by Lina McDermott and Raquel Gerard
Piers. Every beach city has one. But what makes a pier special? We visited the piers of Manhattan Beach, Hermosa Beach, and Redondo Beach, just so we could answer that question for you.
Manhattan Beach
The Manhattan Beach pier is pretty sparse. There are benches aplenty if you’re one of those types that has a good ol’ time sitting down and doing nothing. Telescopes line the sides of the pier, but they aren’t anything special either, and definitely not worth a quarter. At the end of the pier sits the Roundhouse Marine Studies Lab and Aquarium. While it is technically free to enter, they have a suggested donation of $2 per adult or $5 per family. This aquarium is pretty small, and you can go through the whole thing in about ten minutes. Being teenagers, we need to be constantly stimulated (or we’ll just go on Instagram and see how much fun everyone else is having somewhere else). However, the collection of marine animals housed in the aquarium is very nice, and (trying not to be a nerd here), pretty cool. We touched starfish! And saw sharks! Most of the aquatica, “Can be found right off the Manhattan Beach pier,” according to teenage volunteer Isaac Siegemund-Broka. The aquarium is a great place for teenagers to volunteer, Siegemund-Broka says. “Just seeing a seahorse is, for most people, such an exciting, exotic thing. So the fact that I have had the chance to feed and care for seahorses is really a remarkable experience that I feel lucky to have had.” Feeding seahorses? Now, that is enough to put away the phones.
Hermosa Beach
The Hermosa Beach pier is – there’s no way around it – boring. There are some good views, but seriously, what teenager cares about views? It’s also eighteen trillion miles long. So. Much. Walking. Okay, so it’s not actually eighteen trillion miles, it’s more like 300 meters. Still, there is honestly nothing else to do besides walk. Or take your grandma. Or go fishing. Otherwise, we would not recommend a trip here.
Redondo Beach
The Redondo Beach pier is interesting, to say the least. Well, having gone to the two other piers before this we were not quite expecting this grand complex.
This thing is huge! At first we just kind of walked around because we were sort of in shock. We, like our friends (seriously, all our friends), had not been to this pier before. So we assumed the role of the tourist and explored the whole pier. We stopped to see a show being put on by street performers, which was special, in its own funky way (By funky we mean weird. Really weird. The show was just a guy doing flips over volunteers and spending most of the time making racial jokes). Not being huge fans of fish, or more, the smell of it, we did not spend much time idling by the various fish markets and restaurants spread throughout the pier. Nothing to worry about food-wise though, there are plenty of places to eat. A lot of fried food, but that’s pretty typical for an amusement complex. There is a place on the pier where you can rent kayaks, paddle boards, and pedal boats (get in your leg workout while having fun!), which looks like a cool way to spend some time. However, the most fun part about this whole experience had to be the Redondo Fun Factory. It’s an arcade jam-packed with games and things to do, even a Tilt-a-Whirl Ride! They have all of the arcade games like skee ball, Pac-man, and Galaga, and even some live carnival games such as Roll a Ball (a game in which the objective is to make your horse reach the finish line the fastest by rolling balls into certain holes). While the prizes are kind of sad, we still had a good time, and our money went a long way, we did get enough tickets to get an inflatable bat! Most games only cost a quarter, and we had a lot of fun. The whole experience that the pier complex provides is a good one, and whether a tourist or not, we think you should definitely go for a day.
So, after you visit a pier, don’t forget to email us at whatever@easyreadernews.com with any ideas you have for future columns!
