One thing you can always count on is that the moment you set foot on Japanese soil, vending machines will be waiting to greet you, and the beverage of your dreams is but a few coins away.
The mix of hot and cold offerings waxes and wanes with the seasons, along with the seasonal fruit flavors, but you can always get a dizzying array of coffee, tea, and, uh, hot red beans.
There are always a few questionable flavors you’d never see back home…
…and capsule toy vending machines are everywhere, offering fake severed fingers, fox weddings, and a whole wardrobe of PET bottle undies to keep things fashionable.
But soft drinks, shots of caffeine, and compulsively collectible tiny toys are not the only things sold in Japanese vending machines, by far!
For example, what if you’re out and about and have a sudden, burning need for incense? Senkō vending machine to the rescue!
Or what if your loved ones have been dragging you in and out of shops all afternoon and incense isn’t going to begin to cut it when it comes to providing a little meditative break? You may think you’ve died and gone to heaven when you spot this brewski self-serve sitting right next to the other beverage options in Asakusa…
but you know you’ve reached Nirvana when you stumble across one in the backstreets of Ningyō-chō that sells jumbo-size sake bottles and shō-chū in two-liter milk cartons. Party on, Dolltown!
And speaking of party-size items, what about these vending machines that dispense monster 10-kilogram (22 pound) bags in the brand of your choice?
And rice is just the beginning of the taste treats they can deliver. This one forks over yakitori-in-a-can and tinned ramen to truly desperate late-night gamers…
but vending machine technology is ever-evolving, and now you can even get bananas on demand, which are not only kept at perfect ripeness, but are dispensed in a way that doesn’t them into one long, brown bruise.
Sandwiches on the go are in lots of countries outside Japan, but it takes a certain amount of know-how to deliver the kind made with fried pork cutlets that aren’t a major cut below what’s on offer from the convenience store that is certainly only minutes away.
Or how about some Chinese take-out, hold the delivery man? I was surprised and delighted by this one, sitting all by its lonesome at the Azabu Juban subway station.
The dumplings do require a little reheating when you get home, of course, but if you’re feeling even more adventurous, this beef-o-matic would be delighted to provide for all your Korean BBQ needs.
And instant gratification isn’t the only thing satisfied by Japanese vending machines—the horror of getting to the train station after all the shops selling local souvenirs are closed is real. If you happen to be pressing your nose against the glass in Tama, though, you’re in luck. This vending machine dispenses the signature carbs-with-carbs-on-top specialities the town is known for, saving your tardy butt from disappointing everyone who’s expecting fried tofu stuffed with soba noodles or golf balls of red bean paste wrapped in sticky rice.
But what if you’re so travel-challenged you don’t just arrive past closing time, you didn’t realize the local trains won’t get you where you need to go?
Despair not! This one dispenses bus, plane and bullet train tickets.
And if you’re on a budget, this one turns a favorite salaryman hack into a piece of cake by sparing you a visit to the scalper shop. It spits out the cut-rate bullet train tickets that train company employees receive in bulk as part of their compensation (and are not supposed to be resold, even though it’s an open secret that everyone does). If your departure point and destination match the ones available that day, you just hit the jackpot!
Speaking of luck, you no longer have to stand in line at the shrine shop window or search out Yanaka’s animatronic shrine maiden to get your fortune told either—check out these o-mikuji machines at Narita Fudō-san just waiting to advise you on your future love life, financial success and happiness.
If you prefer to wish upon a monk, these daruma and maneki neko dispensers can deliver one in every color…
Or if what you’re truly after when you stick your coins in a slot is pure, unadulterated gambling, there’s a vending machine for that too. This one dangles the slim chance that your thousand yen note will get you a piece of choice electronics (even though we all know it’s far more likely to be one of those cheesy keychains or the novelty sunglasses from the 1980s).
By now I suspect you’ll barely raise an eyebrow when I tell you that I also found a vending machine at the Kanazawa 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art that dispenses, well, art…
…but I hope you’ll be as surprised as I was that there’s even one that can save your life
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Jonelle Patrick writes novels set in Japan, and blogs at Only In Japan and The Tokyo Guide I Wish I’d Had
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