Vending Machines

You might see these around Japan's big cities but generally the smaller city ones are more... normal? They do have a battery vending machine and beer vending machines out here. Cigarette machines are quite common. A couple of my favorites are the ice cream vending machines, and the hot riceball/french fry vending machine (somewhere near tokyo).

For the record, that last machine in the video clip is NOT a vending machine. It's an arcade game, and thus, does not count. You shouldn't have to pay money and walk away with nothing at a vending machine, called "jihanki" by the Japanese people in my area.

China, however, has a vending machine for LIVE CRAB. Buwhuuuu? What's this craziness?

There's also something I don't understand about vending machines. As you can see from above, sodas, water, and the like are somewhere around 110 yen, which is roughly a dollar by my standards. Other, more awesome drinks like tea or juice or coffee are going to run anywhere from 130 yen to 150 yen, roughly $1.30-$1.50.

Now, in the states, I would never ever pay that much money unless i was desperate. $1.50? That's a lot for a soda. Even more if it's just a mere CAN. Canned drinks should cost like... 50 cents or maybe 75. Any can that's $1.00 is a pure ripoff.

Yet here I am, in Japan, throwing down way too much money on vending machine drinks. Why? Is it the mere presence of the constant onslaught of vending machines? Is it because I'm in Japan? I have no qualms about spending 130/140 yen to get that tasty looking tea. At 150, I'm slightly hesitant, but nowhere near as hesitant as when I was in the states. I mean, even for awesome drinks like Frutopia, $1.50 made me squirm. I usually didn't buy them. Now I'm grabbing milk tea, apple tea, milk coffee at this actually quite high price, and barely thinking twice about it. When I buy a drink in the morning, it usually costs around 137-150 yen a go. That's kind of expensive.

What is with this strange spending habit of mine? o_O WHY CAN'T I CONTROL IT?! WHY MUST APPLE TEA BE SO DAMN TASTY?