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Santa Anita Park (Map; 626-574-7223; www.santaanita.com; 285 W Huntington Dr, Arcadia; general/club house/turf club admission $5/8.50/20, child under 17 free if accompanied by adult; ) Horse-racing enthusiasts consider Seabiscuit’s former haunt a top track in America, with seasons from Christmas to mid-April and late September to early November. Click here for historical background.

Hollywood Park (Map; 310-419-1500; www.hollywoodpark.com; 1050 S Prairie Ave, Inglewood; general/clubhouse/turf club admission $7/10/20; ) About 3 miles east of LAX, this track gets active from late April to mid-July and early November to Christmas.

ICE HOCKEY

The Los Angeles Kings (tickets 213-742-7340; www.lakings.com; tickets $25-115) play in the National Hockey League (NHL) whose regular season runs from October to April, followed by the play-offs. Despite an enthusiastic fan base, the team has never won the Stanley Cup in more than three decades of existence. Home games are played at the Staples Center (Click here).

SOCCER

The arrival of David Beckham in 2007 has trained the spotlight firmly on the Los Angeles Galaxy (www.lagalaxy.com) soccer team and, if the early games were any indication, has increased the popularity of the sport beyond its traditional Latino audiences. Men cheer whenever the British hunk kicks the ball, women when he takes off his shirt.

In 2005, the Galaxy was joined by a second Major League Soccer franchise, the Club Deportivo Chivas USA (http://chivas.usa.mlsnet.com/MLS/cdc). Local derbies usually sell out but otherwise home-game tickets at the Home Depot Center (Map; 18400 Avalon Blvd; ), in the southern LA suburb of Carson (take the Avalon exit off I-405), should be available on game day. The season runs April to October.

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SHOPPING

LA is a great place to shop, and we’re not just talking malls and chains. The city’s zest for life, envelope-pushing energy and entrepreneurial spirit also generate a cosmopolitan cocktail of indie boutiques. They’re fun to nose around and are packed with clothes and stuff you won’t find on the high street back home. For many Angelenos shopping is one of life’s great pleasures, a benign diversion that’s as much about visual and mental stimulus as it is about actually buying stuff. Whether you’re a penny-pincher or a power-shopper, you’ll find plenty of opportunities to drop some cash in the city’s mosaic of neighborhoods. For bookstores, Click here.

Art

When you start hearing more buzz about gallery hopping in Culver City than club hopping on Hollywood Blvd, it’s enough to make you put down your Godiva chocolate razzmatini. But it’s true, LA’s art scene is hot on the lips of hipsters and the hoi polloi. Long described as ‘burgeoning,’ it seems LA’s artists and galleries have now fully arrived. For the latest, check www.artscenecal.com and www.calendarlive.com/galleriesandmuseums. For commentary and links see http://art.blogging.la.

DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES

Still raw and experimental, Downtown has of late emerged as the most vibrant place for bleeding-edge art. Galleries cluster along Chung King Rd in Chinatown, in the Brewery Art Complex (Map; 323-342-0717; www.breweryart.org; 2100 N Main St; ), a large artist colony in a former brewery, and especially so on Gallery Row (Map; www.galleryrow.com; Spring & Main Sts btwn 2nd & 8th). The last is at its liveliest during the Downtown Art Walk on the second Thursday of the month when galleries stay open until at least 9pm. The entire Brewery also turns into an art party, but only on two weekends a year, usually in spring and fall; check the website.

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SHOPPING BY NEIGHBORHOOD

Hollywood

Despite gentrification, Hollywood Blvd is still good for picking up Oscar fridge magnets and ‘I Love LA’ T-shirts, while Amoeba on Sunset Blvd is one of the world’s best music stores. Los Feliz’s Vermont Ave and Silver Lake’s Sunset Junction are shopping meccas for individualists. From innovative local fashions to wacky gifts, gourmet cheese to lowbrow art, you’ll be in hipster heaven without a Gap