sore muscles

after a hearty lunch of dimsum at our favorite dimsum restaurant in chinatown, my friends and i decided to drive to the beach. venice beach to be specific. not santa monica, not huntington, not redondo, not manhattan, not newport. venice beach.

we were in two cars and p, my companion and i, had a little detour: gas and carwash. then we went on our merry way. after about a twenty-minute drive, we reached venice: the city, a few blocks away from the beach and the boardwalk.

we were on the phone most of the time, checking each other's locations. since it was hard looking for a parking spot, we decided to just see each other on the beach. and did i mention it was hard looking for parking? we headed to the paid parking area and forked out six bucks. at least it was a few steps away from the beach itself.

we started strolling and enjoying the sun, the sand and the view. yeah, baby. then the other party made a call, asking us where we were. they were still a few blocks away from the beach because they parked along the street. we decided to meet each other in front of the blue life-saver station (just like in baywatch and no, i don't know what they are called) number 26 because they informed us that they were on 21 and we were on 28.

you'd think we'd reach number 26 faster than they would. wrong. we were halfway between 27 and 26 when they called and told us that they were already there. we rushed as fast as we could to reach 26 and when we arrived, they were nowhere to be found. we asked each other to describe the 'environment'. when my friend started describing his environment, i had a strange feeing that he was describing an entirely different place.

and he was.

we found out later that yes, we were both on venice beach. on opposite ends of the beach. we decided to rent bikes at our end to go and see them. it was fun biking along the bike lane, with the breeze of the ocean gently touching us. hehehe. when we reached them, they probably got envious that we were enjoying our little bike ride so they decided to rent bikes themselves.

we then went back to our side of the beach (the better side, i dare say) and beyond, which made us reach santa monica beach and this our three friends did not want to let go. they said we were on santa monica, not venice. but we know where we were, and it was definitely not santa monica. the pier was about as far as the "bridge-looking thing" that they had on their side from we were originally located. that pier was santa monica, and we were not there.

anyway, we had a good laugh about it afterwards. fun, tiring day. something that was capped by a hearty dinner of lomo saltado at our favorite peruvian restaurant: mario's.