Time flies, tomorrow will already be one week since the first game of NBA All-Stars in the new Smart-Araneta Coliseum here in the Philippines. Me and my younger brother did not just had fun watching the NBA game, but the total experience was really something to be remembered. Thanks to all those scalper out there.

What I meant about experience..it was not just the game per se, but the whole process of getting in to the game.

Because of scalpers marking up 300-400% on the tickets, it took us one week of ticket hunting before we finally gave up and accepted to ourselves that we will be watching the NBA vs PBA/Smart-Gilas at home. It was really disappointing to know that I can’t get to see Derrick Rose and Kevin Durant play just because of some *ahem* *gree-dy* *ahem* scalpers. – Well it is just pure business at the end of the day, nothing personal.

Thankfully, on the morning of game day, my younger brother saw a post from Araneta Coliseum’s Facebook account that they are going to sell tickets starting 5pm until 6pm. Bro, asked “Are going? You know that there would be a lot of people lining up.” He knows I hate lining up. I replied, “Errr…”

And we were there by 3pm.

I remembered the quote: “You miss 100% of the shots you did not take.”

As expected, the line is already long as some people were already there as early as 12pm. It was raining hard. The traffic was heavy. It was a leap of faith for all of us.

Even for this matter, I prayed..hard. I told Him that I know He won’t open a chance like this if He doesn’t have any plan for us to watch the game. So we kept the faith.

While we were waiting in line, a lot of trials has happened. We grew hungry, thirsty, wanting to go to the toilet..but all these things we can easily manage. What really troubled us was the question: “Are we getting in?” In short, Doubts. We are already doubting if whether we can go in or not. Should we stay on the line, or should we just go home? Are there enough tickets for us?

We saw people one by one are falling out of line saying, “Tsk, I’m going home. With this line, there’s no chance.” Some called their probing contacts “What? No more tickets?” Then another one fall out of line, and another one, and another one. Our doubts grew stronger making us want to back out as well.

But as our doubts are pulling us away from the game, we again prayed and whispered to ourselves: “Walk by Faith, not by Sight. We are going to watch the game.”

As the ticket booths opened, and line starts to move, we realized that we are just about on the 300th head! And security guards told us that there would be about 1000 tickets for sale. We rejoiced and our confidence shoots up.

But as we got closer to the ticket booth, another challenge occurred. The line got messed up, and security decided to cut our line then connect it at the back – like going back from start. Everyone on our line got mad, we also got furious about it. Securities are already using force to put their patrons at the starting line. Thank God again, in our case, we talked our way in to the ticket booth.

With that happened, from 300th head, I think we are already on the 800th head before we got our tickets. Upper box A was already sold out when we reached the booth, so we got Upper box B tickets!

That was Day 1.

And we watched again on Day 2. This time the line was very organized and guess what, we got Upper box A tickets!

If there would be a Day 3, I’m pretty sure I’ll be there lining up again! For basketball/NBA fans, it’s all worth it.

It is very comforting to know that Lord still guides us even through petty things. To God be the Glory!

VIEW COMPARISON:

Upper box B:

Upper box A: