Lots of good suggestions so far. The Grove is nice, as it has a newer shopping section as well as the old farmers market with lots of booths serving all types of food, etc. Fry's in Burbank is awesome. One of the last remaining electronics stores with all kinds of stuff. You could build a nice hotrod PC with items they have on the shelf! Venice is interesting/entertaining. Your best bet for an REI store is the one in Santa Monica, just north of Venice. New, big store, and Santa Monica Promenade is another popular outdoor shopping/cafe type area about a block from the beach. You may want to catch the sunset down there if you can. Oh, and don't forget to bring along a jacket/sweater even if its 80-90 degrees out during the day. Once the sun sets the temperature drops pretty quickly. Chinatown isn't spectacular but its next to downtown and has some good restaurants. There's also the jewelry district and lots of great 20's-40's architecture. Downtown is one of the more culture/history rich places in LA. Stick to daylight hours just to play it safe. It can get a bit shady at night, to put it mildly. Oh, and Thursdays there's a nice farmers market downtown next to the City Hall building. I think its from 10am-2pm. Thats all I can think of at the moment, have fun.