Banana vending machine. (Source: http://www.shibukei.com/headline/6996/)

In Japan, you can find vending machines for drinks, ice cream, noodles, umbrellas (!), and many other things. But bananas?

Japan’s first banana vending machine by Dole, installed recently in Tokyo, has become a big hit, selling its entire stock on the first and subsequent days.

The cooled vending machine has been installed in Shibuya Station in an underground connection between the Tokyu Denentoshi Line and Hanzomon Line. In the future, the maker hopes to sell other fruits in vending machines directly inside offices and universities. Dole is apparently targeting people who live alone and don’t have much time to prepare or shop for food.

However, since eating in public is traditionally considered taboo in Japan, most people who buy the bananas take them home, to their office or school.

One banana from the vending machine costs 130 Yen (about $1.50) while a bunch of 5 or 6 bananas costs 390 Yen (about $4.50).

If you're in Japan, look for this or a similar flag to find a kakigori shop.

The psychopathic heat with humidy continues here in Tokyo — today was 36°C or roughly 97°F. Meanwhile, the meteorologists are saying the heat in Japan might last until the end of October. Crazy!

So how can you survive? One of the smarter solutions — besides lots of water, neck coolers, air conditioners and a trip to Antarctica — is snacking on some refreshing shaved ice, called kakigori in Japanese.

Kakigori (かき氷) is a traditional Japanese dessert, a type of ice cream, made in a very simple manner. It consists of crushed (or shaved) ice, covered with syrup of various flavors, typically strawberry, cherry, lemon, green tea, grape, melon and sweet plum.

This refreshing dessert, common also in other East Asian countries, is sold virtually everywhere in Japan during summer months. Some shops serve it with sweet bean paste which is often used as an ingredient in other desserts as well. In supermarkets, you can find it already flavored and packaged like ice cream, sometimes with added fruits.

Japanese are always trying to come up with new varieties of kakigori.

Kakigori can be seen in movies, too. For example, like this scene from Memoirs of a Geisha where Ken Watanabe orders kakigori from a street vendor (look closely towards the end of the video):

Wondering how kakigori is made? We dug up a video showing a type of traditional hand cranked machine for making shaved ice. Besides electric ice shavers, these fine gadgets are still quite common. Watch:

Let’s start off with Japan. A traditional dish around New Year is called mochi or o-mochi, usually dipped in soy sauce. Mochi is made of rice, ground into sticky and smooth paste that can be difficult to chew and swallow for any untrained gourmet. Therefore, the Japanese tend to remind senior citizens around this time of year to be careful while eating mochi as statistically every year about a dozen people choke to death on this dish.

When you survive the dangerous mochi, you can head over to the Middle East and eat some konafa, a dough pastry with added butter, milk, sugar, cream or tapioca, water and lemon juice.

We’re still hungry. Let’s travel to China and order chiao tzu which is known in Japan under the name gyoza. The dish is oriental dumpling, filled with pork or vegetables.

From China, we take a boat to the United States, find a 24-hour supermarket and fill up the shopping cart with a magnificient cooked turkey that will be eaten for Thanksigiving.

Our food crusade takes us to Israel where we drool at the sight of the mysterious latkes which is a type of deep-fried potato pancakes.

We’re on the way to our last destination, Britain, where Prince Charles invites us to dinner with grandiose Christmas Pudding, made of dried figs, raisins, sultanas, apple, pine nuts, almonds, candied peel, honey and mixed spices that are all held together with eggs, breadcrumbs and suet.

Garlic Legend – what? No, this is not the title of a new Harry Potter sequel, but rather a small bag of purple/pink colored garlic cloves with a fancy name “Garlic Legend” which is considered some sort of snack food in Japan.

There is no artificial coloring, so what gives the cloves such color? It’s shiso (紫蘇 – Perilla; Japanese basil) with a strong minty taste. Shiso is a Japanese herb considered rich in vitamins and minerals, stimulates body’s immune system and is also used to preserve and sterilize other foods.

The taste? Hmm… Something between sour and bitter crunchy garlic and mint candy. Something like that. Thus, probably not for everyone.

The octopus character says “Onaka ippaaaaai!” (I’m full!)

Nothing beats a dried octopus snack on a hot summer day! What do you think? Want to try?