Vending Machines

One strange thing in Japan is the number of vending machines you find. They are literally on every street corner around Tokyo. Even if you travel outside the main city centre to what is really the country side, there are rice paddies everywhere, you will still find them everywhere. Most of them seem to be sponsored by Coca-Cola although not all of them actually sell any Coke but instead a variety of cold green teas; coffee in a can which heats up when you open it (very strange to drink), which comes in a variety of flavours including cherry; some vitamin water and fizzy lemon drink which contains 70 lemon’s worth of vitamin C in every bottle or as you can see in the picture 300% of your daily  allowance! While there are drinks machines on every corner I have yet to see a snack machine selling chocolate bars or crisps. Maybe I could start a legend of the fabled vending machine that sold normal flavours of coffee in a cup and at least a packet of Hula Hoops. The other odd thing is that despite there being so many vending machines there is almost no rubbish strewn around the streets. This is even more amazing since there are NO BINS in Japan. I’ve had to carry rubbish with me all day through central Tokyo because of this and it’s very annoying especially when you forget to take a plastic back or something to put all the rubbish in. Either everyone carries it with them or there is some secret method for disposing of rubbish that is only known to Japanese people.