As things started to become a bit familiar, there were those places and things we sought out in Japan after a few weeks. One of them was this, what we cleverly named "Hundred Yen Dog", a cheap vending machine that sells everything for ¥100! Also, there's a dog(?) looking longingly at the price on the machine.

When we first found one of these we were amazed since ¥110 was about the cheapest you could get ANY drink from a vending machine. Myself, not a soda drinker, mostly bought foul-tasting canned coffee offered in stunning variety (but mostly uniform in lousy taste across all brands) and tiny portions. This was one of the few machines I could get lousy coffee without feeling gypped quite as bad.

For my mate, it was here he discovered Melon Cream soda.

I'm weird. I cop to it. I hate melon. Water, musk, honeydoo... I loathe them all. I can tolerate a bit of watermelon, but unlike the greater portion of the world which seems to soil itself with excitement over melons, I have no shits to give.

However, melon cream soda (yes I tried it) was pretty damn awesome. It's hard to find too. Sometimes we wouldn't see it for days and searched far and wide to feed my fox's growing habit. We wondered why a Melon Crazy country like Japan, where buying one comes with options for financing, that a melon flavored soda wasn't everywhere.

The melon cream soda is in the upper right of the photo in the light green bottles.

Later we were shocked to find beverages selling for ¥85 and perhaps lower. These drinks were not recognized brands and fell into the "perhaps too cheap" category.