Japanese Vending Machines – 自動販売機 (jidō-hanbaiki)

Japan has one of the highest concentrations of vending machines of any country in the world. There is about one machine for every 23 people, which amounts to well over five million vending machines or 自動販売機 (jidō-hanbaiki)! There are even spots that have more than one vending machine crammed up against one another. Here is an example shot from one of my trips:

All of these vending machines come in very handy while travelling around Japan on vacation. It means that you never have to worry about carrying around a bottle of water, as you will usually be within a few paces of a vending machine.  Beyond just having beverages for sale, vending machines can sell anything from snacks, ramen, coffee, all the way to used panties and adult DVD’s. While the latter products are usually quite hard to find, unless one goes to a more seedy part of town.

One of the perplexing things that a Westerner might run into is noticing that two of the same beverages might cost exactly the same amount of yen, but be of different volumes. Why would anyone pick the beverage that contains less liquid for lack of a better term? Notice in the following picture, the Calpis drink is priced at 120 yen for both the “big” can and the smaller bottle.

For a  far better and funnier explanation on this phenomenon I’m going to link to a vlogger on Youtube that I’ve been watching since he first hit Youtube. That person is Kevin Cooney, who goes by tokyocooney on Youtube. Enjoy!