Vending machines

There are several areas in which Japanese technological superiority dwarfs all other nations. One is toilet technology.  Another is vending machine technology. This is clearly a reflection of the extreme importance that these two elements play in Japanese culture.

Almost every public space has at least one vending machine selling water, sports drinks, and cold coffee and tea. This is the vending machine in the lobby of the Ehime University Faculty Guesthouse where I've been staying.

It's not uncommon for a store on the street to operate two, three, or even more vending machines.

At the water taxi dock at Yamashita Park in Yokohama, I counted 10 vending machines lined up in a row.

This vending machine, on the grounds of the Yasaka Shrine (八坂神社) in Kyōto, even has some Tully's Coffee drinks. They are the ones that cost 130 yen each, and you can see an ad for them at the bottom of the frame.

Some vending machines, like the one in our hotel in Kyōto, sell beer. The one pictured below, on the campus of Ehime University, sells hot and cold coffee drinks. It has an elaborate mechanism (the line of black buttons on the right, above the coin slot) that allows you to adjust coffee strength and the relative amounts of sugar and cream.

The seasonal ad at the top says "It's summer!  It's ice!  Blendy". I think "ice" here refers to iced drinks.

It's well worth clicking through to look at the selection of hot and cold drinks. My favorite, top center, is the "banana au lait" (バナナオーレ), which you can get hot or cold.

The vending machines on campus take payment by coins, bills, student meal card, and cell phone--and perhaps other means that I haven't figured out yet.

Please enjoy the following video demonstration of a vending machine in action.

Gyotong Anjeon

Last fall I posted a few entries on traffic and parking.
I've become a lot more accustomed to dealing with Korean drivers as a pedestrian. The first key insight was the realization that both drivers and pedestrians tolerate a much higher degree of proximity between motor vehicle and human body than they do in the US.

Before, I thought that a driver backing straight into me either didn't see me, or was planning to run me over. Now I realize that the driver HAS seen me; s/he is still backing up because the car is still more than a foot away from me. Similarly, a driver turning into the street as I'm crossing it isn't planning to hit me; s/he is planning to miss me by six inches.

The second realization is that there is no such thing as right of way. Whoever, driver or pedestrian, gets into the path of the other first gets to go.

Once I'd internalized these two rules, walking around in traffic got a lot easier. Instead of flinching or jumping or changing direction when I'm buzzed by a motorbike or car, I just keep going. Nobody gets confused, and nobody gets hit.

I still think this system is a lot more dangerous than the customs we have in the States -- the margin for error here is a lot smaller, and I imagine it must lead to more accidents.

One thing that is particularly dangerous is the scarcity of exclusive walkways for pedestrians. Cars often drive up onto and across sidewalks to reach parking spaces located between the sidewalk and the storefront. Cars also often park illegally on the side of narrow alleys, completely blocking sidewalks (if there are any) and reducing available street width to the point where a car and a pedestrian can't both fit side by side.

I've mentioned before that parking rules don't seem to be enforced at all. Here are a few more examples of that.

This is the sidewalk on the SNU campus heading up to the Language Education Building, a sliver of which is visible on the left side of the picture. I walk this route almost every weekday, coming from the main gate.

As you can see, there is no parking allowed on this side of the street, as indicated by the unbroken yellow line. Yet there is always a line of cars parked halfway up onto the sidewalk. Sometimes the line of cars extends all the way down the full length of the road. It's very frustrating as a pedestrian, because there isn't enough room on the sidewalk if people are walking in both directions at once. Yet despite the fact that there are dozens of campus employees regulating traffic within a few hundred yards of this spot, these cars are never ticketed or towed.

In the picture below, I've reached the LEI building, and am looking left down a narrow road running along the edge of the building. Parking is only allowed on one side of this narrow road -- the left side -- but that rule is completely ignored.


I think the no parking sign in the foreground has been placed there, on the corner, so that a small space will be left open for pedestrians to get up onto the sidewalk after crossing the street.

Here's a picture I took two blocks east of my building. The white car is parked on the sidewalk, completely blocking it. The black car is double-parked next to it, in a no-parking zone.

What's funny about this is that they are both parked directly across the street from the local police station.


Since I don't know where else in the blog to put this, I've thrown it in here. A few weeks ago I went out to get a 200-won cup of coffee (about 20 cents) from the vending machine in the lobby of our classroom building, and this is what it looked like:

Pretty cool, huh?

Pojang Macha

As in other Asian countries, one of the great things about Korea is that city streets are bustling at night. In America, residential neighborhoods and business districts alike are essentially deserted after 7 pm on weeknights; most people are home watching TV. But in Seoul in the evenings people are out walking the streets. Not only restaurants but also retail establishments are open until 9, 10, or even later every evening.

In many neighborhoods pojang macha (포장마차 布帳馬車) are a fixture on busy sidewalks. Pojang macha literally means "canopied horse cart", and refers to mobile food stalls. Nowadays, of course, there are no more horses, but most of the carts are on wheels and some are motorized. The pojang macha serve a wide variety of snack foods, some traditional and some new. They are good for a quick, cheap meal or for an after-dinner snack. In the cold winter weather, stopping at one for a hot bite after a long walk outside is especially appealing.

Here's what a pojang macha looks like.


A disadvantage is that they narrow the crowded sidewalks and add to congestion, especially when customers are huddled in front eating.

Here's a front view of one that sells traditional fare, including a lot of dried fish and squid, as well as grilled meat:

These big hunks of squid looked pretty interesting to me:


Perhaps the most prototypical pojang macha food is tteokbokkgi 떡볶기, chunks of chewy glutinous-rice dumplings served hot in a spicy red sauce.

A newer snack that is quite popular these days is dak kkochi 닭꽃이, grilled chicken kebabs.


They come in anglicized shyoteu 쇼트 and rong 롱 sizes. The scissors visible at the bottom of the frame are for cutting off the ends of the wooden skewers as you eat your way down, so that you don't have to maneuver your mouth around a dangerously pointy length of bare wood.

At this particular stand, we had a choice of four kinds of spicy sauce. In increasing degree of spiciness, they were called: maekom 매콤 "spicy-ish", nunmul 눈물 "eye-watering", konmul 콧물 "nose-running", and poktan 폭탄 "explosive". We got konmul, which turned out to be pretty darn spicy, as Erma is about to discover:


Sweet snacks are also available. One of my favorites is hotteok 호떡, a hotcake flavored with honey and cinnamon cooked on an oiled griddle. Usually they are thick and flat, but there is one seller outside the front gate of Yonsei that makes a puffed version that is grilled dry. They cost 600 won each, about 70 cents.


Both tteokbokkgi and hotteok belong to the broader food class of tteok 떡: glutinous rice cake. There is a nearly infinite variety of tteok, some of which are similar to Japanese mochi もち.

One day in Insadong, we saw a tteok-maker preparing the sticky snacks in the traditional manner, which involves repeatedly pulverizing the rice-dough with a wooden mallet.


We also saw another traditional type of candy, gangjeong 강정, being made there. At the left edge of the picture below, you see a mixture of puffed rice, sesame, peanuts and sugar being deep-fried in oil.


The cooked, sticky mixture is then spread out in a shallow rectangular frame and rolled smooth with a rolling pin.


Then it is removed from the frame and sliced into bite-size pieces.


Speaking of Insadong, here's a picture taken there a few days ago, of me with a robot. The robot is a promotional gimmick for a brand of water heater.


Although not sold at pojang macha, a few other items are worth mentioning in a blog entry on Korean street food. Automatic coffee-vending machines are very popular in Seoul. They can be found in subway stations, on sidewalks, and in a lot of buildings (including the Yonsei Korean Language Institute). On many days during class breaks, Erma and I bought, for 150 won (about 16 cents!), a 4-oz cup of milk coffee dispensed hot into a paper cup. (These machines also sell coffee mixed with the popular local brand of non-dairy creamer, Frima 프리마. The origin of the Romanized spelling--the Korean is pronounced peurima--is a mystery.)

Nowadays, in the global Starbucks era, espresso drinks are also commonly available. This vending machine was photographed in the subway:


This is a close-up of the button at the upper left:


It says kapuchino 카푸치노, and promises a "large cup" of "whole-bean coffee" for 600 won, about 70 cents.

Lastly, you can see a lot of interesting live seafood on the sidewalk in front of some restaurants. These bivalves in Shinchon (are they mussels?) are mind-bogglingly huge.


I don't think I sampled enough street food during my time here. Something to look forward to on my next trip.