Vending Machines

I know what vending machines are right?  We have them in Australia, so what, big deal...  Well, the deal is this: in Japan they are EVERYWHERE!!!  In this country you'll drive past a vending machine every 500-metres, you'll see them in every shopping complex and most apartment buildings have one downstairs.  And, not happy happy standing alone, most vending machines huddle together to form a bank of vending machines - ensuring that you're able to purchase just about any drink your heart could desire at any time of the day or night!  This is particularly handy during summer when it's amazingly hot and humid or at night-time when you're halfway through a bottle of scotch and run out of Coke.

Drinks usually range from 100yen (approx 1.25AUD) for a standard bottle of water to 150yen (2AUD) for 700ml Coca-Cola or Aquarius Sports Drink.  You can also buy Japanese tea in a bottle, milk tea in a can, many different types of coffee in a can, grape-flavoured Fanta, naturally flavoured waters, juices and Solo etc.

But it's not just cold beverages that you can get from vending machines in Japan...  I personally have seen machines that will give you hot cans of tea or coffee, machines that dispense ice-creams, vending machines that sell packets of rice, egg vending machines (where you can buy a 10-pack, or standard Japanese sized, carton of eggs), cup noodle machines, cigarette machines and even alcohol (sake, beer etc) vending machines!

This is a typical drink vending machine, at a temple in Kochi prefecture.

This vending machine is selling batteries, disposable cameras and other small electronic goods.

How I'll survive without them when I get back to Australia, I don't know.