Japan Eats: Thirsty in Japan? Ask a machine for a drink

In Japan they say that the customer is God and even a machine is expected to pay its respects.

It’s a saying that supports the idea that Japan is the land of the vending machine with perhaps more machines per person than anywhere else in the world. In Japan’s cities they can be seen on most street corners dispensing sodas and hot coffee, but also more far-out items like ice cream, french fries, umbrellas and clothes.

They’ve even made it to the top of Mount Fuji, providing hungry hikers with hot, steamy instant noodles at the summit.

The country even has its own association of vending machine manufactures, the JVMA, which notes that the number of automatic dispensers in Japan, including ticket machines, amounts to over 5 million. That's a human-to-machine ratio of around 24 to one.     Full Read