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.

No gifts, please. Maybe you want to put those pig's feet in the fridge?

Hello everybody.
Minasan konnichiwa.    

If we are lucky, we have among our family and friends someone who is a really good gift-giver.   I am a terrible gift giver.  If I ever start to think otherwise, my children dredge up true tales of birthdays spent weeping and Christmas mornings characterized by perplexity at best  with a layer of raw disappointment the usual order of the day.  Oh, sure, occasionally I'll hit the big time in the same way that a broken clock is right twice a day.  But history aside, it has not stopped me from wandering into the fantasy world of gift giving.

If there were support meetings for bad gift givers as there are for other recoveries, I would be attending one tonight.  I need something to keep me from buying a second suitcase full of things I imagine friends and family would like.  The problem is  that, given the consumer resources this city offers,  I am beginning to fantasize that I could become that really good gift-giver in your life.  My problem is not that I am a bad gift giver, the problem is that, until Tokyo, I've not had the resources commensurate with my dormant, gift giving talents.

It is impossible to explain the intensity of the consumer focus of Tokyo. Every store and stall in the city is one of two types:  retail or food.  The food part is easy.  It's the retail that confounds me.   So I have manufactured a plan and it's this:  when I see something that I am tempted to buy, I take a photo of it and keep on moving.

Here are some of the photos I took today of stuff-I-didn't-buy-but-thought-about.  I leave it to any of you who knows me to to breathe sighs of relief that I did not give into my impulses.

These pugs and tuxedo cat faces are purses.  They are every bit as adorable in real life as they are in this photo.   Surely someone is sorry I passed these up.

(Photo on left)  Although difficult to make out, these are socks.  There is no end to the sock fetish.   Really, winter is almost upon us, who doesn't need a pair of Princess-Whatever-Her-Name-Is socks....?

 Stuffed puppies.  Lots and lots of puppies.  All lined up and dressed up and so adorable with moving parts and little puppy barks.  Better than the real thing.  Who wants some?  A half dozen to start....

T

Back packs.  Needs no explanation.

















I think that should put the gift giving issue to rest.  For those of you harboring delusions along the lines of, "I wonder what Eileen is going to bring me from Japan?" get hold of yourself.  Find a meeting.

On to the Food Scene.  Today I went to Ueno, home to the University of Tokyo, (the Harvard of Japan I've been informed), but also home to an old street market and a number of museums that I wanted to check out.  The market was fabulous.  It was Monday so except for a shrine and the public park, the museums were closed.

Since I'm on a I-didn't-buy-you-this roll, here are a couple photos of food at the market I managed to pass up.  It wasn't dominated by old folks, so they weren't giving out samples either.  Can't figure out the red octopus.  Crabs appeared breaded and deep fried.

But then there's always the lunch challenge.  Today, I scored on that.  I sat myself down at one of those outdoor tables where people were eating hot, steamy bowls of soup.  I assumed it was a Ramen stand so I looked around at what people were eating and this is what I picked.  It was deep, rich and perfectly spiced.  The broth was still bubbling when it arrived.  

Monday's lunch:  a bowl of ramen, I think, at Ueno.  Spicy and satisfying.

Scene from the kitchen with the cooks preparing my bowl of ramen.

I stood at this window for about 10 minutes, watching three cooks in a space about the size of a Victorian closet.  Every bowl of Ramen is prepared individually.  When it comes time to add the noodles, they open a small cellophane-wrapped package of dried noodles.

Stash of ingredients below the window where the cooks were working.  Yes, those are pig's feet and a bag of dough.

With all due respect to the proprietor's casual regard for refrigeration, I am pleased to report that it has been nearly eight hours since I ate at this little bit of Ramen heaven  and am feeling just fine, thank you.  As long as someone is not shooing away flies and vermin with a piece of cardboard, I feel fairly safe going with the street food crowd.

One of the cooks working a pile of chicken parts at the Ramen stand.

Street Food Update
I have begun to reevaluate Japanese street food in a new and discerning light, having had quite a bit of it.  (Ed note:  the Domino's pizza is officially gone. )  On first bite, because the flavors are new--which also makes them exciting--my knee jerk response is to  think that what I'm eating is really good.  Upon reflection, that is not necessarily the case.  Take yesterday.  I took myself over to the Harajuku area of the city where a guidebook mentioned that on Sunday's, the Japanese Rockabillies gather in the park dressed as Elvis, attended by young women wearing what I assume would be trashy Western wear and big hair.  Not so.  At least not yesterday.  So I was adrift in the outskirts of the park, looking for something to eat. There's food everywhere.  It is never a problem to find it.  It's deciding what to eat that's the challenge.  A row of about six stalls, each manned by guys cooking pancakes stuffed with noodles, cabbage and eggs looked, at first glance, very appealing.  (Why do they all sell the very same thing at the same place, right next to each other?  Surely there's a graduate marketing thesis in there somewhere.)  So I got in line--in Tokyo, one learns to tolerate lines-- and did my smiling, pointing, nodding, nodding, nodding ritual that I've pretty much perfected and was rewarded with a pancake weighing about 5 pounds,  painted with a dark sauce, then a festive squirt of mayonnaise, sprinkled with something green and parsley-looking, and, finally a lot of fish flakes: very thin, dried, fishy-smelling flakes of what might be fish scales but probably aren't.  It cost about $5.  A can of Asahi was another $5.  Off I retreated with great happiness to a nearby bench.  One does not walk about eating in Tokyo.  One sits or stands near to where the food or drink was purchased.

Whatever this delicacy was called, it smelled like dried fish and tasted like paste. After about three bites, I'd had enough.   Now here's the problem.  Tokyo does not have trash cans.  When you are finished eating from a stall, you are expected to take your trash back to the stall and hand it over to the proprietor.  They accept it back with good cheer and appreciation.  I didn't want my pancake guy to think that I was not appreciative of his efforts, so I shoved this confection into my backpack and hauled it around for the next 5 hours.  This was not a good idea.  The plastic bags are thin. Chopsticks poke holes.  Mayonnaise runs.  Dried fish does what dried fish does.  If I were a better gift giver, I'd buy myself a new backpack.  (See above photo of backpack display.)

My Monday is already finished and yours is just beginning.  If anyone wants one of those cute purses, let me know by  first thing tomorrow morning.  I'm headed back to Ueno for another bowl of Ramen --if I can find the stall again-- and to put in some serious museum time.  Preview:  The admission cost for adults at the Tokyo Science Center is $6 for adults, $3 for children and, check this out:  Over 65 is free! I love a country that respects its elders.  


See you tomorrow.
Mata, ashita.