Cup Noodle Museum

My final stop of the day was the Cup Noodles Museum, which documents the invention and spread of cup noodles. Cup noodles are instant noodles that can be cooked by simply adding hot water to the container the noodles are in, as opposed to instant noodles which need to be taken out of their packaging and boiled in a pot of water.

After paying my 500 yen entry, I went to the second floor of the museum to view a dizzying array of cup and instant noodles organized by brand (rows) and year (columns). This display took up two of the three walls in the room. Almost all the noodles in this display were Japanese brands. The third wall displayed a wider variety of cup and instant noodles, including some non-Japanese brands. I kept an eye out for Maggi Mee, a beloved brand of instant noodles from my childhood, and I was stoked to see two of their ubiquitous yellow packets on display.

After viewing the noodles, I went into a theater to watch a short film about Momofuku Ando, a Taiwan-born entrepreneur who is credited with inventing instand noodles. The film covered his personal history, how he came to invent instant noodles at age 48 after a string of business failures, and how he went on to invent cup noodles in his 60s, right down to figuring out how the noodles should be packed in the cup to ensure quick and even cooking by simply adding hot water. Mr Ando was active until his 90s; he invented noodles that could be consumed in zero gravity not long before his death in 2007.

After viewing the film, I viewed various enhibits on detailing Ando's noodle inventions. I then went to the third floor which had an interactive make your own cup noodles activity. This activity costs 500 yen more, and I decided not to participate because it requires working in pairs. After that, I went to the viewing platform on the fourth floor before exiting the museum.

After exiting the museum, I considered looking for another two Atlas Obscura sites, but the heat and jetlag was starting to hit me, and my left knee hurt - while looking for coin lockers at Haneda that morning, an Italian preteen charged at me with a baggage cart she was ill-equipped to control, and I exacerbated an old injury when I had to sidestep her. So, I decided to make my way to the nearby Minatomirai station to go to Yokohama Station and onwards to Haneda. On my way to the station, I wandered through an amusement park and treated myself to a soft serve ice cream.Read more