• Visited the Shin-Yokohama Ramen Museum
• Yokohama DeNa BayStars baseball game
• Had an awesome time at the Cup Noodles Museum

The “Food Theme Park”

Our first stop of the day was to the Shin-Yokohama Ramen Museum. We arrived just before the museum opened and there was a line of people waiting to get inside. The whole museum takes up one floor and two lower levels. The first floor makes up the museum portion of the space. The information was only available in Japanese so all we could do was look at the pictures and items on display. The lower two floods makes up a  food theme park area. This is the area that people were waiting in line to get to. The area is made to look like a neighborhood in Tokyo from 1958 which was really cool to see. It features a bunch of ramen restaurants of various styles. There are also some candy shops and other small stores in the area.

We ate at a ramen restaurant that looked to be more on the modern side Ordering was really cool but a bit confusing. To order and pay, you use a vending machine outside each restaurant. We got some help and ordered the most popular dish that the restaurant served. Kim and I were happy with the decision and really enjoyed our bowl of ramen.

Cheerleaders before the game

I’ve always wanted to go to a baseball game in Japan to see how it differs from games in America. When the Tokyo Giants game was sold out I decided to make plans to go to a Yokohama DeNa BayStars game.We got to the stadium about 45 minutes before the game was supposed to start and checked out the stadium. The stadium was definitely smaller than U.S. ballparks. Fans were busy shopping at all of the tiny souvenir stands and many wore team gear. When we took our seats, we couldn’t believe how hot and sunny it was. There wasn’t a single seat that had any shade or protection from the sun. We watched for a couple of innings before leaving to check out the rest of the stadium. Some things that I found fun were that the fans all seemed to know when to sing the right songs or cheers. We also didn’t hear any booing which was very different than games at home. One other thing that stood out were the ridiculous, neon uniforms that the beer girls wore while serving beer throughout the stadium.

I definitely am glad that I got to finally attend a baseball game in Japan but would love to do so again in the future and get to sit for more of the game.

Wall of Cup Noodles

I had low expectation for the Cup Noodles Museum but it ended up being the highlight of the day. The museum is in an amazing building and tells the incredible story of how Momofuku Ando went on to create instant ramen. It might not sound like an interesting topic, but the story was presented in a great way. There is also a really cool timeline wall showing all of the different Cup Noodles ever made. Like the Shin-Yokohama Museum, there is also an area where you can eat ramen. At Cup Noodles, the stores are broken up by country. I went for Italian which was instant noodles prepared with tomato sauce. Another highlight was having the option to make your own Cup Noodles. For about $3 US you buy the cup and get to decorate it. Then you get to select the flavoring and ingredients before the cup is vacuum sealed shut.

I’d definitely recommend visiting the Cup Noodles Museum if you plan to visit Japan!

That’s it for the recap of the second day of our trip. Keep checking back for more posts about our travels around Japan!