Momofuku Ando is the founder of cup noodles, and the instant ramen museum is located in Ikeda in Osaka, within walking distance from Ikeda station. Entrance is free, although the journey there was quite costly, and took about 50 mins by train...
Chinese poem extolling food
Instant ramen tunnel - a feature wall of different cup noodles throughout the years
Hiyoko-chan cup noodles! 可愛いね!
You can eat ramen even in space! We watched a video of an astronaut eating ramen as he floated about in his spaceship. He didn't look very comfortable though.
Some stats of instant noodles being consumed around the world. China consumes the most at 423 billion. I can't get my head around that figure.
Miniature donland (:
Little kids in their get-up of headscarves and aprons sitting in the workshop learning how to hand-make ramen. We almost wanted to join...except that it had to be pre-booked, and it was all little kids. Yeah.
So we contented ourselves with standing outside and watching them...
But there was one activity we could do, and that was to assemble our very own cup noodles! For 300 yen (S$4.62), you can buy a plain paper cup and doodle on it! Markers are provided and after you've finished drawing, you decide the soup flavour and 4 kinds of ingredients you'd like in your cup noodles, and join the queue to assemble it!
My hiyoko-chan noodle cup (^-^)
Mother, son, grandmother...it's a really good place to go with family, especially those with kids. People of all ages were just sitting around, engrossed in their own doodles. A couple of indulgent mums even allowed their children to doodle on TWO cups each.
Queuing at the counter to choose our ingredients. They had a wide variety to choose from, and the ingredients were real. Not the tiny bits of pseudo-ingredients we always get in cup noodles from the supermarket. And we got to choose from 3 soup flavours: original, curry and something else.
Cup noodle making completed! They provided us with these plastic bags and strings after our cup noodles were sealed, and we had to vacuum-pack it ourselves in a corner where they provided pumps and instructions as to how to go about it. The sign also warned that the vacuum bags cannot be brought up the plane, due to difference in air pressure. So we had to eat it for breakfast the next day.
And this was lunch! Cup noodles, yes. There's a canteen of sorts, where there are vending machines selling different kinds of cup noodles. There are varying sizes, from the kid-sized ones that you can finish in about 2 mouthfuls, to the big ones (like the one I bought!) with gravy and real pork. There are hot water machines too, where you insert the bowl and press the button for water till desired level before taking them out.
Everything's self-service, including disposal of waste. The waste disposal area was interesting, because you had to sort out your own rubbish. It's a little hard to describe, but they had something like holes in a counter, with labels next to each hole telling you what is supposed to go in there. So there's a hole for pouring away of soup dregs, and a hole for your chopsticks, and a hole for paper napkins, and one for the styrofoam bowl etc. I've always thought that the Japanese's way of sorting rubbish was a good idea. 'Cause the recyclables would all be able to go for recycling. They do that even for normal households and I think it's more environmentally-friendly that way.
We passed by this roadside bakery in Ikeda on our way back to the station. My dream right there! To open a quaint roadside cafe/bakery with wooden doors, a big glass window, and a chalkboard outside, just like that #wishonly ♥_♥
The bridge that leads to Osaka Castle. I think it's called Gokuraku-bashi.
Random boy who climbed over the bushes to fish in the moat...
Little ducks paddling along happily in the moat
View from the other side of the moat
We climbed up a rampart. Actually I'm not really sure what it's called. The protective stone wall overlooking the moat should be a rampart right...
And the main tower of Osaka Castle! We paid 500 yen and went in to air-conditioned bliss (it was sweltering). It's been turned into a museum that exhibits the history of the castle. And at the top is the viewing deck, which had really strong wind coming from one direction, so we happily stood there enjoying the wind.
This little boy was dressed up in olden day samurai costume to take a photo. The antlers headgear looked pretty cool, but unfortunately we had to pay if we wanted to try them on, so yeah. We're poor students. We got free stamps instead.
So with the cultural part of the day done, we decided to head to Shinsaibashi! Aka major shopping area in Osaka (^o^) Spent the evening shopping and only sat down for dinner when we'd exhausted ourselves.
We randomly decided on a small diner again, and it turned out to be another of those smoking-allowed restaurants. Yes. So this is what I had for dinner. Wasn't really hungry, so I had a hamburger (which in Japan means only the patty). And the Japanese do seem to enjoy their alcohol, 'cause the milk I ordered turned out to be laced with alcohol. It was kahlua to be exact, and they actually stated it but I was too lazy/tired to read the katakana. Upon examination it turned out to be an alcohol-only drinks menu and they didn't serve water.
Mini gyoza, which we shared. We had a little communication problem when we were ordering this. We had absolutely no idea what the waitress was asking, so we just sat there and went "err...err...err..." for about 394829 minutes. Until finally the waitress got fed up and decided to get a Chinese waitress to help. And the chinese waitress told us she was probably asking if we wanted spring onions on it or something. #japfail
Tian's plate of corn, which was delish.
OOTD
cap - bro's; tee - cotton on; leggings - I forgot; sneakers - pullandbear; bag - online spree
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