Shopping for food and drink overseas is SO MUCH FUN. I love spying the shelves, sussing out the selection of soft drinks, chewing gum and chocolate bars. I could spend hours in there giggling over packets and brand names- especially in Asia.
So when we arrived in Osaka, I couldn’t wait to get to the grocery store. (Is that weird?) As I walked through the doors of the local 7/11, I stopped short. This was my face.
There was just soooo much wacky stuff to choose from, and it was ALL super cheap. There were colourful products and advertising and voices and video screens talking at me while I shopped. This place could keep you fed for a week and you wouldn’t get bored. Bento boxes, sushi rolls, steamed and baked gourmet goods, chocolate bars and energy drinks- you wouldn’t need to cook ever again!
And outside the 7/11 were rows of vending machines. They were almost everywhere I looked- there’s one machine per every 23 people. They have all sorts of things inside: hot cans of coffee, steamed buns, figurines and even um… used underwear?
So with both goodies in 7/11 and an assortment of vending machine cuisine to consume and only two weeks to try it all in, we decided to document our findings. We chose the wackiest of the wack, the craziest of the cray. If I couldn’t understand what was on the bottle, I bought it.
Here, is my Japanese vending machine and 7/11 drink diary…
Fibe mini and Vitamin Lemon. Fizzy and good for the digestive system apparently.
Lemon Vitamin/Collagen and a Chocola RB Light. Rannndomm.
Two totally unknown drinks. Tasted like concentrated Berocca. Yummy.
Two steaming hot Boss coffees. It’s weird drinking hot coffee in a can.
Fire Coffee and Emerald Mountain Coffee. I have never had caffeine induced heart palpitations quite like it.
Gigantic version of the Vitamin Lemon drink. Great for hangovers.. and for replenishing fluids lost while posing in photo booths.
A vitamin juice and a crazy R-1 Energy drink. Shotted straight down, like tequila.
Hands down, the worst coffee of my life. Tasted like century old filter coffee, mixed with mud water.
The Collagen and an unknown bottle of fizzy stuff. Tasted pretty alright.
I wish you could see this closer- this was the most OUTRAGEOUS drink we had- mine was called Ex-placenta! And… it tasted pretty damn good.
Believe it or not, but this is a regular coffee, with milk and sugar.
A cute kitty-cat coffee. From Home Cafe, Tokyo.
Doctor Coffee and Fire Coffee. Milky, sweet and hot. So weird to drink.
A packet of chocolate biscuits that were stale and a Doctor coffee. Breakfast of champs.
This was some warm Sake that we had an endless supply of. Delicious, and the perfect tonic in the cold.
