Golden week that was...part 2 : Ramen Museum

As all of you may know, Japan is famous for its ramen. As all of you may not know, ramen originated from China....there was a period after the samurai era where people in Japan just got sick of eating sushi.

"What? Raw fish? AGAIN??!! "
"Can't you at least fry 'em? Boil....or steam maybe?"
"Don't go ongiving me that crap such as 'it's healthy' or 'cooking it will spoil the taste'...you lazy bum!!"
"Now, let's go eat out...hey, that shop is selling something yellow..."
"Slurrrp...Mmm...this is GOOD! What's this called?"
"Ramen? Cool...."

And so, ramen became very popular all across Japan. And while the Chinese are contented with only one flavour, Japanese got bored quickly and created new flavours of their own ; shoyu(soy sauce), miso(fermented soy beans), tonkotsu(pork bones), shio(salt)...and they took over the world. Even the Chinese started to like the thing that the Japanese shamelessly copied from them...

You see, most of my peers left early after last night. So, I ended up being the eldest one there. And my schedule for that day left me free to do anything...so, I decided to grab myself a few juniors and headed to Ramen Museum in Shin-Yokohama. Those juniors unfortunate enough to be stuck with me was Jet, Ong, Carine, Wei Ling, Beh(Bear? or something like that), Sin Ying, Dong Shen, Jun Hao...8 innocent young blood waiting to be corrupted by me! Hahaha...



Ramen Museum...this place isn't just place where they display boring ramen made out of wax. This "museum" is a place where they offer you famous ramen from various region in Japan.


This place was so famous that we had to line up for about 30~40 minutes just to get in.

The museum is consist of two levels. The top level where they display information on ramen; what types are there, history, etc...mostly boring stuff encased in glass.

The second level however, ho ho....let's time travel.






As you can see, this set is placed back in ancient Japan, time when samurai only existed in movies and robots have drills on its nose. It's as if I've time traveled...just like The Terminator who went back in time, except that I'm not naked and not as muscular like Arnold.

There were about 10 shops there from regions such as Sapporo, Kumamoto, Hakata, etc etc...The crowd that day was especially big, so big that there were more human than noodles and pork. I went with a group of 8 juniors and....with a crowd like this, its hard to stay together and very very difficult for the shops to seat everyone in. So, we split up to smaller groups and agreed to meet up later.

I paired up with Jet, a junior from Suzuka, Mie Prefecture. A very very cool girl...who else would have a name like Jet? No wait, there's that guy who can do Kung Fu....I mean, which girl would have a name like Jet? Couldn't help but introduced myself as "Hi, my name's Rocket, nice to meet you." Hahaha...

Anyway, it was me and Jet, the rest...I don't know much about the rest. Didn't see any of them at all. After lining up for almost an hour to get into the museum, now, we have to line up even longer to get to into the ramen shops!! But Jet was good company and I didn't mind lining up at all...


This is a mini bowl of Kumamoto Ramen for 500 yen...

Always practicing in "Ladies First", I let her choose which shop she wants to go to....Please don't ask me to describe the taste. All I know is that it's a super-licious tonkotsu ramen from Kumamoto, Kyushu. Good ramen with good company...what else can a guy ask for, eh? Lol...





After finishing, we had about 1 hour plus left before joining up with the rest of the gang. So, we decided to try ramen from Sapporo, Hokkaido this time. The line was a whole lot longer than expected and we lined up for....I don't know how long but we were late by 30 minutes when meeting up with others.
Anyway, she ordered Old-style Ramen, which was some kind of shio ramen...taste quite good. Though the taste wasn't as strong as Kumamoto's, it's something that you won't get tired with even after eating a hundred bowls.
I ordered miso ramen instead. If you'd look closely at the picture, you can see that there's a cruel layer of oil floating above my ramen. Enough oil to lubricate an engine for a month. Taste was ok, but the oil...ugh, just horrible.

We had to gobble it up fast as we were already late. The only good thing about my ramen was that it help me eat faster as I can slurp that slippery thing up my mouth easily....ugh, horrible.

All in all, this is one of THE place to visit in Japan. No need to travel hundreds of kilometers to eat famous ramens from various regions...just head in here. Yeah, you have to line up a lot...but it's definitely worth your time.



PS to Juniors: Eh, sorry la guys. Made you wait for half an hour. Worse, that I keep telling everyone to be punctual and I ended up being the unpunctual one. Very very sorry...