They are everywhere - in the city, along country roads, even at the top of Mount Fuji.
Japan seems to be full of vending machines.
They sell juice, beer, cigarettes, batteries, newspapers, tickets, the list goes on and on. They have pushed their way into the national lifestyle so much that they seem essential. There were 5,500,400 vending machines in Japan in 1998, according to one survey. This figure is higher than that of any other country, yet Japan does not have the most vending machines. That honor belongs to the United States, which recently had 6.89 million of them, according to a 1997 survey.