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Comment by komali2 | Hacker News Reader

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.

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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...

Oh 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.

Can confirm. I live in the countryside. There are vending machines down some roads with ricefields on both sides.

I've not seen that where I live (Kamogawa), but I want to now. Guess I need to search around the rice fields more. :)

haha, I've just realized I know you. Will have to ask you where it is sometime. Small World.

Hehe, I got found out :-)

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.

Down the roads I've definitely seen. On the internal dirt paths was new to me (would love to see a photo!)

On dirt paths I have not seen yet. I am thinking about countryside roads with fields on both sides.

Yeah. Every now and again you'll also come across some 50-year old looking mechanical rice vending machine, selling 5, 10 and 15 kg bags of rice.

The photo 5th from the bottom actually appears to be of a coin-operated rice mill!

Rice vending machines are actually pretty common in the countryside where there may not be staffed rice shops or supermarkets

Our use-case is that my wife will receive gifts of unpolished rice from relatives, which we then need to haul to the vending machine to polish.

It's actually quite enjoyable, as you get to run your fingers through warm rice pouring out from the machine.

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.

There are even vending machines at the summit of Mt. Fuji.

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 heard that story about 20 years ago.

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.

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.

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).

[0] http://www.imdb.com/title/tt5450084/

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rEgjEzB36Lo

> 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

Can't you get prettttyy deep in those mountains though? Also if you go pretty deep, I imagine the trails aren't really marked well, if at all.

(was in a more remote mountain that's ~2 hours away from Tokyo last year)

Well, Kyoto is 2 hours from Tokyo and is pretty remote I supposed

JK. Shinkansen can really makes telling distance by time funny.

Hmm, I think I got peed on by naughty monkeys there. I should be grateful they weren't angry bears (or even angry birds!) I suppose...

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

Point taken.

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 :)

Perhaps it was this one. http://jihan.30maps.com/map/54837

Takao can get too crowded. Head to Jinba 陣馬 which is just a few train stations away for fun and good food on top.

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.

There’s a huge difference between weekdays and weekends.

Who buys stuff in a vending machine in the middle of nowhere though ?

I am really intrigued.

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/...

That's based on an NHK documentary called 'Kaze no Denwa' (Telephone of the Wind.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yg69F5gewkA

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).

http://www.cocacola.co.jp/vending-machine/emergency-support

If the vending machines are giving stuff away, what will CNN fill airtime with, when they can't complain about looters?!

Just kidding, I know they will just speculate about the possibility of it instead.

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.

A japanese riot- i guess thats a thousand disapproving stares..

How is this triggered? Via (lack of?) mobile connection or power?

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.

Reminds me a little bit of some Stephen Shore photographs of banal Americana --but set in Japan... so banal Iaponia?

I never understand why people can get lost at Takao, the place is like a damned Shibuya, packed with people.

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