Cup Noodles Museum

June brings rainy season to Japan, so Mrs. Bag-O and I had to find some indoor adventures to keep us occupied.  One rainy afternoon, we headed off to Yokohama to visit the Cup Noodles Museum.

We started our adventure with a Starbucks across the street from Cosmo World.  We have plans to come back on a nicer day to ride the giant ferris wheel! 

Yokohama Ferris Wheel

Cup Noodles Museum!

A visual timeline of Cup Noodles ...

The inventor of chicken ramen - Momofuku Ando

The best part of visiting the museum is that you can go up to the 3rd floor and make your very own Cup Noodles.

First, you buy your cup from a vending machine and sit down to decorate it

The finished products ...

Our Japanese tablemates were much more creative than we were, 

I wish I had taken some pictures of their creations!

Then we put the noodles in to the cup ...

Mrs. Bag-O turning the handle until the bell rings!

Then you add toppings ...

And seal the top ...

And then it goes through this machine and gets shrink wrapped!

The final step is putting your Cup Noodles into this special bag to protect it for it's journey home!  Of course, I did not put my Cup Noodles in it properly (it's upside down).  A very nice museum worker tracked me down and fixed it for me!  Unfortunately, I did not take an after picture.

We finished our tour of the rest of the museum.  In my opinion, it was a really strange museum.  It's a giant, five-story building and most of the floors seem to have a lot of empty white space.  I think the highlight is definitely making your own Cup Noodles.  They also have a restaurant on the 4th or 5th floor, but we did not eat at it.

A replica of the work shed where Ando invented chicken ramen - the first instant ramen

Cup Noodles consumption around the world

Right before J. left for deployment, he ate my Cup Noodles creation for a snack!

It was pretty tasty!

All in all, it was a fun afternoon and I can now say I've made my very own Cup Noodles Creation.  It was a good rainy day activity and I think kids would really enjoy it.  However, if you don't make it to the Cup Noodles Museum during your time in Japan, you won't have missed a major highlight!