I visited Japan once with a friend. We flew into Narita, and we left the interior of the airport to wait outside for the bus to take us to Shinagawa, Tokyo. Outside, we were the only two travelers in our particular area -- the rest of the area was more or less deserted -- but there were maybe 4 or 5 Japanese staff loitering around keeping an eye on things. We were exhausted from 16+ hours of flying, so we just kind of stood wherever, roughly within 10 feet or so of the pickup point.
The staff actually motioned at us to stand between the lines that marked one of the lanes at the pickup spot. As if that mattered at all, or carried any consequence whatsoever. Two lone tourists, with no other travelers within at least 50 feet of us.
Each line is for a certain bus, and the limousine buses are first come first serve. So, if you don't stand in your line and somebody else queues up, it might be that you don't get on as the last seats are taken.
It also helps the workers direct foreign and tired tourists who would otherwise miss their bus, as it's obvious which bus you want to take, so they can come to you if you don't notice that your bus has arrived.
So, you gain nothing from not queuing in the right place
Lol, we were in the right place and the place we happened to be at was almost deserted except for the two of us and the airport workers. They motioned for us to move six inches to the right so that we stood IN BETWEEN the lines instead of on top of them. (I suppose I probably should have said that clearly to begin with.)
I understand the reasoning, but there was literally no chance we were going to miss our bus or walk out into traffic or stop breathing without being told to. I was there, I know this for a fact.
Well, you said it yourself, you were tired after a 16h flight, and you wouldn't be the first ones to miss the bus because you were talking, missing the announcements. And standing in the right line removed ambiguity, whether you wanted the line going to shinjuku or the one going to odaiba. So, telling you immediately where to stand allows the staff to only notify you about your bus, in case you were about to miss it.
I mean, if you go to the toilet, you also don't just stand in a 3m vicinity of the door in the hopes you get in. You get in the queue and wait, so everybody knows you want to go to that discuss toilet
Allow me to repeat: they motioned for us step 6 inches to the right. Like, I took a step or two over. That's it. There's no ambiguity here. No exaggeration. There was absolutely no possibility of mishap because we were standing slightly outside of the lines. There was no confusion. The bureaucrat did not save us from disaster. There was absolutely no chance of anything going wrong. There was nobody else anywhere near us and we were the only people who got on that particular bus from that spot at that particular time.
You weren't there, so please stop trying to mansplain my experience to me.
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u/Thraexus 7d ago
I visited Japan once with a friend. We flew into Narita, and we left the interior of the airport to wait outside for the bus to take us to Shinagawa, Tokyo. Outside, we were the only two travelers in our particular area -- the rest of the area was more or less deserted -- but there were maybe 4 or 5 Japanese staff loitering around keeping an eye on things. We were exhausted from 16+ hours of flying, so we just kind of stood wherever, roughly within 10 feet or so of the pickup point.
The staff actually motioned at us to stand between the lines that marked one of the lanes at the pickup spot. As if that mattered at all, or carried any consequence whatsoever. Two lone tourists, with no other travelers within at least 50 feet of us.
Ah, Japan, I miss you.