local colour, like perspex artist Vicente Palacios.
"I love it, it's my life here, because I'm free," says Palacios, who paints kitschy, colourful beachside scenes which he sells to tourists.
Beach babe Ellen is walking her two golden doodles (cross between a Labrador and a Poodle) Charlie and Elbee.
With their wild flaxen coats they bear an uncanny resemblance to the shaggy blonde 'do of their deeply suntanned owner.
"Elbee is a therapy dog at UCLA," Ellen says. "He visits patients and helps with their recovery."
Ellen and her look-alike pooches are overtaken by two aliens dressed in fluorescent green lycra bodysuits who are walking along the pier - it turns out they're part of a promotion for a show on a local television network.
A lone busker plays a jazzy tune on his sax and a cool black dude dressed in a red satin suit sets up his request-a-song-for-a-dollar stand.
The pier opened in 1901 and was developed by amusement entrepreneur Charles Llooff (he also built Coney Island in New York) into a vibrant entertainment precinct.
Rumour has it that during those glory days, one of the sailors who used to frequent it provided the inspiration for the cartoon character Popeye.
Storms, fires and neglect eventually took their toll on the pier and in the 1970s it was threatened with demolition.
It was saved when it was declared a national historic landmark in 1975 and today it's one of the area's top tourist hubs.
A vestige of the pier's past glory days lives on the form of its carousel, one of only 140 working antique wooden carousels in the US and Canada.
Each of the 44 horses and two chariots has been hand-carved and is unique.
Kids can ride on it for $US0.50 and adults for $US1. At the pier you can also visit the aquarium, play in the games arcade, hire some bikes to ride along the beach or even learn some tricks at the recently opened trapeze school.
"Trapeze arts got popular after Sarah Jessica Parker did it on an episode of Sex and the City," says the school's general manager Elizabeth Feldman.
If you're getting peckish you can buy a churros from a stall or drop in for a quick meal at one of the pier's many eateries. The Bubba Gump Shrimp Factory, inspired by the movie Forrest Gump, serves up local seafood and has on display original costumes from the film.
I stop at a stall and buy a fruit cup consisting of melon, orange, coconut and cucumber spiced up with lime juice and a dash of chilli, which I tuck into at the end of the pier as I watch the fishermen and look out across the steely-blue waters of the North Pacific.
The final stop on the famous Route 66 road from Chicago, Illinois, to California, the pier is just 25 minutes from LAX airport, making it a pleasant distraction if you've got a few hours to kill between connecting flights.
