Sunset and sunrise metering

I have a 5D2 and a 24-105L lens. How do you meter and set white balance at these times of day with very colored and low light?

How do you avoid pointing the camera at the sun at these times? Should you use the liveview rather than looking through the viewfinder to protect your eyes? Any other tips?

Thanks.

I usually use Av mode and let the camera set the shutter speed. I use grad filters to balance the sky and foreground, and bracket exposures (+/- 1) just in case I need to do some blending. I shoot RAW and set white balance during post, but often I leave it as is.

I avoid shooting directly into the sun until it gets very close to the horizon, mainly because I get horrendous lens flare when the sun's too bright. Using Live View is quite a good way to compose your shot regardless of the sun, but yes it would be better to do that than look directly into it!

I think the most important thing for sunrises/sunsets are grad filters (or HDR) to capture the entire dynamic range. Sometimes it's okay to have the foreground silhouetted but more often than not I prefer to have the foreground correctly exposed.
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Meter the sky with the sun out of the frame and then set the exposure manually. Then recompose anyway you want. Once you have a starting point for exposure you can make adjustments from there.