Chaos as Tokyo Station celebrates centenary

All J-retirees with loads and loads of free time to spare in line-ups...

Seriously, the line-ups here really get me. It can be for something as banal, inane, or common as a new type of donut, and so long as people think/get told "it's popular", they'll line up for HOURS to get one.

Uh-huh....tents and coolers for three days prior to Black Friday, we'll just pretend that doesn't happen...fist fights over toys...Walmart workers trampled...nope! Doesn't happen in MY country. Seriously people...

Oh, speculation over cards. These traders must have learned from the game from the stock-market speculation unleashed by Abenomics.

The station had advertised that it would be selling 15,000 commemorative Suica IC cards to mark the centenary. However, nearly 10,000 people showed up to buy the limited-edition cards by 10 a.m., causing chaos at the station,

Good planning. You would have thought in 100 years they could have figured out the basics of crowd control.

only in Japan XD as an Italian, I am still utterly fascinated with the love of queueing (for some limited edition of something, but not only) in this country.

Just saw one go for 10 million yen at auction.

While I doubt that one was legitimate, there are many going for around 40 to 50,000 yen.

At least there were no riots like when the Chinese couldn't buy iPhones due to lack of stock. In this case, there is more to be angry about as there was still stock left.

I didn't know whether the laugh or cry watching the news, wtf! Another line up LOL!

Himajin, while others around the world will line up for stuff Japan takes the cake for lining up for insipid stupid reasons, HELL many will line simply because they SEE other lining up.

Sorry while JR blew it as they should have known this kind of lunacy would ensue, I have to laugh at all the fools lining up for this non-sense!

"Good planning. You would have thought in 100 years they could have figured out the basics of crowd control."

If some of the recent articles about crowds at Shibuya, for instance, are any indication, the Tokyo police don't seem to have a clue about anticipating large crowds or crowd control.

I sure don't understand the obsession with limited edition items, especially something as mundane as a Suica card. Folks, it is just a commodity item and 10,0000 of them does not mean it is even close to rare.

I mean even today's newspaper is a limited edition if you thing about it.

They should have made at least 100,000 of these Edition Cards to ease the panic. For goodness sake everyone knows the Japanese are obsessed with their trains especially when these special events occur. On the news, I see people buying at least 3 at a time. In fact, they look pretty cool, and I wouldn't mind having one myself. I am curious to know how they plan to sell the other 7000 remaining cards?

Funny, these cards are now selling for upwards of 50,000 yen...

The sad thing in Japan is they do this for almost anything. As to why JR didn't think or plan in advance and have calculated and thought out that living in the Tokyo area, there just might be a chance that a few hundred or thousands of people might show up, I mean, there is that possibility. It's always better to have too many tickets than far less and get yourself in a pickle. By the way, what are the benefits of being able to go to the 100th anniversary? Bragging rights?

People were allowed to buy up to three.

Did they enforce this? It sounded as if some people were buying hundreds of them and that is what caused them to sell out so fast.