Funny reading this whilst I sit in Tokyo/Hanada Airport. Wish there was a vending machine here. I just spent $25 on a burger and a beer.
I wonder if they can get oranges?
There ya go. After all, these are the people who computerized the flush toilet / bidet. If that obsession makes it possible for them to have conveniences without the necessity of a huge underclass (generally resentful, crime-ridden and/or foreign and non-assimilating), well, good for them.
From 1977 - 2007 I lived in Japan 17 years. Vending machines were really convenient. In Yokohama I asked a Japanese cop once if they had problems with underage kids using the beer, whiskey and sake vending machines. His reply was “no, because it’s illegal”, boy was he naive. I’ve spent a lot of time in the PI, Thailand and Korea too. None of them had the proliferation of vending machines like Japan. The last time I was in Japan was 2012. My 3 favorite vending machine drinks from 1977 were hard to find by then, Georgia Coffee (it used to be just about the only canned coffee you could find besides UCC), Fujiya mixed fruit nectar and Hi C green apple drink. I live in Jersey now, lucky for me there is a Mitsuwa nearby! http://www.mitsuwa.com/locations/edgewater/
I still have my empty can of Sapporo beer that I bought from a vending machine in Tokyo in 1987. I’ll never forget the feeling to be allowed to go up on the street and just buy a can of beer like that. Could never happen in America.
I’m currently living on Okinawa. Vending machines everywhere, even in randomness middle of of nowhere places
I was near Osaka about 1 months for work. For me, the main reason there are so much vending machine is the absence of theft and vandalism.
We visited the countryside, people there have their own version of automatic vending machine: there are racks alongside the road, the grower put his fresh vegetables in compartiments with price on a label. Buyers come, take the good and put the money in a box. Deal done.
Our washing machine conked out after 18 years of honorable service and we are now going back to laundromats until we decide on a new one.
One vending machine that Japan has never heard of is the “change machine”. You can’t just slip in a 1000 yen note and get ten 100 yen coins back.
Instead, you have to go outside to the vending machines, that are always there, slip in a 1000 yen note (and two 10 yen coins) buy a 120 yen canned coffee or other drink, collect your nine 100 yen coins, and go back inside to wash your clothes.
Everyone considers this a legitimate practice. After all, nobody is stopping you from planning ahead and bringing the proper number of 100 yen coins to do your wash.
However, woe be it to the laundromat that tries to get greedy and set their machine to give back a 500 yen coin and four 100 yen coins! That will SERIOUSLY piss people off, and they will shun that place totally.
9. No embarrassment when buying used panties.