Comments on: Sometimes Things Move Slowly in Japan

By: Dave and Deb

Dave and Deb — Mon, 18 May 2009 01:27:51 +0000

I heard that there is a cupcake shop in New York where you wait in line for 45 minutes for a very mediocre cupcake. What the human race will do for our sweets!

By: Chris (i-cjw.com)

Chris (i-cjw.com) — Sat, 25 Apr 2009 10:16:46 +0000

Ah, nothing screams “success” in Japan like a long line reaching halfway around the block. I remember a colleague of mine buying a book called “Dai-gyoretsu ga dekiru ramen-ya 100 ten” (100 ramen stores with enormous lines), the premise being that they were so good that people would queue for hours to get in. I used it to work out which ones to absolutely avoid…

By: Janne

Janne — Sat, 25 Apr 2009 07:38:32 +0000

Blind as a bat, that’s what I am – completely missed the links at the bottom. Never mind my ps. Me, I don’t mind standing in line, as long as there’s enough interesting people in the line to watch while I wait. And more often than not there is, here.

By: Shane Sakata

Shane Sakata — Sat, 25 Apr 2009 00:40:31 +0000

Janne – Thanks for stopping by to comment. The lines are well organized here, that is one thing that can be said with certainty. Personally, a line is a bit of a turn off for me but I will make the odd exception.

FYI, there is a link back to your photo in the image credits at the bottom of the article. It’s linked to the name of the image, “platform”, and goes straight to the shot on Flickr so others can enjoy it and the others in your collection as I did. I make it a practice to do this in all my posts where I use creative commons licensed images.

By: Janne

Janne — Sat, 25 Apr 2009 00:32:16 +0000

Well, you may often need to wait, but at least the wait is very efficiently organized

The Krispy Kreme queue and similar ones (there’s a takoyaki stand at Doutonbori in Osaka that _always_ has a long line, despite tasting no better than the other ones) is really about the line itself. It’s a way, I think, for a guy on a date to show how much he will do for her by enduring a long, long line for something she wants. If there wasn’t a line, nobody would go there, pretty much.

By the way, cool that you found use for my subway platform shot above! That’s why I like Creative Commons-licensing; the pictures pop up in all kinds of places they never would have otherwise. Could you add my name or (better) have the image link back to its Flickr page, like the license asks?

By: Nick Ramsay

Nick Ramsay — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 15:18:59 +0000

I saw recently a Monsters Inc. attraction opened at Tokyo Disneyland and the waiting time was… wait for it… 320 minutes!

By: James

James — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 12:26:59 +0000

Exactly why I stopped attending stupid festivals like Gion Matsuri – the sheer mass of people visiting Kyoto for that one – not so impressive- event is just overwhelming and frankly quite gross. I felt quite sick having to be moved along with the masses.

Then again, we dont get much queuing here in kyoto, for trains or otherwise.

I queued up on the launch day of the Wii when I was living in Yokkaichi. For about 15 minutes. Everyone is so poor there anyway that only a few of the inhabitants could afford a Wii… I sold it a month later as I found out I cant stand puzzle solving games like Zelda, which was pretty much the only in depth gamne available for the Wii at that time. ….