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One of the things that would probably stick with me for a long time regarding my recent holiday in Japan is the complicated-looking food ordering machines that are located outside certain food joints. Coincidentally, my initial encounter with these machines happened to be on the very first night we landed in the country where almost everything was fascinating.

To gain a better perspective on the restaurants within and nearby the hotel, we sought the help of the hotel staff, who was bilingual. So after we chucked our luggage in our crammed hotel room in Shinjuku, Tokyo, we surveyed the restaurants at the hotel. We took a look at our watches and realised that it was already 10.30pm! Yes, we were starving! Understandably, most restaurants would have been closed already. However, we were lucky to find one that would close at 11pm! Yay!

So we stepped inside, with the presumption that we should make our orders from the only guy manning the counter. When we stated our intentions to make orders, he somehow said “Outside ticket!” Thinking that he didn’t understand us the first time, my dad repeated himself. With a highly audible “Outside ticket”, the man at the counter extended one arm to indicate that we should head outside.

Huh? Outside? What do you mean we had to go outside?

Just then, my mum had her ‘lightbulb moment’. “Oh! Look, there’s a ticketing machine outside!”

It didn’t strike our minds though that the food ordering machine would have Japanese-only instructions! At this point, my mum realised “Aiya, I can only read some (of the characters)”. The only consolation was that there were matching pictures to the food choices available. Still, we couldn’t quite understand what we were supposed to do.

Thank goodness we spotted a friendly Japanese man who was about to place his order. While he did show us some basics, we noticed that he himself was struggling with his own order, too.

At first, my dad thought of ordering one tempura and one soba. So based on the Japanese man’s guidance, my dad pressed the buttons underneath the pictures, once each. God knows why it took so long for any ticket to appear. Then, I told my dad “Oh, see? There is a red indicator, which probably means “Item Unavailable!”

Tired, my mum and I then decided to go back into the restaurant to rest our butts. Eventually, my dad joined us with the heads-up “I’ve ordered one ramen and one soba”. Well, we waited for our order(s) only to realise that two of the same varieties of soba appeared on the tray that my dad was carrying to our table.

In the end, we told ourselves to just eat. I couldn’t tell if it was because of our hunger pangs, but the soba tasted surprisingly authentic.

When we related this adventure to one of my mum’s Japanese friends, he reacted with a “Why did you order from such a Japanese restaurant?” He echoed our exact sentiments when he said “Those machines are very confusing!”

At the same time, we told him that it was an experience that we’ve never had before! Even my mum, who can finally say that she has visited Japan twice, found it eye-opening.

Thank God Malaysia doesn’t have these machines… yet!