TacoCat’s Travels #134 (Japan 6.0): Explorin' Cup Noodle Art and History! 🍜

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 started our journey through a very special building in Yokohama - the Cup Noodle Museum!

Where we got to know the history of Cup Noodles in a room literally surrounded by Cup Noodles and we even got to customise our own cup noodles! These were our cups!

Anyway, there was a lot more to the museum so I couldn't possibly finish writing about it in one post, so let's continue!

18 February 2019. Monday.

The next place we went to after we finished making our cup noodles was the Cup Noodles Park!

Apparently you can experience the entire CUP NOODLES manufacturing process here! But I think you had to pay extra to visit the park and we knew there would be a lot of kids in there since it was very kid-based.

So we didn't go in and just took a quick look at what we could see from the entrance.

There was even a tuktuk there for people to take selfies with next to a wall of how noodles evolved across the world! It was pretty interesting and cool to see some representation with noodles from Singapore!

There was a balcony near the park and we got to enjoy the nice view and amazing cloudless sky!

It was tough to take pictures with the blue sky behind because of lighting, but we tried our best!

It was a nice view though! And here was us with our packaged cup noodles!

Then we went back to the exhibits of the history of Momofuku Ando (the creator of the original Cup Noodles) and his wife, which were unfortunately all in Japanese.

I really wish my Japanese was so much better that I could read it but sadly I couldn't.

It was still cool to see the illustrations though.

And we got the gist; it took a lot of hard work for Momofuku Ando, and eventually when he found the secret formula it was revolutionary and spawned a whole new cuisine and way to eat noodles that changed the world!

There was even this very cool exhibit of all the revolutionary people in history who changed the world, including Momofuku of course!

This was a description of all the people depicted here! Can you recognise them all?

There was also a trick-eye room setup with Cup Noodles! I'm sure everyone has seen something like this before.

It was still pretty trippy looking at it in real life though.

There was finally some English on these walls over here, but it was still pretty limited.

But it was interesting to read about how the Cup Noodles are made, and why it's like that. Momofuku was truly a genius figuring out this ingenious invention.

It was truly a eureka moment for sure!

And this was him when he was younger. He sure seemed like a go-getter when he was young.

His entire history was very motivational, or I guess that was the message they wanted to bring across, especially for the young children who would visit the museum. You know, in case there were any young minds that could potentially change the world too.

There was also a couple of art exhibits that looked really cool, like this one! I think it would've been nicer if it was coloured though, but I love colours so.

There were also some interesting projected animations showing how some people enjoy noodles, and I guess what people could achieve if they put their mind to it.

There was also a recreation of Momofuku's work shed, which was really detailed and well done! It was simple and rustic-looking.

It really felt like we traveled back in time when we entered his shed.

There were also checkpoints around the museum where we could get special stamps, so I'd been going around stamping our guide book to collect them all!

After a couple more pictures, we started making our way to the exit.

And we came across a display of all the Cup Noodle Museum merchandise!

Soon we found ourselves back at the entrance. I guess I should've used this picture last week. The giant cup noodle on top was cool though.

Lastly, we went to take a look at the gift shop!

Where they obviously sold various types of cup noodles!

But also a wide range of merchandise with their chicken mascot!

They even made the Cup Noodle cup into tea cups, that said Cup No Noodle! I thought it was genius. Now I wish we'd bought those but I think they were ceramic and we were scared they would get broken.

There was also quite a line up for souvenirs so we didn't get anything. Besides, we got our own custom cup noodles so it was enough.

But I think that's gonna be all for today, and while we're not done with the day yet, this was the end of our journey through the Cup Noodle Museum! Hope you enjoyed it and maybe you can visit for yourself next time!

Here's a teaser for next week!

Thanks so much for reading!

To find out more about me, check out my intro post here!

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Check out my previous post in this series!

TacoCat’s Travels #133 (Japan 6.0): Making Our Own Cup Noodles! 🍜

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