Yokohama and back

Cup Noodle Museum

The plan for the day was go to Yokohama, which has a Chinatown.  As with previous days, we left the hotel around 0930 so as to avoid the rush hour in the rail and metro.

Our hotel is connected to a station which served Yokohama directly.  At Yokohama station, we had trouble finding the bus platforms that would take us to the Cup Noodle Museum. As it wasn’t too far away, we hopped into a taxi instead.

The museum is housed in a cubic largely-windowless building opposite the ferris wheel.  It goes through the history of the invention of instant noodles.  For a bit extra, one can get some extra experiences:

• Make instant noodle from scratch, ie. make the dough, extrude it, form it into a cake and fry it.
• Separately, put one’s artwork on the outside of a plastic noodle cup, then fill it with a standard cake of noodle then top it with dehydrated meat, seafood and vegetables of one’s choice.

The museum also had a food hall selling small portions of noodles from various countries like Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam, Italy etc.

There were a couple of interesting quotes that I took out from my visit:

• All human beings are noodle beings.
• Working together to enrich the world’s eating habits with instant noodles. [World Instant Noodle Association.]

There was one thing that was missing from the museum (of had escaped my eyes).  Wikipedia says that the inventor of the instant noodle and founder of the Nissin company, Mr Momofuku Ando, is Taiwanese, who had migrated to Japan during Taiwan’s time as a Japanese colony.

Chinatown

From the museum, we walked towards Yokohama’s historic red brick warehouse.  With the bus to Chinatown nearly departing, we didn’t bother taking a stroll through the warehouse or appreciate its façade on the sun-illuminated side.

We walked down the streets of Chinatown, making various stops for various snacks which together made an adequate lunch.

The food here is more authentic Chinese rather than the Japanese version of Chinese food, eg. Chinese-style noodle dishes rather than Japanese ramen which Japanese consider to be Chinese food (along with gyoza).

Text continues after this gallery.

Meiji Jingu

It was a long multi-stop, but direct line to Shibuya where the others wanted to do more shopping.  I opted to go to Harajuku instead to visit Meiji Jingu shrine.

It was nearly 1600 and not far from its closing time.  With gloomy weather, the forested-setting, photos from the area weren’t the best.  Photos at the main hall where people were praying were prohibited.

Tomorrow is the harvest festival and there were many artistic displays of vegetables, often in the shape of boats.

Text continues after this gallery.

Omi himokawa udon dinner

Alice wanted to try a different kind of rare noodle that was available from a particular restaurant in Ginza.  I got there slightly before them at 1730 to find a queue outside.

The flat noodles, called omi himokawa udon, turned out to be similar to wonton skin or Singapore meehoon kueh.  It is a wheat-based noodle from the Gunma prefecture.

I opted for it to be served in a hot light broth and it was delicious!  It may also be served cold with a dipping sauce on the side.  Alice opted for a combo of the hot and cold options.

We had been lucky to be amongst the first batch of people admitted into the restaurant at 1800 when it opened. By the time we left around 1850, the queue was more than twice as long, so some people would probably be waiting for three hours!  That’s a bloody long time, because each sitting in the small restaurant takes about an hour.