Bulls Game

Part One
About a month ago, I attended my very first NBA game. It was the Chicago Bulls verses the Indiana Pacers at the United Center in Chicago, IL.

I stepped into the stadium. Walking down between two blocks of seats, I gauged the magnitude of the stadium. I knew the facts. Dad had already told us that it held 20,000 seats. But, still, it's hard to imagine a finite space of that size until you've actually seen one. The stadium was buzzing with excitement. Soon enough, after some pregame entertainment, the Bulls ran onto the court accompanied by dramatic and exciting music. After that commotion died down a bit, Darth Vader's theme song from Star Wars came on and the Bulls' competitors, the Indiana Pacers strode out on to the court. The room grew silent and boos began to emanate from from the crowd. Then, the lights came up and the game begun.


Part Two
During the timeouts and breaks between quarters, new forms of entertainment kept emerging. First came the LovaBulls, a group of cheerleaders dressed in minimal amounts of clothing who performed dances and had frequent outfit changes. When a Bulls player had a free throw, they would start cheering and doing hand gestures. Watching them was like playing Indian Chief except for the fact that they were much less subtle in their changes of movement. Next came a giant inflatable bull flew around the stadium overhead.

However, I have to say that the most engaging form of entertainment would be the T-shirts that came parachuting down from the ceiling and rocketing into the crowd, having been shot out by 'guns' situated down by the sideline. This made the crowd go giddy with excitement. Although I failed to get one of these T-shirts, I later purchased a large red sweatshirt that read CHICAGO BULLS.

My dad may make a basketball fan out of me yet.

The Wonders of the American Supermarket

While in the US, my family always ends up spending a large amount of time in Whole Foods Market. This vacation has been a prime example. To the best of my knowledge, Whole Foods is not really that different from any other supermarket in America. However, two features not found in Japan have always impressed me:

1. When I was younger, one of my favorite things in America was loading groceries from our shopping cart onto the little conveyer belts at cash registers in supermarkets. It fascinated me that there conveyer belts in supermarkets. I never saw that in Japan.


2. This next item only came to my attention recently. You've got to admit, escalators meant specially for for shopping carts are pretty neat, aren't they?