Those 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.
Wait 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!
It'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...
those, you bring your own rice though, so a bit different. (they're pretty common in the countryside!)
The first time I saw one, I was probably ~6 years old and my grandfather stopped by on our way home to mill some of the rice he had grown. I was confused since growing up in the States, I had never seen non-white rice until that point.
Close to where we used to live, by the bus stop in Hiratsuka, when I used to come back at night, the vending machine was brighter than the public lights.
In some old arcade games you had these machines all over to dispense health. This always struck me as odd and unrealistic until I visited Japan and saw that it really is like that.
An American who climed up Mt Fuji met local youth who carried up snacks and drinks on their back to the top of the mountain. These were to be sold at shops and I guess vending machines at top of the mountain.
I saw some tractors delivering stuff to some of the huts and vending machines. There are also some police and ambulance services available. That was about 9 years ago.
The mountain is only officially open for a short time each year. I think most of the employees at the huts and other facilities are college students taking summer jobs.
Really 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).
> I got lost on takao mountain once and was utterly hopeless of ever finding civilization again.
Wait, what? Takao mountain is in Tokyo! Yeah, not central Tokyo but still, it's like a 45min train ride from Shinjuku. You make it sound like it's some remote place full of bears. :-p
That's the weird thing about it, how quickly it can turn into a total overgrown jungle!
On google maps, from NW to SE the longest point between trails I can find is 1.3km, but if you have the bad luck to head off one of the southern trails and get lost heading northeast, you could go just over 2km without seeing a trail. I mean yea, low chance of dying, but high chance of extreme discomfort :P
Man, how'd you get lost on Mount Takao? It's always so crowded... if you have any info that'd let one find that lone vending machine, I'm interested :)
At least when I went there it wasn't very crowded. There was a group of people at the summit (with vending machine present, of course), but otherwise hardly any people. However it was a slightly foggy day, so you couldn't see much from the summit. It is possible that on a clear day there are crowds trying to see Mount Fuji or something.
Miki Meek a radio producer who I meet on a 4 day trek through Guatemala has a This American Life about a phone booth in the middle of nowhere in Japan with no connections to power, people go there to talk to deceased loved ones. It's a beautiful piece of radio journalism. https://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/597/...
Part of the reason there are so many vending machines around is preparation for a disaster; vending machines from at least the last 15 years will dispense drinks for free in the event of a disaster.
According to this site Coca Cola dispensed around four million free drinks on 2011/3/11 (Great East Japan Earthquake).
If the looters politely just took some groceries they needed but couldn't pay for because the local economy was in disarray then I'm sure they wouldn't complain. It's batshit people hoarding TV's and shit though.
People hiking/moving around, but they're also part of the country's disaster-preparedness system, they'll dispense product for free in case of disaster.
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.