Back in my old school, they had a [tag]vending machine[/tag] next to the staff common room selling soft drinks. It dispensed the drinks in a paper cup, not the tin can version. Vending machines were quite a new thing back then, and all of us in school were quite proud of it.
Some other schools had vending machines selling packet drinks, that wasn’t as cool as ours; ours had [tag]Coke[/tag], Orange Crush, and more importantly, [tag]Fanta Grape[/tag]. For some strange reason, Fanta Grape was far and away the most popular drink, it was always the first to sell out after they refill the machine. We could actually buy any kind of soft drink from the less than hygienic canteen in our school, but buying from that vending machine was so much ‘cooler’.
That old machine wasn’t very smart – It couldn’t detect if it ran out of paper cups. So if you bought a drink when the cups ran out, the soft drink would just dispense out onto the floor, and there goes your 50sen. Yep, a cup of soft fizzy drink cost so much back then…
At the same time, in the district hospital in town, there was another kind of vending machine – this one sold hot drinks like coffee, tea and hot chocolate. As a kid, my dad let me try the hot chocolate once, it was freaking hot, but tasted fabulous!
I still see those kind of machines around, now they have espresso and other designer coffee… the last time I had the hot chocolate again was in the dead of the night waiting for the birth of first kid. This was in a far different hospital from that one in the old hometown.
Nowadays they have vending machines for everything under the sun – stamps, postcards, candy bars, etc. In Japan they even have machines selling French fries , sandwiches and other fresh food.
And guess what my friends in school call our the soft drinks from the vending machine? ‘Kencing robot’ *.
* Translation – Robot piss.
13 Comments
hippo
The drink was usually made up of 3 different ‘ingredients’ and sometimes 2 of them would have run out, leaving you with half a cup of gassy water that tasted a bit rubbish!
Jason
Now that you mention it, sure does bring back alot of old memories.
andycjw
i once had a paper cup that is bottomless from similar vending machine, talk about getting pissed off
Inevitable
Well, while I was at Shanghai, they have robot kencing selling condom…
mama23beas
A few months ago, I went to the maternity clinic in UMMC and found out that they had removed the robot that used to sell hot and cold drinks in cups…my kid was dissapointed!
Agree with hippo, I used to pray by a machine that it had all the ‘ingredients’ after inserting the coins!
Ken
Wa… memories… hehe… My school didn’t have one, but kids used to flock the one at the town library and strangely, those that finish first weren’t Coca Cola, not Pepsi, but Cincau…
Lian
Mine didn’t have a vending machine. We were all excited when we got a water cooler. Hahahah.
kenny Lee
lol, kencing robot!!!!!
rascher
Haha! I remember we had the soft drink vending machine in our canteen in my school. Yeah, 50 cents for a drink of Coke in a soft cup. And I remember our old canteen man would have to refill/repair the machine quite a bit – he wasn’t a happy man. I loved to press the buttons! Too bad they didn’t have Zapple.
Jayelle
Wahhhh…Going Back In Time With Simon punya series ar?:)
simon
hippo – yeah! that happened a lot too!
andycjw – money down your pants!
inevitable – then its not ‘kencing’ robot la.
mama23beas – but ummc got good canteen, right?
ken – what?! cincau? why?!!?
lian – we also had a water cooler. everyone drank from it, even though we knew it was tap water.
rascher – i never liked zapple. too sweet for me, and it always tasted ‘un-apple-ish’.
…jayelle – ok, ok, i blog about something else tomolo!
Ken
Dunno why… my division experiences mostly hot weather throughout the schooling months, so I guess their parents asked them to drink cincau… Hahahahaha…
Daniel
I couldn’t understand some parts of this article lks.com – That Old Vending Machine, but I guess I just need to check some more resources regarding this, because it sounds interesting.