Tokyo Times

Recently, the owner of the Tokyo restaurant below opted for a ‘Japanese only’ policy due to the coronavirus outbreak. In his tweet announcing the decision, he was at pains to stress that it wasn’t in any way discriminatory. Instead, it was simply a way to try and protect his family, staff and the eatery’s customers.

A controversial move it has to be said, but one that doesn’t seem to have affected business, as on Monday (a national holiday), there was a long line of people waiting to get in. All of them Japanese of course.

Japan is well known for its vending machines. With good reason too, as despite the ever-increasing number of convenience stores, the vending machine is still ubiquitous. Yet seeing one that’s no longer operational, let alone left to rot, is surprisingly rare, so below is a selection of the ones I’ve stumbled upon over the years. Some are still there, some may well be long gone, but in their own decaying way, all of them were oddly interesting.

This old punk likes a drink, but he loves The Damned a lot more.