When I first visited Santa Monica Pier, I felt like I was on a movie set. The pier, the sky, and the clouds reflected in the ocean and it created a Alice in Wonderland moment; had a fallen in the rabbit hole and entered another world? I wondered when I was going to run into the Mad Hatter, which was actually possible on the pier.

Unique characters surrounded me and created their own reality. The cotton candy from the pier filled the sky at sunset, illuminating the path back to the pier. Unlike Alice, I didn’t need to find my way back home; I was already there. This unbelievable world is at my doorstep.