Last Wednesday, I cancelled all of my plans for the day to take a spontaneous day ‘trip’ (<1 hour away) with my girlfriends to Redondo Beach. On the agenda: kayaks + crabs (of the edible sort).

  

The four of us rented 2 double kayaks from Rocky Point, a company in a secluded area of R.B. (away from the touristy pier). Rentals were $35 per double kayak for 2 hours, though the guy manning the store said “take your time” as if he didn’t really care (he didn’t). There was also an option to do stand-up paddleboarding, but we decided to save that for another time. For me, a time when I wouldn’t mind possibly falling in the water. -_-

  

Though hot in L.A., the weather was PERFECT in the South Bay. As it was a weekday afternoon, we were the only ones on the water, sans a lone paddleboarder. I love that I have fellow unemployed/flexible-work-schedule friends. Yeee.

  

I don’t think we even lasted the full two hours. Man, kayaking is a work-out. Our arms were super sore after an hour or so. The website says, “An hour’s workout will burn about 400 calories, builds upper body muscles including pects and lats.” Guess I better come more often…

  

There were a bunch of seals we kayaked around. They were smelly. And very loud. They made sounds like… dying dinosaurs. Or what I would imagine dying dinosaurs to sound like. Still, pretty cute, in a weird not-objectively-cute-but-they’re-SEALS kind of way.

After kayaking, we headed over to the pier to have an early dinner at Pacific Fish Center & Restaurant. You know, that really famous Korean restaurant that serves ginormous crabs with mallets and paper plates and bibs. Okay, well if you’re Asian or have lived in a 50 mile vicinity of R.B., you know what I’m talking about. SO.RIDIC.DELICIOUS.

  

Before we had our crab, we had these steamed baby octopi. I know what half of you are thinking. SO GROSS. The other half… SO GOOD.

  

Left: A baby baby-octopus and potentially it’s mother. Or father. So tragic. Right: bottoms up! They taste a lot better than they look. Just close your eyes.

  

YUM. So much deliciousness to be had. We devoured this. And then, we walked along the pier and had churros with caramel sauce, at a place that claimed to have the WORLD’S-BEST-CHURROS. They were not the world’s best. False advertising. But they were good. AND then we had mint chocolate chip and cookies and cream gelato. Fatties for the win!

  

A perfect summer day! I love SoCal. 🙂 [[PS- My Cal hat was borrowed from Renee. Go Bruins. ;)]]