Ryukyu Kings Game!

Follow my blog with BloglovinHappy Easter! I hope everyone had a wonderful weekend. Mine was great and a little bittersweet all at the same time. Mark and I got up early, went to church and were able to spend the afternoon together. Then, he had to leave for a few weeks on business (the bittersweet part). I was happily distracted by attending the Ryukyu Kings game against Saitama with my friend Cristina and her husband.

I got there at 4:15 for a 6 pm game and it was pretty crazy already. I did manage to get excellent parking! From what I hear, I was parked in the VIP section, naturally... aka I can't read any signs so I just found an open spot and went with it.

I love how you can see the court through the disco ball!

Once I was inside, I noticed the popcorn, chili dogs and beer. Thinking, "Okay, so far pretty normal." Then, I turned a corner to find taco rice, soba noodles, and sushi for sale. "Ahhh, that's more of what I was expecting!"

The "beer girl" with a little keg backpack on.

The gym was small and the seats are first come, first serve in two levels. Our seats were in level two.
I started looking for seats as soon as I could. However, everyone puts purses, papers, bottles.... anything... to reserve seats for friends and family. That made for a pretty interesting search and rescue mission for the three seats that we needed. Once I snagged the seats it was fun from there!

I had to post this photo even though it's a block from the other team. His elbow is at the rim!

The crowd is awesome! The atmosphere is amazing; constant cheering and whistling. They literally have a guy that comes over the loud speaker every time the Kings go on defense to start the "D-Fence" cheer. Then, the reaction to every block and dunk was priceless. The entire crowd would, literally, "owwwww!" The game was close the whole time, too, which always makes it a bit more exciting.

For me, I could tell what they were calling (basketball is basketball... even if it's in Japanese) but I couldn't keep track of foul trouble and stuff like that. For example, the Kings didn't play one of their best players and I had to assume it was because he was in foul trouble. Then, he comes in and only had 1! I also noticed a lot of mismatches, mostly in the post. There were lots of little guys guarding big guys, but they really held there own!

Loose ball!

The Kings won and extended their lead in the Basketball Japan League's Western Conference!! It was fun and I really want to take Mark to a game! The problem is, he'll still be gone for the last regular season home games of the season. Dang it! Since they're doing so well I'm hoping to catch a tournament game. I'm sure we'll eventually catch another game, regardless, and I'm already looking forward to it.