When I arrived in Japan in the summer of 1985 I was not prepared for the humidity. For the first time in my life, sweat dripped from my nose like hockey players you see on TV. I was completely soaked in sweat all day, constantly dehydrated and thirsty. Luckily for me, Japan is the land of vending machines and I could get a nice cold drink everywhere. Even at the top of Mt.Fuji!! I tried every single kind of drink there was and must have spent half of my money that summer on canned drinks. These days I hardly buy anything from a vending machine because I mostly just drink water and tea and coffee. I take vending machines for granted now, but it really is quite amazing how many vending machines there are in this country. And all of them are kept incredible clean and free from vandalism. Except this one. If you come to Japan, make sure you try some of the weird drinks from any of the vending machines you encounter. And if you’re a smoker, try all the cigarettes too. When my sister, a smoker, came to visit me years ago, she put a couple thousand yen into a cigarette machine, bought one of every kind of Japanese cigarette and smoked them all over her stay here. I think she stopped after smoking some short hopes
Mmmh… vending machines. I remember when I visited Japan for the first time I was crazy about some sort of sparkling applejuice fruit drink - that was 8 years ago. Unfortunately by that time I didn’t care to remember the name and a year later I found out they must have replaced it with an applejuice of much sweeter, somehow artificial taste. I even tried the same vending machine (or at least one at the very same spot ;).
These days, I’ll rather go for water or ice tea/coffee during Japan’s hot summer.
This is one thing I always rave about to friends is the proliferation of vending machines EVERYWHERE. When I had my retail store, I called Coca-Cola and asked about having a vending machine installed out front, they informed me they had to send out an employee to check the viability of the location. Mind you, my store was on the busiest side street in the city, 1 door from the busiest…they were unsure if it was a good location.
Flash forward to my first trip to Japan. I found a Coke machine IN AN ALLEY. I had to laugh.
I also think it has to do with the coin currency in Japan. I’ve had as much as 7000 yen in my pocket some times, and it wasn’t all in 500 yen coins. In the USA, we’ve never had a successful coin that was abundant over $.25, so buying a 250 yen pack of cigarettes isn’t going to be as easy here.
Man I miss the vending machines.
I arrived in Japan in winter, and was really impressed that i could get warm cans from vending machines. warm green tea, warm coffee, great for getting warm at Meiji Jinggu!