The Tokyo Metro Japanese Ramen Vending Machine Challenge and 10 Reasons to Bring a 10-Year Old to Tokyo

The Ramen vending machine challenge

Monday's Ramen Vending Machine Lunch Adventure
The Japanese love vending machines.  It appeals to their sense of efficiency, economy and service.  You need a snack or a drink?  You are never far from a machine that will quickly, cheaply and without attitude produce a variety of snacks and beverages.  The machines take coins, bills and your pre-filled Metro card, but not likely any of your credit cards.

So when I read about a Ramen shop in the bottom of a Metro station that  required you to order your Ramen from a vending machine, it was too much of a challenge to ignore.

If you have been reading some of my previous blogs about my experiences here in Tokyo, you will probably know that I did three things:
1.  I read and researched [excessively] how to order from the vending machine
2.  I read and researched [excessively] how to find the Ramen shop
3.  I failed at 1. and 2.

Tokyo Metro Ramen Kiosk

But as luck would have it, I stumbled on a random vending machine shop at the basement of the Tokyo Metro Station and although it wasn't the Ramen shop I was looking for, when the unknowing and uninformed travel in Tokyo, one learns to adjust to all sorts of disappointments and failures.  To clarify, you do not make a Ramen selection, feed money into the slot and then wait for the vending machine to produce a cup, some dried noodles and hot water and go on your merry way.  This is a  country of culinary civilization.  The vending machine allows you to select from a wide variety of Ramen options (with pictures), requires you to pay for your selection, then gives you a ticket that you hold on to  until the guy at the counter looks your way. Hand him your ticket.  And now you wait again, but not for long.

Don't know what Ramen this is but can point to photo

Soon, a black tray with a hot, steamy bowl of Ramen from the crowded kitchen kiosk appears and you pick it up and march it to one of the long, high shelves that serves as the communal dining area.

Note that I have taken you very quickly through the process to where we are now enjoying this bowl of Ramen with soba noodles and  have skipped the obvious:  How did I manage to order it?  Answer:  By holding up the line and having someone come to my aid.

In fairness, I stood for quite a while watching the vending selection process and then cross checked the button someone punched with what their bowl of Ramen looked like.  I cannot begin to explain the variety of things one can order, but if you count the buttons on the photo of the vending machine, that will give you some indication of the choices.  Some of the buttons are just toppings; others are bowls that require you to add your favorite toppings. I really thought I had it mastered.  I didn't.  Like all things Japanese, there is a process, an order in which to do things and the first mistake I made was not obeying the order of things.  I wish I could claim that I am wiser now for having gone through yesterday's vending exercise, but were I to return there today--and since that's totally out of the realm of navigational probability--I would still need assistance to successfully order a lousy bowl of Ramen on my own.

I'm not sure how long it would take me to master the art of Tokyo Metro Japanese Ramen vending machine ordering, but at my age, I suspect I don't have that long on earth to find out.  So, as Blanche DuBois has so poignantly observed, "I have always depended on the kindness of strangers."  I'm guessing none of hers were Japanese.

Ten Reasons to Bring a 10-year Old With You to Tokyo
I'm fairly convinced that the best companion for a Westerner in Tokyo would be a 10-year old.  There are a number of reasons for this which I have begun to catalogue internally, but during yesterday's Ramen lunch, I decided that among the many, many good reasons, the number one reason is this: slurping.

Like so many ordinary behaviors, the Japanese have elevated slurping to an art.  And here's the thing--when eating Ramen, it's compulsory.  And here's the other thing:  I can't do it. Western culture and my mother wiped out my slurping instincts years ago.   But I would bet you a 100 sticks of yakitori that any 10-year old could pull off expert slurping without a hitch.  And he or she would be thrilled to instruct you in perfecting the technique.

Kids are natural slurpers.  What parent has not heard themselves chide a child taking on a bowl of noodle soup with, "Stop that slurping!"  But stand around a group of Japanese addressing their lunchtime bowls of Ramen, and all one hears are loud, sloppy sucking noises.  At first, you may think you have been transported to the middle school cafeteria on spaghetti and meat sauce day.

But the thinking is that, when done correctly, slurping noodles maximizes the experience of the Ramen because it delivers the noodles with the perfect amount of broth into the mouth at the same time.

I have put my lips to a lot of slurping  practice here in Tokyo and rather than that luscious, slightly erotic sound produced by master slurpers,  I dry-squeak like a bad first kiss.  Every mouth muscle in my face is rejecting the movements at the same time my brain is trying to redirect my puckered lips to master the perfect combination of noodle speed and broth inhalation.  Can't do it.  Pass the 10-year old,  dōzo.

Nine more reasons to bring a 10-year old to Tokyo

2)  The ubiquity of the "yuck" factor.  Show me a 10-year old who doesn't have both a highly-developed sensibility for yuckiness and an appreciation for it at the same time and I'll show you a 10-year old who can't sing all the lyric's to Taylor Swift's 1989. 

3)  Drinking out of bowls.  If you don't think this is fun, ask a 10-year old.

4)  Unbridled consumerism.  Ok, that spans a lot of ages, but a 10-year old's ability to blow a wad of your cash is just taking shape.

5)  Japan's respect for rules.  Because  clouds of rebellious hormones have not begun gathering, 10-year old's are still young enough to like knowing the rules and enjoy obeying them.  It's the ultimate in fairness, a topic any 10-year old can hold forth on.

6) Appetite.  Even though many 10-year olds have a good, hearty appetite, consider the economies realized at feeding a kid at 10 over that same kid at 16.

7) Chopsticks.  Ten-year olds like learning new things and then showing off to their friends.  A simple matter of popularity.  A kid who's proficient with chopsticks could usher themselves right to the pick of the prom line when the time comes.

8) The 10,000 Yen.  Give a 10-year old a crisp 10,000 Yen bill (equivalent to about $100) and tell him that's his spending money for the trip and he'll think he's got $10,000.  Don't ever come clean on this.

9)  Japanese school uniforms.  Think:  gratitude.  

Picture any 10-year old you know wearing this hat and uniform

10)  Final reason, and I'm not proud to say this:  Obedience.  You can get them to do anything you want them to do under the veiled threat to leave them alone or, in the case of extreme measures, abandon them in a foreign country.

Have a nice day.

Bonus photo

Last night's dinner from grocery convenience store.  $8.