#so I imagine and based on the Yokohama brochure | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

traveling-couch-potato · 5 years

Text

Japan Day 33

Trip is slowly winding down and my last two days in Japan will be back to those solo travel days now that all my friends have left. Found it a bit hard to wake up this morning but managed to roll out of bed and got to Megan just in time for lunch. I’ve been dying to try their lunch menu and they did not disappoint.

Seriously this sandwich was so delicious. I absolutely need to try recreating this at home.

Now that I was fueled up I was ready to make the trip out to Yokohama. Of course in the station I end up getting a pastry...go figure... Right out of the station I was greeted by the large ferris wheel of Yokohama Cosmoworld.

My first stop, the Cup of Noodles Museum, was only a few blocks away. I didn’t expect this place to look so sleek. It’s comparable to most of the modern art museums I’ve been to!

Whoever designed this museum really elevated cup of noodles into an art form.

The actual museum portion isn’t too large. There’s one main floor with the more educational/inspirational exhibits. Some history, some eye-catching displays that encourage imagination, and a cool wall to wall display of Nissan’s various products. Most of the text is in Japanese but they do offer an English audio guide (if you’re able to get the app to work)

A recreation of the garden shed where Momofuku experimented w/ various methods to develop the first instant ramen.

My favorite part of the display floor was the room-size timeline of Nissan’s different instant noodle products.

There’s not too much to do for adults in the museum since their playground is restricted to children. I walked along the upstairs balcony for a while before deciding to grab some food at the Noodle Bazaar. The mini marketplace offers a variety of noodle dishes from all over the world that were supposedly part of Momofuku’s noodle development journey. All the dishes are in a mini size which is perfect since that meant I could have multiple items.

A nice view of the surrounding Yokohama area.

I was surprised that the dishes were half decent for what is essentially food court food! Great way to get just a taste of everything.

After eating second lunch, it was finally my reservation time for my Build-your-Own Cup of Noodle activity. You take your reservation card that you got when you bought your admission ticket to the 3rd floor and they let you into the area where you use a vending machine to purchase your own empty cup. You’re then herded to a table to decorate your cup. Once you’re done you get in line to fill your cup w/ noodles, add toppings, and finally seal/shrink wrap your personalized package.

The BYO area. It’s huge but you need a reservation time to come in cause it’s definitely their most popular activity.

I spent so long decorating my cup. Not gonna lie, I’m proud of it.

I went w/ a seafood noodle base and for my toppings I got cheese, crab, fish cakes, and green onion. Hope it tastes good...

Right outside the cup of noodle museum is a large shopping mall with a Hamley’s, a popular London toy shop. I decided to give it a quick look and since there was a food court downstairs, how could I not pick up some ice cream too (also some pastries...seriously the carb cravings here are off the chart)

The majority of the downstairs food court is Hawaiian themed so I went with some delicious macadamia nut ice cream.

I basically ended up having dessert before dinner since now I was heading off toward Shin-Yokohama to go to the Shin-Yokohama Ramen Museum. The top floor of the museum has a dense but very informative display on the history and timeline of ramen. I took photos of some of my favorite panels for my own reference and I’m uploading them here cause...this is my blog I do what I want.

Outside of this floor, the bottom floor is essentially a recreation of an old-timey Japanese town complete with fake sky for ambience, little fake shops, and of course lots of ramen stores. You order at the machine then wait in line to get seated. They even have a little sign telling you how long the wait at each restaurant is, just like you’d see at Disneyland. It was adorable. They have great guides online and in their brochure about the specialty of each restaurant and their origins. I went with Rishiri Ramen Miraku & Ryu Shanghai Honten since I felt those two had the most unique offerings. I really enjoyed both, especially the kelp based ramen from Rishiri. They also offer most of their bowls in a half size which is perfect if you just want a bite of everything like me.

This should’ve been the end of my food day but on the way home, Kobeya Bakery (which I already got a pastry from this morning...) had a 30% off sale and I just had to pick me up a pudding tart.

Seriously I ate so many pastries and ramen today. How am I still alive...

Overall it was a fun day...basically just food, food, and more food...aka a fun day like I said.

3 notes · View notes