Every Sunday at 7.30am I meet my friend at our local station and go
for an Exploration Jog. It's a great way to discover new parts of the
city (Meguro ward, Tokyo), and also helps get us in shape for next
year's Tokyo Marathon.
This morning, whilst jogging down the Meguro River, we came across the
longest queue I've ever seen! It went on forever, starting just
outside a sports ground, winding along the river for a good 500m, then
across a bridge and all the way back down the other side!
Why were they queuing? The sign in the photo gives you a clue - it's a
fish festival! The Sanma Matsuri is held every year in Naka Meguro,
and basically involves hundreds of people cooking fish, and giving it
away for free to the thousands of people in the queue!
I wonder how long the people at the front of the queue had been there
for? Had they camped overnight? Was it really worth the wait for a
couple of free fish?
There's a joke that says that in Japan if people see a queue, they'll
join the back without even know what the queue is for! I think it's
maybe half-true.
Is queuing like this common in other countries? What's the longest
you've ever queued for, and was it worth the wait?
(the sign says "Sanma matsuri - Saikoubi", meaning 'end of the line')
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alunmi student
hahaha joining a queue for no reason >_> nice one
Mad scientist
I have encountered a few times where a queue ends and then 2 or 3 people think they are the end of the queue and queues starts to form behind each of them. That should teach people to stand in a proper queue ^^
As for just joining one for unknown reasons.... well if you go to an interesting place (say Akihabara) and a whole lot of people wants to go to the same place because there is something special and really interesting, but you don't know what it is (the crowd blocks view), would you queue up to get there and find out what it is? There is no way that you will find out what it is besides standing in queue.
university film student | ecchikid | the Archivist
http://www.vimeo.com/longhim
Indeed. Throw in the Asian (or heck, *human*) liking of free stuff and you get people who line up first and ask questions later. ^^ I'd do it. Except that I usually join the cue, and immediately ask what it's for before deciding whether to stay.
Student, Amateur musician
http://hummerbob1.wordpress.com/
Queues can be pretty common around here, they seem to go by quick though (maybe you get used to them after a while). I can't quite remember the longest amount of time I have queued for... I do remember waiting over 3 hours to get a table at a restaurant (it wasn't an official 'queue' though).
http://otakuposts.blogspot.com/
people normally wait for around one hour to get a train ticket here. its not that the attendants are slow, the lines are quite big. longest i queued was for about half an hour for a train pass.
Mad scientist
The slowest moving queue for a train ticket that I know of happened a few days ago. People queued up and nothing happened and some people got loud and started yelling that something should happen or they would miss their trains. After several minutes some guy walks in the front door, goes to the ticket selling place and starts to sell tickets in the usual slow fashion.
I don't get the railroad here. They are so poor in selling tickets that people usually get upset with their inefficiency. It was once questioned if I could buy a ticket or not because the computer broke. It could only type in upper case. Another time they gave me a ticket to a non-existing train (it was only weekends or something, at least not the day I had the ticket for). The people selling the tickets don't know the line (it's like 20 stations) and looks up everything. It can take them several minutes to figure out how to look up a train where you tell them the number of the train (like train no. RU527 departing from station at xx.xx) and you have to wait in order to actually get a ticket for that train. It's a wonder why the railroad haven't gone bankrupt yet because it fails to get people to pay for tickets. Well it gets funds from the state, but still...
The best ticket they sold so far (which I know of) is somebody who wanted to go from A to B in a wheelchair. In fact it was two wheelchairs and they ended up paying like 1/4 of the price for one person for both (first mistake). Then they got tickets for a specific train and wheelchairs goes into the compartment with a low floor and low doors. Otherwise you have to carry the wheelchair up some stairs. Well... the train was scheduled not to have low floor (basically because there is too few low floor carriages to have one on each train). This meant the train in question were unable to get them inside. The crew on the scene knew this was a horrible situation and ended up paying for a handicap taxi all the way to the destination. While it's good that they didn't screw over the passengers in this case, it's really bad that the sale of tickets is so poor >_<
Lots of queueing in New York City for popular restaurants and clubs. Can get very frustrating sometimes, but I've never seen anything like this-- and for fish even! Must be really good fish then. P:
Minor
I don't believe theres many queues in my city. Wasn't there but when the first Apple Store opened today in our city there must have been a long queue
Mad scientist
When the Applestore near me opened they had a special offer. You could get an iMac, Mac Mini, iPod or similar for like 1/3 of the price. They had a number of each (5 iMacs and such) and people queued up starting the day before. The police patrolled all night to ensure that everybody in that crowd behaved nicely and 10 minutes before the store opened they had to take away 4 people who just arrived and tried to fight their way to be first in queue.
Apart from that queues aren't that common here. Naturally there are queues in supermarkets and stuff, but they are usually less than 10 people. There have to be a special event to form long queues and I don't think a fish festival would be enough to do it ^^
Full-time geek/Part-time student/Part-time musician
http://randomgeekness.livejournal.com/
I would have entered in the line LOL it's fish!!.
To Aru Tenki Rain
http://kyourin7.blogspot.com/
queues TwT reality is harsher than it seems XD
Sentai Ranger
http://morganlamia.blogspot.com/
I think we're known as the nation of queuers here XD The longest queue I've ever been in? I think it was about 3 hours to get in a convention ^^;;
Trendspotter Busybody Mercenaries
http://spectreoutreach.blogspot.com
Taking the feeder bus and LRT daily to work. It really -.- experiences
Lazy Gamer at home
http://www.espadakiller.wordpress.com
Yeah i think it's kinda true where in Japan people see a queue they will just join the back without knowing what is it for...heard it many many times :P
Mad scientist
I still remember the longest queue I have ever seen. It was possible to get onboard a MAERSK container ship (the largest at that time) and half the city showed up. They put up barriers to make the queue go in S shape and it still filled the docks. It was like 2 km or something (of people!). Even though they hurried as much as they could to get people though they still had way more than half of the people stuck in the queue when they had to stop. I think they carried on boarding people until a few hours after the scheduled stop and then they had to stop because the ship should go somewhere else to get containers.
Personally I gave up once I saw the queue. I would give the estimate that with the movement speed it had and the length I guess I wouldn't arrive before midnight or something, way past closing time. I went to see the ship from the outside though. It was quite interesting to see such a giant for real ^^
Student Programmer
http://www.animetoshokan.org
longest queue i've been in was the queue to get in to Comiket 76, got there at 9am, and the walk to the back of the queue just took forever, i was like T-T;;, and when i finally got in the one thing i wanted was already sold out, so i just went on a spending spree and bought lots of Touhou stuff XD
Student
I hate Ques that's one thing I wont enjoy when I go to Japan If I encounter a large Que for something.
Student, part-time worker
OMG...a fishing festival? I know someone who would be very excited about that.