Sup friends!

Coming in town from SLC in a couple of weeks with a friend to attend an event at Orange County Fairgrounds and hang out/explore a bit. More or less just a chill trip with a buddy.

Timeline
Flying into LAX. We'll have a rental car. The OC Fairgrounds event is on Saturday, but we're there Thursday – Monday, so we've got some time to check things out.

Interests
We're both into photography (film & digital), modified cars (nicer quality JDM builds and euro stuff alike) coffee, interior design/cool spaces, music (esp. my buddy who's a vinyl hip-hop kinda guy), and really any other artsy kinda thing that's interesting and could be fun to check out.

My personal interests I'd love to find a shop for: Retro video gaming (N64, Gamecube, modded Gameboys, other vintage tech), music production (I spent an hour just playing with synths in the Roland store in Tokyo), trading card games (who's got the best big cheap selection of bulk old-school Yu-Gi-Oh cards?), and camera shops (where's the $20 functional point-and-shoot bin at?).

In general, I don't think either of us are really into nightlife/club stuff. We'll probably line up a few photoshoots with friends' cars, grab food, hit a few cool shops, that kind of thing. Down to grab a beer at night but probably not fist pumping till 3am. I could be wrong though. lol.

I did the beach as a kid, did Hollywood... don't have a huge need to hit the touristy stuff, but if any of it is considered "worth it" I'm certainly not opposed — I just know we both like the little rare haunts.

Food
Personally, I've heard LA Thai food hits different, so I'm interested in that. We both love Mexican food too, but are pretty food-adventurous across the board. Open to recs on LA must-try spots, anything unique, tasty, and not overpriced is a W. I also love pho, sushi, fried chicken, udon, a good sub, wings, and so on. Oh! And cocktails, if they're not a billion dollars.

Spots to stay? In the city vs outside? Driving to OC?
Staying in a safe spot is pretty much top of the list. I pulled up a crime map, yeah, but it's a major city and every city has its "pockets", so curious to hear what you all have to say.

Looks like central neighborhoods in general are a little more questionable, and things get a little safer as you go outward, which I suppose makes sense. I've seen some blogs mention Cheviot Hills, Pacific Palisades — anywhere else that's worth checking out? Open to both hotels and Airbnbs, but I figure hotel would just be cheaper with two dudes. I guess we will need to park the rental car, though.

As far as driving to OC Fairgrounds for that event on the weekend — I'm assuming traffic going anywhere is going to absolutely suck at any time of day, but if there's a neighborhood to stay in that ticks the boxes and makes that drive suck less, I'm all ears!

Thanks so much for your time and any recs! Cheers, thanks all. Looking forward to the trip.