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I suspect that I’ll never really succeed in conveying the allure of Japanese vending machines to my fellow Americans, despite my concerted effort to do so in my travel blog. People I’ve spoken to since returning have looked at me with thinly hidden skepticism when I expound upon my fascination, or when I remark that domestic vending machines are entirely dull and narrow by comparison.

As evidence that I’m not the only one with this fascination, and that there is at least one other person whose obsessive interest completely overshadows my casual observation, I direct you to this site. Someone in Japan takes photos of the same vending machine nearly every day and documents any changes they observe. It appears that they’ve been doing this for over two years. The site is in Japanese but you can pretty much get the idea anyway, and Google’s translation service can help fill in the blanks and/or make it all seem sillier than it already is.