Japan is notorious for their vending machines. Sometimes I feel like they have a vending machine for everything. What I find ridiculously funny is sometimes they have these vending machines stationed at the oddest places you could imagine (beside rural train tracks? Yeah, like I’d fall out of a train to purchase a drink).
But what else could you expect from a working population racing against time from dawn til dusk? It was a fascinating experience being able to watch commuters on their daily routine. Shinjuku was one of the stations we frequented in Tokyo as it was the gateway for trains heading West. Shinjuku was also a major commercial and administrative centre (per wiki) and thus explains the density of busy-body Japanese men and women rushing back and forth. Actually, their hurried pacing became a little too infectious...
My friends and I are from the ‘lax New Zealand where everything is relatively slow. But in Japan we found ourselves rushing for no apparent reason just because it felt normal. That’s why one day we were surprised to find ourselves in front of this vending machine.
In our unnecessary hurried-state we felt the urge to grab a quick bite (even though we had all the time in the world). We were following behind a man when he stopped in front of this machine, paid for something and went inside the store. We followed suit. The vending machine took our order, gave us our receipt which we took inside, and voila! The food is literally prepared in a minute. Actually our story was less smooth and less charming than that.
The system worked easily like I described above, that was until my friends and I came along. It had only been a minute when a queue started to form behind us and so we wanted to be courteous and let people go before us. We couldn't express it in words so my friend did this thing where she started swaying her hands in front of her to let the next person go first. Except she was bowing at the same time and her elbows looked dislocated, so it looked like she was doing some shitty little dance. Thankfully my other friend remembered her "kudasai" and gracefully gestured for the person behind us to go first, saving my other friend any more embarrassment. So anyway...
Our food immediately got given to us and it was good yummy food not some fast-food quality junk! We each took our tray of food and went to find a place to sit, only there were no seats! Ruh-roh. People literally ate on their feet on top of benches. They chewed through their noodles, slurped their soup and were out the door in an instant. Plus, it was eerily quiet; people ate in silence. Surely there was no rule about not talking but the pressure not to speak was just too great we didn't even dare to.
After ‘breakfast’ we had to clean after ourselves. Now that
I think about it, this is really good business. Make the customer do everything! There were table cloths to clean after yourself, and a large cubby hole where you put your tray and empty bowls. Within
seconds someone from the kitchen will take it and clean it. It was all very
systematic and quick. I enjoyed that little experience and even though I’ve
only tried it once, I kind of miss it already.
Peaces x :)
Peaces x :)
