Hey Hive!
So if you missed the last couple of posts, we're currently on another journey to Japan after we finished our final semester of college back in January 2019! And it was coincidentally around Valentines' Day too! We initially talked about wanting to visit South Korea but a Delta Airlines deal kinda changed our plans so.. to Tokyo once again!
But this time we were staying somewhat outside Tokyo in an area called Omorimachi. And last week, we went exploring Yokohama's central business district called Minato-Mirai and went mall crawling for a bit, ending up at a Snoopy store!
And at the end of the last post, I shared a secret teaser for the special place we were gonna be visiting today, so let's go!
18 February 2019. Monday.
But first, breakfast! We had bought a chocolate cheese tart from PABLO the night before and got to enjoy it before we left the apartment!
We also bought a PABLO pie which was a crispy apple pie!
It was actually really good if I recall correctly! The filling to pastry ratio was perfect, the pastry itself was crispy and too flaky or dry, while the apple filling was nice and not too sweet. Probably one of the best apple pies I've eaten, and miles above McDonalds' pies!
After that delicious breakfast, we made our way to Yokohama once again!
According to Google this was a pretty famous landmark in Yokohama! Literally called The Yokohama Landmark Tower, it is the second tallest building and 4th tallest structure in Japan, standing 296.3 m high!
Tbh it didn't look that impressive compared to the surrounding buildings, and definitely compared to the other skyscrapers we visited! But I guess it's supposed to be significant in some way. It did have a unique shape I guess. The building itself contains a five-star hotel which occupies floors 49–70, with 603 rooms in total. The lower 48 floors contain shops, restaurants, clinics, and offices
Here is a closeup of the theme park (which we'll be visiting a little later)! Because right now, we were heading to a very special building - the Cup Noodles Museum!!
We'd read about this place long ago when I saw some article about it on Facebook. And after taking a course in college called Itadakimasu: Food in Japan, we actually did study about cup noodles! I think we even wrote a report about it at some point and it was actually really interesting! So it only made sense that we visit it!
I might've been too excited just looking at everything that I missed out on taking some pictures so I'll try to supplement with Google if I can.
Source: jw-webmagazine
I actually read about this smartphone generation being too absorbed in their phones to really enjoy the moment so I tried to balance that whenever we visit a new place. But obviously it makes it tough when you're blogging about it.
But anyway, this interactive museum is designed to stir the creativity and curiosity within every child and provide a rich educational experience. And also to let people learn about the creative thinking of Momofuku Ando, the founder of Nissin and inventor of Chicken Ramen and the famous Cup Noodles that everyone knows! In fact, the museum's logo is also modeled after the Cup Noodles design!
Source: Japanese Taste
Once you enter the museum the first thing you see is this photo standee of Momofuku Ando and his wife beside the first chicken ramen that he invented!
Then came some literal walls of text with photos and illustrations depicting his life and I guess how he became the inventor of cup noodles. Unfortunately all the text was in Japanese so I couldn't read much (or any) of it..
Then we arrived in a room where there was just walls of unique cup noodle products arranged chronologically from when they were invented!
It was a whole room literally full of history and food! Here's a video:
It was truly impressive to see all the products laid out like that! We spent some time here trying to find out which ones we actually recognised and tried, which was maybe only 1% or less of all that was shown here.
On the last wall was just column of all the international instant noodle products stacked up nicely and neatly! It really soothed my OCD tendencies.
It also made a great spot for taking photos!
Here were the Singaporean ones that we recognised!
Walking along, we came to one of the many interactive workshops and activities you can do in the museum, which range from learning to make cup noodles from scratch, watching an animation in the Momofuku Theater of how Momofuku Ando overcame adversity to make his unique inventions, and even creating your own unique cup of noodles by choosing ingredients and decorating the cup itself!
Source: cupnoodles-museum
You had to pay for some of the attractions separately though, especially for the cooking class. But this was the area where you could design your own cup noodles!
And this was the cooking class!
I was really excited to try designing our own cup noodles and there were specific timeslots to attend since it was kinda crowded. So we went to go prepare for the next available timeslot.
First, we had to actually purchase a cup from a vending machine at the side.
After that we headed back to the main area to queue up and there was this sign with instructions.
When there were spots open at the tables, we were allowed in and we settled in to draw on our cups!
It took me a little while to come up with a design since I was kinda lost, but I decided to draw Sally from LINE Friends!
After we were done drawing, we headed to the front where you had to queue up and get your noodles made! It was kinda like a buffet line where you could pick what ingredients, soups and toppings you wanted for your noodles! But there was just a sea of people at the time so we waited.
We did get to peek in on the cooking class and it did look pretty interesting, but also kinda tiring, since you actually had to knead the dough and stuff.
It was ridiculously crowded at the time. Both at the drawing section and at the food filling section. But eventually we got to fill up our cups with noodles!
After we filled up our cups, it was time to wait yet again so we could get to the ingredients.
It was cool seeing all the noodles coming down the conveyor belt though.
Eventually it was our turn and here we could see all the options for soups and toppings we could choose! Unfortunately it was all in Japanese, but the pictures helped.
I decided on curry, with pork, shrimp, egg, cheese and vegetables. I couldn't really decide but I think they only allowed 5 toppings. We made sure to choose different ingredients so we could try them out though.
Here I am choosing my toppings:
And this was Sean choosing his:
And this was the inside of our cup noodles!
After that we were given a bag and headed in line for the sealing station!
So they put the peelable top on our cup noodles and sealed it up:
Before shrink wrapping it!
This was the whole sealing process!
Then we headed to the packing station where we had to put our cup noodles in the inflatable package they gave us!
We had to put our noodles in the bag and then inflate it so it'd be sealed and also to make it travel-ready for tourists I suppose.
And once that was done, we had completed making our very own cup noodles! What a unique and fun experience! If you ever visit Yokohama, I highly recommend it!
That's gonna be all for today! Tune in next week when we explore more of the Cup Noodle Museum!
Fittingly, I'm listening to this as I'm writing this post XD
Thanks so much for reading!
To find out more about me, check out my intro post here!
Check out my previous post in this series!
TacoCat’s Travels #132 (Japan 6.0): Snooping around Yokohama's pretty lights! ✨
