Hakone - beer vending machines

We've had a few visitors come to visit us in Japan now. Most of them want to know if it's just an urban legend that Japan has beer vending machines. It's not. I've now got proof positive that such machines exist.

While in Hakone at the start of July, we were in one of the smaller hotels off Lake Ashi. In one of their hallways adjoining two of the buildings, there were 6 vending machines. 3 of them sold beer; this would be the photo shown above. To the left, you see the one selling Sapporo brand.

In case you were wondering, the other 3 machines sold tea, ice coffee, juice, water and carbonated beverages.

If you were wondering if I sampled the vending machines' goods... The answer is ... not on that day and not for beer. So I can't really tell you if the stuff out of these machines is as good as the stuff you can buy at the local grocery store (yes, you can get beer with your eggs here, just like in Quebec!) or konbini. The prices are about the same. You might see a maximum of about 20 yen price difference for location of machine and geographic area, but otherwise, there is virtually no price difference on goods sold at a vending machine or a konbini or at a grocery store.

My friends and I have trolled through the streets of Tokyo looking for these beer vending machines (or ones selling any other kind of alcohol for that matter), but it seems there are none to be found outside, literally on the streets of Tokyo. Back in November when I first explored the backstreets of Akihabara, I thought I saw a few of these alcohol vending machines. However, it seems that all the major beer brands here in Japan all also sell non-alcoholic beverages. For example, Kirin sells Nuda, which is my husbands' favourite lemon carbonated drink. He buys other brands as well, but there happened to an empty bottle of it still left in our recycling bin, so it was easy for me to verify. I've gone back to Akihabara at least a dozen times since and still can't find those beer vending machines that I thought I saw way back at the start of my trip here. I'm beginning to suspect that, while the major label on the machine may be well known for its beer products, those machines actually only sold the non-alcoholic versions of their brand.

What a tease.

I have perused other tales of travel in suburban and rural Japan (my tales mostly don't fit in that category since Tokyo is the largest city-prefecture in Japan, perhaps the world), and found that usually people stumble upon these alcohol selling machines outside of urban areas. It seems that where there's a good chance that you may not want to walk that extra 6 blocks to a konbini, there may be a beer vending machine to quench your after-hours thirst.

Although, it seems that Japan may want to implement the same card limiting access to beer machines as they now to do tobacco dispensing machines. For those of you going "huh?", there currently exists a law that forces new tobacco vending machines to have the new technology that reads age of majority identity cards for those wishing to buy tobacco. That's right, it's a license to smoke. Or rather, a license to buy smokes. But only a license to buy smokes from a vending machine. If you walk into a konbini or grocery store, it's still up to the discretion of the clerk to ask for proof of age. If you've ever been to a konbini - in-city, roadside, or otherwise - you would know how ridiculous the chances of being asked for id actually are. It seems to me that to apply for a license to buy smokes at a vending machine seems a little extreme. I mean, I have a license to drive a car in Ontario but only because I actually find driving a car useful and there's no other way around it. If I were a smoker, I'm not sure how important this card would be to me. Admittedly, I've never been in the situation where the withdrawal chills were so bad that the feeling of getting-a-fix-right-this-second was so compelling that I had to run to the only thing open right now. Because if that was the case, then I would be SOL without this smokes id card.

So if any would-be Japanese tourists are reading this blog, note that you have at least until sometime next year to experience buying beer from a vending machine with no hassles. After that, you will need a beer vending machine id card. And you have to specifically apply for it. The form is in Japanese. Your request form will require approval. If you pass, you will get a card in the mail. This license to buy booze is only good for these beer vending machines. Apparently, it's too much work to put the same thing on the one id card for vending machines in general.

I may just go back to Hakone to seek out these beer vending machines. I may just be the last of the Japanese tourists that gets to say that I bought beer from a vending machine by just inserting some cash. After that, I only get to say that if I get a card.

I guess beer and smokes sales are so good that the Ministry of Smokes and Beer (or whatever ministry it is that deals with paper-pushing by-laws like these ones) don't care how the sales are affected. To give you an idea of how poor Kyushuu cigarette vending machine owner suffered after the enactment of the new id card law, he put his own id card on a string and attached that to the machine so that people who didn't have the card, would still be able to buy his goods. I mean, let's face it, the majority of smokers probably won't get the id card. They don't have to when there are a million other places where you can buy smokes and the clerk really won't care how old you are or will be too busy or too polite to ask for proof of age. And you can't instantly apply for the id card when you get to the machine and realize that you are SOL because of lack of said card. So by providing his own card, he was really doing the public a service. Unfortunately for that vending machine owner, the authorities did not seem to agree with him. Said vending machine is now missing the id card.

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