Udon vending machine in Japan.

Oh, I do love nixie tubes!

John Rehwinkel

I like! I'll have to go check more out. Cool!

Michael Thompson

That guy's channel is amazing. So many cool vending machines!

James Sutherland

In my younger days (and probably even now) I'd have been one of the people sitting on my own at that bench eating my bowl of Udon noodles.

Big Clive

In the USA the cheapest "Ramen" a fried noodle. Is very inexpensive 10 servings for $1.00. I like them even uncooked. very crunchy and if you sprinkle the soup powder over them its pretty good as a very quick snack. But I like adding things to the cooked noodles. once the noodles are done and very hot add a single slice of American cheese. (yes processed chess) and stir until it resolves and enjoy. The other thing I do is add once large egg beaten and slowly drizzled into the freshly made soup while stirring.

Charles Bruckner

You’re just itching to fix it now aren’t you?

It’s Japan. It WILL be sanitary. You could eat off their frickin’ sidewalks. Don’t forget it’s not actually critical that the inside of the machine is completely clean. As long as the bowls and food and water are hygienic it’s OK. Nothing from the machine except water goes into or touches the bowl content.

They've made a lot of these, and they're pretty much all fascinating - as you say, the everyday working-class side of Japan that basically never gets any coverage over here. Search for "Document 72 Hours" and risk falling down the rabbithole. :)

Mike Knell

In my home town of St Andrews on Sundays you can buy a pie from Macarthur's hot pie vending machine. I doubt it's so interesting inside, though.

Stephen King

Going by the Chinese and Japanese shops I've visited in the UK I'd say that the packs or cups of noodles are probably really cheap in their supermarkets there. I think a lot of people rely on them as a meal when money's tight. I certainly used to eat them a lot in the more uncertain times.

Big Clive

Sadly there are no udon vending machines near here.

Big Clive

That was actually quite a touching video showing the working class side of Japan we normally never see. That machine was really needing fixed. It seemed to be relying on the hot water overflowing instead of being spun out. The flavouring it adds at the end must have been really diluted as a result. I guess it might be a Miso style flavouring?

Big Clive

I instantly thought the same thing :-D There are cirtain types of Nixie tube that have a red coating on them. But it is definetely interesting that they still use them in those vending machines (or are these vintage vending machines?)

Kevin Bornewasser

Noodles with Mystery Meat, untouched by human hands.

Phil Collins

It says 300 yen on the machine, which is about 10x that. But this is udon soup made from (relatively speaking) fresh ingredients with actual vegetables/meat in it, not deepfried instant noodles with flavouring powder.

So if coup of noodles is 25 cents in freedom bucks how much are they in China or Korea or Japan. I mean they have to travel across the pond to get here.

Judging by the rust and particle accumulation at 0:17 in the video, this thing is never sanitized, it is just wiped down.

Well there goes 30 minutes of my life! Thank you - oddly compelling watching!

Dave Treadwell

NHK made a rather nice (short) documentary following 72 hours in the life of an udon vending machine a while back: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nb1W-NfH1u4" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nb1W-NfH1u4</a>

Mike Knell

Damnit Clive! Can't hit like on this one because it made me hungry.

Scott Miller

Wouldn’t it have been easier to just provide you with a kettle?

Mike Knell

In 1985 they replaced our vending machine in the remote development workshop with a very complicated drink machine. It could produce many soups, other drinks and make REAL TEA it had a roll of filter paper that would be trapped by a short plastic tube / ring where the tea leaves were placed (you could alter the strength) hot water was added for it to brew, after a delay a piston below the filter paper would pull a vacuum and drop it in the cup with optional milk (powder :-// taste ) it was OK but not worth it. The lasses that serviced the machine would often mix up the hoppers ....it was not nice when they swapped 1/ Oxtail soup with the Coffee 2/ Milk powder with the Chicken soup or sugar The most stupid thing was that the TEA ring above the filter paper had the sugar and milk added at that stage, on a Monday morning the the Tea ring would be glued to the filter paper if the last person has a sweet tea; since the default position was ring down ? Memories of tea with chicken soup powder in place of milk powder is still with me to this day..... ALSO when the paper got stuck it would brew with the previous contents still inside the tea ring,,, Oh the joy of it, tasty fungal drinks. John

John Harrison

As someone whose designed food handling equipment to USDA standards, this thing, while ingenious would be impossible to certify. Where to start! Crevices everywhere, no double seals around bearings, no fillets anywhere.

by the looks of it you can just kinda pressure was the insides to keep it clean

Orkekum

Looks quite nice though.

Neil Tonks

Where those red Nixie tubes???? &lt;3 I need red ones now

I already subscribe to that channel, lol.

Note the nixie tubes. It's a very old machine. Still running on relays and a bank of cam-switches to sequence the vending.

Big Clive

Very cool!

AESFTW