Japan Survival Guide Point 4 – Food and grocery shopping.

So, you’re coming to live in Japan. You’re going to teach English probably, and you’ll have your own apartment and quite often you’ll be cooking for yourself. What’s that like? What is Japanese food like and what are my choices when I eat out?

Shopping in Yokohama for food.

These are all important questions. Let’s start with self-catering and seamlessly melt into eating out via the convenience store, a big part in the lives of people in Japan, foreigners and Japanese. The first question you may have is – ‘Are supermarkets significantly different to those at home?’

Well, yes, and no. Firstly, fruit and vegetables are very seasonal here. I come from Australia, and things are not so seasonal at home because of our mild to non-existent winters. In Japan there’s plenty of snow, so that affects produce. Also, there simply isn’t that much land here to farm, and so much of that land is used for, you guessed it, rice.

We studied chapters at school which talked about Japan’s importing of food, and there’s so much that is imported. A high percentage of the beef and meat comes from other countries, including Australia. They like to marble the beef with strains of fat, so lean beef is not so easy to find. That’s the way they like it here. You will also find that meat is often sold in small, thin ‘strips’, rather than fillets.

There are a lot of noodle products, usually plenty of vegetables with an unhealthy obsession with radishes. Vegetables, I feel, are pretty expensive, especially in winter. A tomato could cost you $1.50 or more for one, and they tend to price per unit, not by weight although that is not always true. There are plenty of chips on the shelves and it’s often hard to know what flavour they are by the packet.

Lots of ice cream too, and you’ll find green tea is a very popular flavour here for it. And many other things as well. Ham and cheese especially are disappointing for quality and choice. Sausages are hard to find, unless you are looking for wieners. Self-raising flour is very rare. Bread is ALWAYS sold as a half loaf, is usually white and sweet and cut into very thick pieces. 1.5 cm is pretty standard and it gets thicker from there. That’s why I have made my own bread for two years in Japan, I want it cut thinner, I want it brown and with less sugar and chemicals. You can leave you bread in the fridge for weeks here and it doesn’t change. Yes, bread is disappointing. I HAVE seen bread as thick as an INCH.

I could go on but you get the idea. Then you get home and most houses, apartments and whatnot don’t have an oven, just a stove. And that usually doesn’t come with your apartment, so you end up renting or buying a one burner stove and that’s what you cook with. So no baking for you! Or roasting. Keep that in mind when you try to whip things up of an evening. Also, I find prices more expensive here in Yokohama than I did in Iwate which makes little sense, unless it’s sales tax.

If you’re in a rush, you can do what everyone does and that’s go to a convenience store, or as they call it here, a ‘conbini’. 7/11, Lawson, Family Mart, Sun K us… there are a legion of them here, I have never seen so many. They carry bentos (a kind of prepared lunch pack), sandwiches (not advised, will send you to the loo!), hot dogs, some very nice fried chicken, hot pockets, chips… for a few dollars you can sort a meal out for yourself with a bit of variety. Of course, it’s unlikely to score well in being healthy. But this is what a lot of Japanese people do and they love their conbinis very much.

Then you could go to a restaurant. And truly, of course you must try some Japanese food whilst you’re here. Here are some examples.

Sushi – you know sushi and sashimi right? A sort of rice ball or tube with raw fish, or vegetables, or egg or maybe something else on top or inside? You’ll find them at supermarkets, conbinis and restaurants and they are actually pretty healthy.

Okonomiyaki – well this one is a sort of omelette thing I guess. It involves egg, cabbage and a mixture of various other vegetables, often sprouts, a bit of meat maybe, restaurants specialise in this one. You can often make it yourself with a little hot plate included on your table! Cook it yourself and then smother it in ketchup, mayo or brown sauce. It ends up not being really healthy, and I don’t much go in for it, but many love it.

Yaki-soba – can be really delicious. It’s a sort of noodle thing mixed with cabbage, pork (or some other meat) and other vegetables. Really really nice! My favourite Japanese food.

Natto – this one is more for the brave I think. Strong smelling beans in a sort of sauce served usually with rice. It hails from Iwate I believe, and to be honest is not my cup of tea. But it might be yours!

Ramen – and if none of these appeal to you, try a bowl of ramen noodles. I like it with pork slices on top, the ramen noodles are in a delicious soup with vegetables too.

Tempura – well tempura can be many things from chicken to vegetables to shrimp. It’s basically just a Japanese take on covering something in batter and frying it. And yes it can be pretty darned tasty, and no, it’s usually not healthy.

You might also want to try –

Yakitori – grilled chicken on a stick in a sauce, really nice.

Onigiri (Rice balls) – People here LOVE rice balls for lunch or snack, usually wrapped in seaweed. Me? Not so much.

Soba, udon – more interesting kinds of noodles. There are many!

Curry & Rice – known more simply as Curry Rice, it’s usually a curry with maybe a little potato or other vegetables, and rice. It’s very popular up in Iwate, tastes okay and is usually not particularly hot.

So there are a few quick ideas to start you off for eating in Japan. Japanese cuisine is varied and usually tastes very strong, they don’t like things mild here. Again, I have only touched the surface there are so many different Japanese dishes. Be adventurous, but be aware you may end up with a bowl of something you can’t stand! Japanese food is really a love or hate it sort of deal. 

An Evening in Shinagawa

If Shibuya is Tokyo being pretty darned trendy, Shinagawa is Tokyo perhaps getting down to business. Well, my wife told me it was a business district, although to me there seemed to be a few hotels and restaurants there. It features the most impressive, in my opinion, of Tokyo’s stations. There’s a big arched roof above a walkway that runs from the north to south exits that people bustle through. That’s where you find the Japan Rail entrance to the station. It’s a really big station too, one that’s pretty easy to get lost in.

I headed to Shinagawa yesterday evening to meet my wife and some of her friends for dinner, and I was a bit early. So I thought I’d take a stroll around and snap a couple of pictures. Pretty much attached to the station was a Pachinko/slot place. They are unbelievably popular here. I once wondered where the good people of Ichinoseki all were as the main streets were often dead, and one day I went into a pachinko place and found 90% of the machines taken and there were hundreds in that place, possibly over a thousand. Almost definitely. And there are dozens in my old hometown.

Pachinko is almost a cross between a pinball game and a slot (pokie) machine. You get a whole bunch of gold balls and try to guide them into a winning position – the machine is upright though, and you have very little control, much less than a pinball machine for example. Anyways, outside this place there were two guys dressed up and dancing trying to get people to go inside. They weren’t having much luck. I wonder if I could get a part time job doing that?

On the north side of the station, after passing people walking through the arched walkway which was seriously grand, was the part of Shinagawa I haven’t really explored at all. It seems a lot of restaurants are in that area, 6-8 people were out hawking for their restaurants with menus in hand and aprons on. Business men and women with stern faces took the escalators up to the station on their ways home, and every now and again one person would be smiling and laughing, relieving my worries that everyone in Tokyo is just working until they die with no enjoyment from life whatsoever.

Inside the restaurant.

There was little to none of the Harajuku colour, the artisan spirit, the outfits and non-conformity that you can see in other places in Tokyo in Shinagawa. And then it was time for dinner as my wife arrived and we met her friends at a French Restaurant on the other side of the station called ‘Aux Bacchanales’.

It was very ‘colonial’ in design, reminding me of décor more attuned to the 40s I guess, and somewhat reminiscent of a restaurant (also French) I went to in Yaounde, capital of Cameroon. I really loved the look of the place, although the waiter who served us, who was French, didn’t crack a smile until the end of the night when we were paying the bill and I said to him ‘Please smile, you look so stressed’, and then he did. Which was a relief.

In fact this was the third French restaurant I have been to inside a week! And no, I didn’t choose any of them! The menu was limited, but we were in the lunch/bar area. It was great for my wife to catch up with her friends, and I must remember what it’s like when we move back to Australia to be at a table and understand less than 10% of the conversation. Although my wife speaks a lot more English than I do Japanese, it will still be very hard for her. Listening is always the hardest thing!

And so we walked back to Shinagawa station to take the train back to Yokohama and beyond (we are in the suburbs here). The train was packed, lots of standing, but apparently nothing like peak hour. Take care everyone, more coming tomorrow. From now on on Sunday I will be posting a retrospective on a place I visited in the past, in an attempt to not be posting everyday about Japan.

Don’t forget to have a listen to the podcast. It’s the main feature of yesterday’s blog. Each podcast will get its own dedicated blog post.

The station at night.

Tomorrow it’s back to the Japan Survival Guide – I’m going to talk about Japanese foods! And a little bit about grocery shopping! May the journey never end!

The World Journeys Podcast is here! Episode One!

Howdy all! Yes, it has finally arrived! The World Journeys Podcast!

Michael Eastwood - our very first guest!

I, your humble host, Andrew Boland, will be interviewing and chatting with a number of people this year about travel-related topics, the best of countries, the worst of countries, backpacking, taking a show overseas, the experience of living in another country and so much more.
The topic or theme of 'travel' is a wide one and there are so many possibilities, so please join me as I begin this new adventure, my first ever podcast. Podcasts aim to be between 25 and 40 minutes.









The first mini-series of 6 episodes features a range of interviews I have and will conduct with people here in Japan, and focuses mainly on living, working and teaching in Japan. I have a great line up of people with various experiences in Japan, and it's a really good look at expat life in North Asia (principally).






Episode One is an interview with Michael Eastwood, who has spent the last eight years living in Japan teaching initially for the JET program and subsequently for a company called Joy Talk. We talk about the different companies and pros and cons, and about the JET program. We talk about the highlights of living here in Japan, about the food and about the people. It's a great listen and I hope you enjoy it as much as I did when I recorded it. It goes for about 30 minutes.


So without further ado - Series One, Episode One is here!

Fish Markets and Kabuki

I certainly had a busy day yesterday. I visited the Tsukiji Fish Market in Tokyo and took in a single act performance of Kabuki Theatre, then discovered some more of Tokyo’s secrets (that’s for another blog because this one is going to be long enough).

My mother-in-law had suggested that I go to the Tsukiji Market with her, but my wife didn’t think I’d been keen on the idea. It’s not an unreasonable reaction, my hatred of fish has not been kept a secret which has limited some of my eating options here in Japan. However, I thought it would be interesting and at the very least offer a chance for some photos. I hadn’t seen it and it was something to do!

There be fish this way!

So it was that we headed out yesterday on the train to Higashi Ginza station, below the Kabuki-za theatre and a short walk from the market. Or ‘markets’ is possibly a better way to describe it. I mean, it is the biggest fish market in the world! I can strike that off my bucket list now!

There are two markets principally – the inner and outer fish markets. The outer market is a grid of streets where people sell to the public and there are numerous small restaurants and food stalls. There were a couple of small ramen shops with people grabbing a bowl of noodles, and we had a sort of sweet egg thing so not everything is fish-based.

Ramen shop.

You can wander around and see all types of different fish for sale, and you may even see whale meat. The whole whale meat argument is one, folks, I am not entering into because I am here in Japan and my wife is Japanese and in Japan you don’t talk about religion, politics and whales. But I was told that this photo is of whale meat.

Reputedly whale-meat

Inne Market, note the trolley- things!

From there we went to the inner market, which is, from what I understand, a wholesale market. It’s the sort of place where you see people at work and the world go by. I saw some interesting looking seafood there, took a number of photos, and watched these really cool buggies driving about the place. Only part of the inner market is open to tourists, and you can’t enter before 9am. But all in all both were interesting places to see. I also noted so many TOURISTS! WOW! Even at the Cup Noodles museum in Yokohama most visitors were Japanese, but yesterday I saw more foreigners than I have for 12 months I think.

Then, Kabuki Theatre. What is really great is that you can get pretty cheap tickets to see a single act of the show, which may or may not be a complete story. We went to the Kazuki-za Theatre, which is a very modern building – it was completed in 2013 after the previous theatre was considered unsafe and the one before I think burnt down. It was massive and they must have been able to seat a few thousand in there.

Our tickets were 800 yen each, about 8 dollars. So for the tourist it won’t break the bank and for 500 yen more you get an earpiece with English translation. They have a limited number of spots, you need to be in the first 90-100 to get a seat. You are given entrance according to your ticket number. It’s a good idea to buy the tickets a couple of hours before the performance from the little booth outside the theatre, the single act tickets go on sale a little over two hours before that show. Note – I have no photos of the performance, because they are not allowed.

Kabuki-za Theatre

I saw an act called ‘The Dance of the Quiver and the Monkey’. The story is about a female Samurai who wants to take a trainer’s monkey to skin it and make a quiver out of it. However, the monkey starts to dance and the Samurai relents. Apparently the man playing the monkey trainer is a very famous Kabuki actor who had been ill for 12 months and was making his comeback. The entire theatre, which seemed pretty full (single act area was completely sold out) applauded when he came on stage and shouted his theatre-name aloud, which is apparently the tradition to praise the actors this way.

Kabuki theatre, from what I understand, is an offshoot of Noh Theatre, an older Japanese style of performance. The actors all dress up in amazing colours and paint their face and showing body white, speak very loudly and extremely theatrically, and there is a slow, deliberate kind of dance used as well. Kabuki means sing, dance & skill. The actors are accompanied by singers and players of the shamisen, a sort of Japanese ancient guitar (it’s the best I can describe it). The music is slow and the singers warble, rarely in tune and to be honest, it sounds bloody awful as non-appreciator of the art form.  But everything has its own skill set.

Kabuki-za promotional poster.

The stage is set. A long way back!

The female samurai was played by a male actor who specialises in female roles, and the monkey was played by a child and frequented received calls of ‘kawaii!’ from the audience (‘cute’!). He was the best thing about the show from my perspective. It moves rather slowly and is the complete opposite to naturalism. Which is interesting in itself, when I look at Japanese television (see my previous blog post) it very much is naturalistic. Whereas today’s movies and television in the west often err on the side of realism, being gritty, in Japan the dramas and indeed talk shows are very much over the top and ridiculous (with dramas less so, but the acting does appear very OTT).

Stunning work on the backdrops.

I found it really interesting. The crowd really enjoyed the performance and it’s so good to see, a little like East Europe and ex-USSR countries, that people still appreciate culture other than you know, hip-hop. Haha sorry to alienate my younger audience, but I’m 38 going on 70 here!

If you are in Tokyo, why not try a slice of culture? The stage is not so much a traditional, rotating Kabuki stage, but it featured a number of gorgeous backdrops as we waited for the play to begin that kept rolling over one another. Must have been serious work painting those. One act might be 20-40 minutes, so if you don’t like it, you’re not stuck for three hours and you haven’t shelled out your entire daily budget either. The play’s the thing, as someone rather important once said. JK Rowling I think it was.

My ebook Short Journeys: Japan has many more things to do, see and experience in Japan, and a few stories too.

Tomorrow (Thursday 17^th April) is a very exciting day for World Journeys, the World Journeys Podcast is beginning. You will find it here, but also it should be going up on itunes and I would LOVE subscribers there! It might take until Friday for it to be available on Itunes though, will let you know! Please do watch this space, and may the journey never end!

Culture Shock: Part Three - Returning Home.

Today, I am writing about the inevitable reality that almost all travellers face, unless they are travelling professionally that is and when they come home it’s only to say hello, and pack for the next trip. Coming home can be a serious ‘culture’ shock that is not easy to deal with, and I am facing that in less than a month. At the moment I am in a sort of holding pattern as it were here in Japan as my wife and I are living in Yokohama for a month with her family as she has some seminars that she needs to attend before we fly back to Australia in May.

Today - Yokohama

Me, I am at home most days blogging and writing and pretty daunted by the long list of tasks that await me when I get home. Finding a job, a car and all that jazz. IF I can get a number of things sorted before I get home, then it won’t be too bad I am hoping. A place to live is sorted at least. But the whole getting back into the grind of things can be more difficult than travelling to a place and realising it’s more than you bargained for.

May - home 'sweet' home - Melbourne

The first time I went solo backpacking, I came home after seven months around the world and pretty quickly fell into a bit of depression. I was working thankfully, however, I was working at night which didn’t help and I had to adjust to life back home. People seemed less interested in my trip than I had expected. Well, that’s usually the case for backpackers after a long trip. Sure you’ve had an amazing time and met people, seen things and taken a swag of photos, but back home everyone else has had work, work, life, families and reality to deal with, and it’s nice that you’re home but their lives are not going to suddenly stop because you’re back.

For me, this time it’s a little bit different because I’ve been working here for two years so it’s not like it’s been a big long holiday. I’ve had to wake before 6am and clean snow off my car and work 40+ hours a week. To be honest with this 4-6 weeks of inertia I am experiencing right now I will be desperate to start work as soon as is humanly possible.

Then there is the internal realisation that will probably happen to me this time. I’ve been away, seen amazing stuff, done stuff, and I got home and everything seems completely different. SO surreal and weird. Except, after a couple of weeks, this feeling goes into reverse, and everything appears to be the same. Friends, family – the same. Roads, places – the same. How could I go away for so long and nothing has changed at all? Woah, even television is the same? (except there’s always one new show that everyone’s watching)

It’s really quite difficult to deal with, and it’s not really true but coming home after six or more months overseas you do have a somewhat warped way of seeing what you encounter at home, it’s undeniable. And people will tell you you have changed. You’re accent has changed (I definitely now have a bit of an American twang to my accent, mostly with my ‘r’s), you’re different in ways you haven’t noticed.

It’s not that people don’t care that you’ve been away, and are now back, but living 9 to 5 takes its toll on everyone and although the first time you catch up with old friends is full of hugs and happiness, after that it’s ‘as you were’.

How about you? Have you experienced this sort of ‘reverse culture shock’ before? Comment below please!

And this is why I say ‘may the journey never end…’

PS. A little development for everyone. Yesterday I lost literally half the day working on the upcoming World Journeys Podcast. It’s coming! I am aiming to have it Itunes ready by Friday (April 17^th). I have completed the first episode, it is edited. I talk to the charismatic and very interesting Michael Eastwood about living in Japan, the JET program, Aomori Prefecture here in Japan and more. Stay tuned for that please! I have it mostly sorted – I am clearly not a tech-head because it has been doing my non-tech-head in trying to work out all this stuff about uploading, bandwidth and RSS feed. But after a period of preparation, we are set to go! Watch this space!

Japan Survival Guide Part 3: Getting around Japan by Rail!

Sleeping on the train is common.

Whether you’re here to live, or here backpacking you are going to have to get from point A to point B somehow. I was considering doing a post all about transport in Japan and including driving, because for many people coming here to live and teach driving is an essential part of the day and it certainly has been for me in my time here, however I feel that’s a whole post on its own. So I’m concentrating on trains today, and am going to take a look at getting around and surviving the locals/subway trains in Tokyo as well.

Firstly let’s consider getting around Japan. There is no contest for the fastest, easiest and most comfortable way to get around Japan – it’s the Shinkansen. The Japanese invented the bullet train decades ago now, and today you can take trains that are allowed to travel up to 320km/h (although that are able to hit speeds more than 440 km/h) and feature very comfortable seats, and have people serving snacks and drinks. What more could you want?

The only issue is the cost. From my city, Ichinoseki, to Tokyo it’s around $130US one way, and the distance is around 450km. It takes a touch over two hours. If you can read Japanese then you’ll find it’s possible to find websites where you can get discounts if you book around a month in advance, but most foreigners living here, even if they have some Japanese do not have the required skills for that. The overnight bus is around half that, and JR (Japan Rail) run many buses themselves so you could look into that at main railways stations. However, it turns it into a nine-hour journey!

Then you have local trains. The same ticket was more like $90-$100 by the local trains. It takes ten hours and you have to change trains 8 or 9 times. So it’s not exactly desirable. However, for the backpacker and tourist there is the ‘Japan Rail Pass’. Similar to the Eurail Pass, you need to buy it before you come to Japan.

http://www.japanrailpass.net/

At less than $500 for a 2 week pass, it CAN represent great value. But not if you’re going to use it so much, then it might not be worth it. The more you travel, the better value it becomes of course, and if you take long journeys – say Hiroshima to Tokyo, then you’ve already spent nearly half its value on one trip. So think about it. Regardless of what train options you plan on taking, there is one website that is extremely useful for planning rail trtavel, finding the price and more and that is this one –

http://www.hyperdia.com/

It’s in English and it will pretty much sort you out for any train journey in the country, even local lines and lines around Tokyo!

Even if you’re living, like I did, in far flung Iwate, odds are you are going to come to Tokyo once or twice, if not more often. Most backpackers and tourists to Japan are also likely to spend some time in Tokyo. The best, if not simplest, way to get around Tokyo is by the trains. The subway. Call it what you will the rail transport network in Tokyo is epic, covers so much of the place and even links Yokohama in less than thirty minutes. It’s above ground, below ground, it even includes a monorail for one line. Great? Absolutely! Easy?

Not so much.

Things you need to know about the Tokyo & Yokohama rail networks.

Busy Shibuya Station

Follow the signs to the different lines.

Actually, the same can be said for other major cities too, but none rival Tokyo in complexity and sheer busy-ness. Firstly, multiple companies run different train lines. Not such an issue for a single journey with no changes, but once you start changing trains, you may need to change companies and it’s not so obvious which lines are which companies to foreigners. This means you need a new ticket as well, plus when you arrive at the station you’re changing at, you will need to leave the ticketed area and find the entrance to the other line.

For example, JapanRail (JR) run different lines in Tokyo. If you go from one JR line to another at an interchange station, you won’t need to leave the ticketed area and your original ticket should be to your ultimate destination. If you have to change companies, though, to say Tokyo Metro (this is a collective of lines rather than a general term for using the Tokyo rail system, keep that in mind here because it can catch you out) then just buy a ticket to the interchange station, and when you change you find the Metro part of the station – which could be a bit of a walk depending, buy the ticket for the next stage of the journey there.

Simply, travelling on the Tokyo rail system requires a bit of thought. You’ll get to the ticketing machines and above will be a map of the connected networks. If you are lucky, it will have English as well as Japanese as the one in the photo does, but quite a few do not. The map will tell you the fare to the station you are heading too, you click that amount on the ticket machine screen, pay the money and take your ticket. The fares shown are from the station you are at before boarding. Also, if you have under-paid you won’t be let out the automatic gate. However, they have ‘fare-adjustment’ machines before you exit. Put the ticket in the machine, it will tell you what you need to pay, you pay it, you get a new ticket and are let out.

One way around ticketing issues is the Suica or Pasmo cards. They are cards you can buy for a small fee and you top them up – you must top up with multiples of 1000 yen. They are good for all lines in Tokyo and Yokohama. They are a touch on/touch off sort of deal.

Give yourself time to navigate the system. Some of the bigger stations are insanely busy at the right (or wrong) times of the day. That’s Tokyo Station, which is the biggest and busiest for sure, Shibuya can be really confusing, Ueno, Shinagawa also rate up there. The picture doesn’t show it, but at the wrong times Yokohama station can be crazy busy too. The stations are often linked to (walking) subway systems with loads of shops, or even large shopping malls. You go through a door and you are suddenly surrounded by jewellery. So I say again, give yourself time to work it all out. I’ve found that the rail system maps you can get don’t show the whole picture, include every line or explain the different companies and when you get to the station, even though you had it all planned, sometimes you need to rethink how you’re moving from A to B.

Despite all this, I love rail travel, and rail travel in Japan is pretty awesome! Thanks for reading, see you tomorrow with the final instalment of my thoughts on Culture Shock, and may the journey never end!

Don’t forget my ebook - Short Journeys: Japan

Yokohama's Cup Noodles Museum

Well, it's taken over 8 eights, but this is my 300th post here! Celebrate good times!

Come on!

Please?

Minato Mirai is the harbour area of Yokohama. It’s really the feature of this wonderful city, shiny and sleek built over a few small islands with a large mall and a wonderful walkway that you can take from Sakuragicho station. It’s not in the dead centre of Yokohama, but in a district which includes the Landmark Tower and the Nihon Maru boat, which doubles as a museum. It’s also right next to Queen’s Square, a great place for restaurants and shopping. The bay looked really beautiful day, a clear day with a top temperature in the mid to high teens.

The shopping mall is called World Porters, which I found a bit of a strange name. This shopping mall moves the bags of the world to their hotel rooms? Ahh well, English is often different when used by the Japanese. And what I came today to this area to see is indeed quintessentially modern Japanese. Because in this swish precinct is the Cup Noodles Museum! That is right, you have comprehended correctly, a museum devoted to the invention of the cup noodle.

The entrance hall is seriously grand. Check out the giant cup noodle above the automatic doors!

The inside of a cup noodle cup before water is added.

I’ve already blogged, some time ago now, about the Ramen museum, and it should be understood about Japanese culture – it’s very definitely a foodie culture. Sure, cup noodles and ramen are not really haute cuisine, but nevertheless it is hard to deny that they have really left their mark on the world.

For every invention, there is a creator, and just as much as the museum I devoted to cup noodles, and instant noodles, it is also devoted to the inventor of this culinary staple – Momofuku Ando. And there you had it – I had already learnt something new, the name of the person who invented instant noodles and then thought of putting them in a cup. And I learnt that he was Japanese as well! Not only that, I learnt that they come the way they do because they are cooked in all, extracting all the moisture from them.

These are life size cutouts. They compared Einstein and Madame Curie
to the guy who invented cup noodles!

I learnt a few other things too – the way they got the noodles in the cup – by turning the cup upside down! Well I didn’t know that. Turns out that’s considered pretty amazing too! Ok, it’s all a bit surreal I admit. The museum itself is very cool, although it uses a lot of red which was a bit much in the cinema where a 13 minute animated film told the audience about the invention of the cup noodle. Then on the 3^rd floor people sat decorating and colouring in designs on the exterior of the cups. There were even cooking classes.

Then there are the cardboard cutouts of important people in history like Einstein and Edison and of course, Momofuku Ando is up there with them. Again surreal. But let’s be honest, as a seasoned traveller, museums get very ‘samey’ after a while, and as much as I like ancient pots and the like, a museum that’s a little bit quirky is not so bad.

Examples of cup noodles since 1958

So, get your instant noodle and Momofuku facts straight. 1958 – he invented instant ramen noodles. 1971, to appeal to the American market, he invented Cup Noodles. In fact, when he was 96 he invented noodles in a package that could be eaten in space. The guy loved to invent noodle-inspired products. And who amongst us HASN’T had instant noodles before? Sure, they aren’t the most healthy thing to put in your tummy, but they are cheap and convenient. Did you know the idea was conceived by Ando watching people line up for black market ramen in the years after the Second World War, at a time when much of Japan was starving? And now over 100,000 million cup noodles are consumed across the world every year?

This was the cinema. It was very red.

This is a display that I can not explain.

So if you’re in Yokohama why not come down to the Cup Noodles Museum? See the different packaging of different cup noodles over the years, and across the world. Learn about the man who made this all possible. Have your photograph taken next to a silver statue of the guy. Decorate your own cup noodle, learn how to cook cup noodles (most probably can manage that, I admit) and marvel at one of the more unique museums of the world.

Decorating your own cup noodle cup!

World Journeys. Inspiring and Informing!

May the journey never end!