(Home Port: St. Louis, MO USA)
SLS Pool: We hit the SLS rooftop pool on Tuesday morning to find another extravagantly decorated pool are with a four to six food swimming pool and a two food deep lounging pool with chairs. Cocktails are a must apparently and we secured a sweet bungalow to eat a light lunch in the shade of a UV 10 day in downtown Beverly Hills. Service was great as were lunch and drinks. This place would be "off the chain" on a weekend or nice weather evening. The pool competes with the world famous Mondrian pool in LA and the Delano or Shore Club in Miami, albeit smaller and more, well, "LA."
The Getty Museum: After lunch we headed to the J.P. Getty museum, which I've heard of for many years and amazingly we never visited while living in Southern Cali. Most of our LA trips were for work, concerts or sporting events, so museums never made the cut. The Getty is astounding. A virtual campus of fine art from many periods with six buildings and a series of sculpture gardens. The museum has the feel of a museum complex more like the Louvre or Smithsonian than just a "museum." It looks like it could accommodate ten thousand people on a busy day. Most impressive were the huge Impressionist collections of Monet, Degas and Renoir... plus van Gogh's Irises. Antiquities, ancient sculptures, Rococo furnishings, French Medieval tapestries and ancient visual translations of the bible were all highlights. You need a day, not a few hours to enjoy the Getty. We will return sometime for a more extensive tour.
Jose Andres: This newer Spanish chef is making a huge name for himself among foodies with his Bazaar Restaurant at the SLS , Saam tasting room and Tres restaurant. He's expanding all over, including South Beach Miami this year. Our dinner at Bazaar was truly amazing. To my foodie friends I shall make a stunning comparison... "Bazaar can compete with Osteria Mozza for complexity of flavors and dishes." To my non-foodie friends this just sounds like pretentious nonsense, so I shall move on.
After dinner we headed to LAX for our 11 hour flight to Nadi Fiji aboard Air Pacific. The airline uses older 747-400s which had us worried after reading some reviews, but we got business class on AP vs. coach on Quantas for the same price. A good decision given the comfortable reclining seats. The flight was smooth, although food and service were far behind a business-class on American Airlines international flight. That said, it was a great flight and great deal.
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