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Japanese Vending Machines at Night Juxtaposed with a Wintry Hokkaido Landscape
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- ISL 9y agoGetting a hot chocolate out of a vending machine while the sky is dumping snow is one of life's many sublime pleasures.
- DamonHD 9y agoGetting a painfully hot can of sake out of a street vending machine was an interesting experience for me, albeit in Tokyo. Seeing my ryokan vending machine stock some mixture of underwear, shoes, toiletries and just possibly food (that may have been a separate machine), also!
- saryant 9y agoAfter the Fukushima earthquake I was walking from Ebisu to Roppongi (all the subways were shuttered). A cold evening and I wasn't properly dressed. Then I turned the corner and saw a machine with Tommy Lee Jones' staring down selling hot cans of Boss Coffee. Made the night a little easier.
- beefsack 9y agoI used to love the coffee vending machines until I accidentally got one with jelly chunks in it and was afraid to ever try again. We had a Cup Noodle vending machine on our university campus which sold the elusive curry flavour, possibly the food I'm most nostalgic about from my time living over there.
- Danieru 9y agoJust a small guess, but was that a Dydo stocked vending machine? Dydo stuff tends to be what the absolute cheapest vending machines offer. About five times I have bought a Dydo coffee, and five times I have decided to never do so again. Any of the Coca-Cola or Kirin (Pepsi does not exist beyond the brand here) stocked vending machines should be good and safe.
- FajitaNachos 9y agoThe Hard Black. Delicious.
- CryptoPunk 9y agoDo you know long the coffee cans are kept heated? I'm concerned that those cans have had hot coffee in them for days on end, which is generally not good for food (heat breaks down its nutrients and often produces free radical byproducts).
- jdale27 9y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-heating_can https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-heating_can
- Cthulhu_ 9y agoNeat. I have / used to have a pair of 'hand warmers', plastic bags with a fluid of sorts and a copper (?) coin you can 'flip over', the click / shock causing the fluid to crystallise and generate heat. Those can be reused too by putting the (crystallised) bag into hot water for a bit.
- CryptoPunk 9y agoAre the heated cans sold in the Japanese vending machines self-heating cans? EDIT: According to this, the Japanese ones keep the cans heated: http://www.vendingmarketwatch.com/article/10273776/hot-can-vending-initiatives-emerge-in-the-us http://www.vendingmarketwatch.com/article/10273776/hot-can-v... >>Proprietary heating technology >>Unlike hot can drink machines in Japan, the Starbucks machine does not keep the steel cans heated. Instead, the container heats after the customer makes a selection.
- jdale27 9y agoNot sure in general, but I'm pretty sure I have encountered the self-heating kind in Japan.
- peterwwillis 9y agoFor me it was the hot milk tea. Almost impossible to find in the West, every morning at near freezing temps I could cling to a metal piping hot can of sweet milk tea. I can't go a day in .jp without grabbing a can. What really surprised me is how in a place like Tokyo the machines seemed to only reliably function using change, whereas in Norway you pay for bus station lockers and public toilets with credit cards.
- rwmj 9y ago"Royal Milk Tea" is easy to make (although it's hard to clean the pan afterwards). Boil a cupful of milk with a teabag in it. Once it's boiled, take out the teabag and add sugar. In fact I think I might have one right now ...
- rangibaby 9y agoI make mine Malaysian style: 1. Make a syrup out of brown sugar by heating it in a pan with some water. The real recipe uses palm sugar but brown sugar is close enough. 2. Put it in a cup, then evaporated milk, then strong black tea. 3. Mix to taste. The three layers don’t mix together on their own. The more you mix it the sweeter the drink gets.
- rangibaby 9y agoYou’ll love Teh C if you ever visit Malaysia. The real secret to good hot milk tea is using evaporated milk.
- gkanai 9y agoMore and more vending machines work with Pasmo/Suica stored credit cards these days fwiw, especially those near the train stations or conbinis.
- masklinn 9y ago> For me it was the hot milk tea. Mine was the hot lemon tea.
- tinix 9y agoWhy is this even posted here? It doesn't seem even remotely relevant to Hacker News.
- ct0 9y agoBecause culture.
- ekglimmer 9y agoBecause it is 'deeply interesting'
- HillaryBriss 9y agoimpressive durability: some of these vending machines are friggin' snow-proof -- and they still keep the drinks warm.
- slagfart 9y agoAlso, on snowy days, even the 'cold' contents are heated (from below freezing to just above)
- starshadowx2 9y agoIs there even a "relevant to Hacker News"? I've always seen it as things that people find interesting. If you don't like it then downvoting is an option if you're able to. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html "If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity"
- netrap 9y agoI find vending machines interesting. I think it does apply to the general feel here. I'd love to see the internals more often though!
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- emodendroket 9y agoHokkaido is a great place.
- komali2 9y agoThose Japanese vending machines blow my mind. I got lost on takao mountain once and was utterly hopeless of ever finding civilization again. I found abandoned and rotting tractors the forest had taken back, weird half completed concrete structures, the trail was gone, I was well and truly lost. Then, I turn a corner, and find a goddamned vending machine. Powered. With stock. I followed its power cord back for a solid ten minutes before I found the little building on a trail it led to. Somebody restocked that vending machine. Somebody installed it. It's like this throughout Japan. Boggles the mind.
- graedus 9y agoReally interesting. There are a few scenes like this in the excellent art film Homo Sapiens[0][1] that stuck with me. Overgrown Japanese landscape with vending machines (don't remember if these were actually powered though). [0] http://www.imdb.com/title/tt5450084/ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt5450084/ [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rEgjEzB36Lo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rEgjEzB36Lo
- StavrosK 9y agoWait wait wait, so that photo of the vending machine in the middle of nowhere isn't a set up by the photographer? I thought he put the machine there, along with a generator behind it, just to take the photo!
- iand675 9y agoIt's really like that. In the countryside, you'll occasionally see rice fields with small walkways in between them in a + configuration with a vending machine hanging out in the middle. Presumably for the farmers to get something to drink...
- StavrosK 9y agoOh wow, that's crazy. I've only been to Tokyo, where they weren't out of place, but out in the fields? Sounds like quite the sight.
- spike021 9y agoI'd love to visit Japan, and Hokkaido specifically. Seems like such a nice place.
- popcorncolonel 9y agoJapan was beautiful; visually, culturally, and culinarily. I'd highly recommend it. I just started taking Japanese classes yesterday and I can't wait to go back next year.
- gkanai 9y agoHokkaido is a land of contrasts. Amazing natural spaces, great food- especially the seafood, but also the best milk in Japan, etc. Hokkaido is also one of the poorest prefectures in Japan and has struggled since the economic bubble collapsed 3 decades ago. You see a lot of abandoned houses, and whole towns look empty as youth have moved to Sapporo or other larger cities for work and leave only the elderly to farm or fish, etc. The Spike Japan blog stopped in 2014 but is a very interesting look into the rural collapse of Japan, and Hokkaido specifically. https://spikejapan.wordpress.com/ https://spikejapan.wordpress.com/ Note that if you go just by that blog, you'd not want to visit. It's a great place to visit, to ski, etc. but there is the other side that SpikeJapan highlights.
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- dllu 9y agoSome vending machines in Japan are designed to give out free drinks during an emergency [0]. That could be one of the reasons why there are so many well-maintained vending machines everywhere, even in remote areas. [0] http://www.coca-colacompany.com/stories/16-things-you-didnt-know-about-vending-machines-in-japan-and-around-the-world http://www.coca-colacompany.com/stories/16-things-you-didnt-...
- kwhitefoot 9y agoThat is such a sensible idea that it will never catch on anywhere else.
- flachsechs 9y agothat's because everywhere else people will just break them open during an emergency. which i think is probably the more reasonable thing to do for everywhere else.
- lozenge 9y agoThe machine already has communication equipment for stock alerts. The disaster feature is just a bit more code.
- montecarl 9y agoFor even more photos from this set see the photographers site: https://www.sapporo-creation.com/existence https://www.sapporo-creation.com/existence
- skeltoac 9y agoAre there still machines selling cans of beer? That was one of the highlights of my visit to Tokyo. My host advised me that I must either stand at the machine and drink it or put it away while I walked. No drinking and walking. I was 14.
- wodenokoto 9y agoNot in Tokyo anymore, but they do have them around Kansai still.
- jamesjyu 9y agoWait, really? I thought there were copious alcohol in Tokyo vending machines, at least the last time I visited.
- deeth_starr_v 9y agoMy hotel had beer in the vending machine on my floor. This was Tokyo last year. This was not a public vending machine though.
- veidr 9y agoThere are fewer in Tokyo than in the 1980s, but they still exist. They are in virtually wall hotels, but there's a beer and chuhai vending machine on the street near my kids' Tokyo preschool.
- nihonde 9y agoThey still have them in the vending room in many business hotels in Tokyo. Better than a minibar!
- wodenokoto 9y agoI stand corrected. I guess it depends on the ward / district and I've been hanging out all the wrong places!
- wakeless 9y agoBeer isn't in 'publicly' accessible vending machines any more as far as I can tell. It is however often available in the foyer of a place that normally sells beer (that might be currently shut.) Ski resorts are my main source of vending-machine beer. Nothing better than cracking a can of Sapporo Classic in your first gondola ride of the day.
- ohashi 9y agoThe attitude is strange with vending machines and other cultures. I saw a vending machine selling 20oz and 1.5l (I think?) bottles of coke for the same price. In America, that would be unheard of, why would anyone buy the 20oz bottle. But in Japan, it seemed like many people just bought what they needed.
- m_mueller 9y agoI'm not even Japanese and I'd buy the small can. I have no use for 0.5l of coke, let alone 1.5l. It's supposed to make me a bit more concentrated, not replace my water.
- stephengillie 9y agoIt's common for American grocery stores to sell 20 oz bottles for +-20% of the price of 2 liter bottles. The differentiation here is entirely in perception. The smaller bottle is usually chilled and seems like an individual serving. The larger bottle is considered to be a bulk purchase. Often, consumers will purchase both in the same trip, intentionally oblivious to the value differential.
- bsder 9y agoFor me, it's preceived carbonation level. A 2-liter bottle seems like it starts becoming flat remarkably quickly. So, the average carbonation level of 4 bottles of coke is perceived higher than the carbonation level of 2 liters.
- spike021 9y agoMaybe it's more of a placebo; you're more likely to drink the 20oz bottle quicker than the 2-liter. An open (even re-capped) 2-liter bottle will lose carbonation over N days quicker than a 20oz you drink in maybe an hour or whatever (at least that's how I see it)
- vinhboy 9y agoIn America, when I ask for half a cup of coffee at Starbucks (no I don't ask for a discount), because I don't want/need that much coffee, I get weird looks. Or when I am at Taco Bell and I just want a small cup of soda, instead of that giant cup they give, I always get the "are you sure?"
- bschwindHN 9y agoWhile we're on the subject of Japanese vending machines, how do they implement the IC card scanning feature? Does it need to be connected to a special network or is the logic all done on the card? I'm specifically talking about the payment verification and logic. I have one in my office that accepts IC card payment and I'm not quite sure what is required for that to work.
- shidoshi 9y agoSuica, Pasmo and the like are all contactless SCs. The Wikipedia page is a good start, and you can go deeper from there: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suica https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suica
- bschwindHN 9y agoAh sorry, I mean how the machine verifies the validity of the card.
- sly010 9y agoIt's asymmetric key cryptography. Every vending machine can verify signatures using a CA certificate. Charging stations and a vending machines also have a signing key signed by that central certificate. Whatever is written on the card is signed by whoever wrote it. Charging a card goes like this: - Read everything from the card (data + signature) - Verify signature + expiration dates, etc - Extract amount on card - Decrement said amount - Write new amount to card - Sign data on card using local signing key It's a bit more complicated than that, but you get the idea. In some systems the logs of all transactions are reconciled asynchronously (if and when internet connection is available) so if a card is cloned it can eventually be detected and blocked.
- bschwindHN 9y agoThe "local signing key" is the interesting part to me. I guess only vending machines in certain areas can get IC card support. I wonder how often those local keys need to be rotated. That's a great answer though, thanks for writing it up!
- krapp 9y agoWhen the story about the Bodega startup[0] came out, it occurred to me that what they were trying to do was essentially what Japan is already doing with vending machines - automate retail at scale. Unfortunately, Bodega tried to undermine, transform and rebrand the local culture in a way that many found offensive, but that aside, I wonder what particular cultural elements make vending machines seem so successful in Japan, but not as much in the US? Maybe Amazon could bring back Automats[1]? [0]https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15291795 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15291795 [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automat
- davidw 9y ago> particular cultural elements make vending machines seem so successful in Japan Not being vandalized is mentioned in the article. People in Italy were always kind of surprised to hear about US newspaper machines - the ones where you put in some coins - and you can take out as many newspapers as you want, essentially. They'd joke that people would regularly take them all in Italy, and in Naples they'd probably just haul off the whole machine, change, newspapers and all.
- krapp 9y ago>People in Italy were always kind of surprised to hear about US newspaper machines - the ones where you put in some coins - and you can take out as many newspapers as you want, essentially Honestly, I have no idea why those things even exist or how they make anyone money. It's baffling.
- davidw 9y agoI guess people are honest enough that they buy the newspapers. Compare and contrast: in Italy, until recently, you could only buy newspapers from newsstands, who had some kind of monopoly on their sales. You couldn't get them from a grocery store, and certainly not from a vending machine.
- jefurii 9y agoNope, different. Many of those pictures have vending machines sitting outside neighborhood mom-and-pop stores. From my experience living in Japan, those machines are most likely owned/leased by the owner of the store, who stocks them and collects the profits. They function as a labor-saving device for high-trafficked items and a way to sell during off-hours. My understanding of Bodega is that they want to replace the mom-and-pop store with a centralized vertically-integrated company (theirs).
- davidw 9y agoThere were a lot of weird small vending machines in Austria too, like on some random street corner, you'd find a gumball machine. Stuff like this: http://l7.alamy.com/zooms/48c88dd9aea741de95fec46fd33f47be/gumball-dispenser-machine-gosau-upper-austria-austria-enjwnj.jpg http://l7.alamy.com/zooms/48c88dd9aea741de95fec46fd33f47be/g... I never really figured that one out.
- girvo 9y agoHeh, those machines are great. The temporary tattoo + chewing gum is the best. I have a collection of the weird toys and figurines from those machines (and similar ones around the world)
- goochtek 9y agoA little random but I thought some of you might want to know what the stores were that were next to the vending machines in the photos. Pictures: 1. Alcohol and food store 2. No store 3. No store 4. Alcohol store 5. Eel restaurant 6. No store 7. Egg vending store (direct from farmer) 8. Rice polishing vending machine (turns brown rice in to white) 9. No store 10. Sightseeing ferry office/shop 11. Apple store (actually name of company but they import brand name products) 12. No store That's obviously only a small sample but as someone who lives in Japan I can tell you that usually where there are alcohol stores, there are vending machines. Of course there are other places they are too, but in my experience, it's rare to find one without vending machines.
- rangibaby 9y agoI've seen photos of people gathered around beer vending machines having a jolly time from before 24/7 convenience stores took over that particular market segment.
- iand675 9y agoThe odd thing to me about Japan's vending machine situation is that it's largely drinks. Not much in the way of the snack vending machines that one frequently encounters in the U.S. I suppose it's probably due to the Japanese aversion to preservatives / prevalence of convenience stores, but one would think they'd have come up with some tricks like the ones they've perfected with cup noodles.
- addedlovely 9y agoI remember also getting vended fries, but hot and cold drinks alone blew my mind coming from the U.K.
- iand675 9y agoYeah, there are fresh food vending machines around in a few places... notably in government offices like city hall or ward offices where you might have to wait for a while.
- bdowling 9y agoMore common are the vending machines that will sell you a ticket for a meal, which you then hand to the person who will make your food and give it to you. I'm not certain if that scheme is done for fraud prevention, or if it is done for convenience in order to have fewer employees.
- bsder 9y ago> I'm not certain if that scheme is done for fraud prevention, or if it is done for convenience in order to have fewer employees. Well, it sure stops both the indecisive idiots and the morons who can't unweld themselves from their phone. One of my favorite moments was at a Superdawg in Chicago Midway. The standard, high-maintenance indecisive Californian was at the head of the line: "Well, I don't know. Maybe the <blah> but ..." The enormous lady at the counter brandished a HOLY GODDAMN FUCKING HUGE ladle right under the Californian's nose with a relatively normal volume, but forceful, "Look, ah gots payin' customers lined up. Git outta da line, and come back when ya know what the hell ya want. NEXT!" I guess you don't have to really shout when you wave around a ladle that big. It brought tears of joy to my eyes. I wish customer service would do this more often.
- kazinator 9y agoWhat mountain is this: http://www.spoon-tamago.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/Eiji-Ohashi-Hokkaido-Vending-Machines-at-Night-2.jpg http://www.spoon-tamago.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/Eiji-... It kind of looks like a miniature Fuji-san.
- jcl 9y agoCould be Mount Yōtei, a Hokkaido mountain known for its resemblance to Mount Fuji: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Y%C5%8Dtei https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Y%C5%8Dtei
- throw-away-8 9y agoGiven that "I can get warm drinks from the vending machines" at any weather and there is one vending machine for each 23 citizens, what is energy impact?
- baursak 9y agoReminded me of this art: http://keebs.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Night-in-Shinjuku_m-1.jpg http://keebs.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Night-in-Shinjuk...
- sergiotapia 9y agoThose vending machines look so /comfy/. :)
- barking 9y agoIn many ways Japan seems like a paradise. Crime free, almost, 70%+ forest coverage, technologically advanced but still respect for long-standing cultural traditions. It's unrivalled social cohesiveness comes at the cost though of a lack of diversity. For example, I read somewhere it gets less than 100 asylum seekers a year.
- Rainymood 9y ago> social cohesiveness Also known as xenophobia. >For example, I read somewhere it gets less than 100 asylum seekers a year. And this is by definition a good thing? Don't forget the awesome working hours and working culture! It's so good that they even have a word for the awesome overworking: Karoshi [1]. I wouldn't romanticize Japan this hard as you are doing right now, it has it's own sleuth of problems just like any other country. [1] Karoshi (Overwork Death) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kar%C5%8Dshi https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kar%C5%8Dshi
- hellofunk 9y agoIndeed, I say this time and again to friends and family who marvel at a lifestyle that has allowed me to live on several continents: there is no such thing as a perfect place to live.
- nostromo123 9y ago>>For example, I read somewhere it gets less than 100 asylum seekers a year. >And this is by definition a good thing? Been to Germany / Sweden lately?
- icebraining 9y agoYes. Had a great time too, very peaceful.
- nostromo123 9y agoGreat for you! Then I guess you were not one of the many women who are raped for not wearing a burka, or non-Muslims who are bullied in asylum centres, or homosexuals beaten up for holding hands, or Jews attacked for wearing a kippa, or or or...
- blondie9x 9y agoGreat photos. But these photos highlight one of the biggest problems in Japan. Plastic consumption. Japanese hardly use reuseable bottles and places to refill a canteen or your reusable bottle are near non-existent.
- HeyLaughingBoy 9y agoIf that's the biggest problem a country has, I'd say they're doing pretty good...