USA Holiday, October 28 (The Hills)

Spent the morning and early afternoon in transit, not getting to the hotel until about 2pm. The hotel turns out to be in a pretty good spot (I had a tough time deciding between staying in downtown LA or Hollywood, but Hollywood was definitely the right choice) just up the street from the Hollywood & Highland intersection, where you can find all your favourite Hollywood Boulevard locations.

There was just enough time to grab some lunch, have a quick look around Hollywood Blvd and work out how the train system operates before heading off to the Clippers game.

East from Hollywood & Highland.

8 channels of NBA games!

Having stayed in five different cities during the trip, the first few hours are definitely the most interesting / scary / uncertain. The surroundings are all totally new, you have no idea where you are or what's around, you don't know how the public transport works, you don't have a map, pretty much you're on your own. What I found though that was within about a day, two at most, you can pretty much become comfortable enough in any of these cities to get around without any trouble.
Downtown LA doesn't seem as busy and vibrant as you might expect. Supposedly it used to be even worse, perhaps it is just intended for business purposes and all of the entertainment happens elsewhere, such as Hollywood. Staples Center and the Nokia Plaza (not Nakatomi Plaza) area at least provides something of interest.

We had tickets marked as VIP which actually translates to the Premier seating section, which is basically the second lowest section of seats. There's even a separate entry for the VIPs, although I didn't know this when lining up in the regular queue. The LA Clippers / Lakers team store (selling lots of Lakers stuff, even when it was a Clippers game day) had a t-shirt for every player imaginable, except the one I wanted, Marcus Camby. Even Al Thorton had a t-shirt!

The game itself between the LA Clippers and Phoenix Suns was quite enjoyable, it was a close match throughout, only for the Clippers to bungle a match tying / winning play in the final seconds of the game - it's always good if the home team wins, unless you specifically support the away team. A few celebrities were shown on the big screen during one of the timeouts, most notably Jessica Alba, but I couldn't work out where she was sitting in the crowd.

Nokia Plaza and ESPN Zone, across the street from Staples.

Our seats just above the lower level.

Banners for the LA Lakers and LA Sparks (WNBA). Nothing from the Clippers.