In Japan - Tokyo Ramen Museum

I have heard of rumors that the Tokyo Ramen Museum in Shin-Yokohama isn't really worth the trip, but one of my friends here said it was an interesting place. Well, sometimes you ought to try it out yourself before you can decide which opinion you should trust, right?

So here I was, at Shin Yokohama! The trip took about 50 minutes to 1 hour from Ikebukuro to Shin-Yokohama, and it costs in around 1100 yen for a round trip. 

It was about 5-minute walk from Shin-Yokohama station. The museum was kind of hidden within tall buildings surrounding the museum and there was no sign indicating its location on the street. I asked for a map at the station office, and I guess it was really helpful.

The entrance fee was 300 yen, and you can re-enter the museum within the same day as long as you get a stamp on your ticket and on your left hand upon exiting the museum. There are free guidebooks in different languages, but you'll miss a lot of details if you only read the English guidebook. The English guidebook only provides the general information on the ramen sold (how to pronounce the names in English, what the seasonings are and what the ingredients are). Meanwhile, the Japanese booklet includes more detailed description such as the thickness of the noodle, the strength of the soup's flavor, the menu and prices from each shop, and descriptions of the flavors.

My friend said she tried 3 different kinds of mini-sized ramen, each costs around 550-700 yen. Being a foodie, I said to myself I would at least eat 3 types of ramen. Well, despite being called mini-size, they're not really small.

There are different shops located within the museum. I went on Sunday and the line was actually not that bad (the waiting time was about 15 minutes).

Here are the three mini ramen that I tried:

Sapporo miso chashu ramen from Ramen no Eki

I haven't tried eating Sapporo ramen before but this ramen was definitely very very very oily. If you leave the ramen sitting for a couple of minutes, you can see the soup covered with 5mm thick of oil. I'm not sure if this is because it's really cold up in Sapporo so the foods are generally fatty, but I had to keep wiping my lips because there was too much excessive oil sticking on my lips and I don't like that oily feeling. The soup is really thick, it's really hard to drink. The chashu was so-so (and very fatty as well). The noodle itself is considerably thick and very chewy. According to the Japanese version of the guidebook, this ramen has the strongest flavor. Somehow I love the menma (bamboo shoot); it had a really good texture. 

Overall, it was somehow delicious but it was too oily for me. I don't mind eating it again but I won't yearn for it.

Saitama Kara (spicy) tsukemen from Ganjya

The noodle is very thick, almost like udon. And in fact it did smell like udon a little bit. There was nothing spicy about this ramen, and this spicy tsukemen is supposed to be the most favorited dish from this shop. I was a little disappointed because it was like dipping noodles into chili oil. There was some flavor (I'm assuming they use dashi, miso and other flavorings in the dipping sauce) but it wasn't particularly unique or memorable. I do love the texture of the noodle. If only the dipping sauce is less oily...

Kurume mukashi tonkotsu ramen from Taiho Ramen

This was by far my most favorite ramen from the museum. It has the most unique flavor and I haven't had anything close to this. The flavor was very rich and yet the soup is thin and drinkable. The noodle is thin and not curly, similar to that of Ippudo's Hakata ramen. When I first drank the soup, there was an unexplainable aroma and taste, very unique and tasty, and at the same time I felt strangely nostalgic about it. It turns out that they are using chu yu cha (or in Indonesian, ampas babi) in the soup. I don't know the Japanese name for it but it was awesome. I felt like I was at home. Chu yu cha is basically the remains of deep fried lard. Well, not those processed lard sold in cans, but the subcutaneous fats from pork meat. This was the last ramen I had that day and I was really full, and yet I could say this was very delicious. That means under normal circumstances, I think this ramen is extremely delicious.

There were in total of 9 shops within the museum, and it appears that the shops change periodically. Here is the list of shops and rough details on the kind of ramen they sell:

1. Yamagata area (north east), Ryushanhai.
- Specialty: miso ramen
- Very thick noodles (10/10), curly
- Strong soup flavor (9/10)

2. Saitama area (east), Ganjya.
- Specialty: tonkotsu shouyu ramen and tsukemen
- Very thick noodles (10/10), straight
- Strong soup flavor (8/10)

3. Tokyo area (east), Toride.
- Specialty: tonkotsu ramen
- Very thin noodles (1/10), straight
- Strong flavor (6.5/10)

4. Kurume area (west), Taiho Ramen.
- Specialty: tonkotsu ramen
- Thin noodles (3/10), straight
- Strong flavor (8.5/10)

5. Kesennuma area (north east), Kamome Shokudo
- Specialty: shio ramen
- Somewhat noodles (4.5/10), curly
- Weak flavor (3/10)

6. Kumamoto area (west), Komurasaki.
- Specialty: tonkotsu ramen

- Thin noodles (2.5/10), straight
- Very weak flavor (2/10)


7. Sapporo area (north), Ramen no Eki.
- Specialty: miso ramen
- Thick noodles (8/10)
- Very strong flavor (10/10)

8. Yokohama area (east), Shina Sobaya.
- Specialty: shouyu soba
- Thin noodles (2.5/10), straight
- Weak flavor (3/10)

9. Tokyo area (east), Nidaime Genkotsuya.
- Specialty: shio ramen
- Thick noodles (6.5/10), straight
- Medium flavor (5/10)

The Ramen Museum has a unique setting of Edo period. The museum is underground and the lights were dim so I didn't quite enjoy the atmosphere. I felt rather stuffy even though I assume that they are well equipped with proper ventilation system.


If you are young enough you can play games. This card (I think you pay for the card but I don't know how much) allows you to collect stamps by winning a janken (scissors paper stone) with certain people stationed at certain locations.

If you lose, you'll have to give one of those hearts and I guess if you lost all of your 'hearts' you lose. But since it is meant for kids, even if you lose you will be allowed to keep trying until you win :)

And then there was also this shooting game, which you can also find whenever there are festivals. 300 yen for 10 cork bullets. I managed to shoot a pack of candy down on my 5th shot! The trick is to aim straight (not sideways to the left or to the right) and aim a little lower than your target. Theoretically it's easy to say but hard to execute.

On the first floor you can buy goods and souvenirs. I was a little broke so I didn't buy anything.

And in case you're wondering what dashi, tare and abura are, they have pictures describing each categories.

Will I come back to this museum? Well, probably, if I had so much spare time. It's a little far and I'm too lazy to spend two hours back and forth just to eat these ramen because there are so many delicious ramen around Tokyo anyways. 

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In Japan - Sports Festival (Undoukai)

Long overdue but yes our school organized an undoukai (sports festival) last Saturday. The games played in undoukai are rarely strenuous. I think other than the 100m relay, the rest are pretty much kind of fun games involving body movements.

The location was in Shinkiba, a gym called BumB. One thing I find a little troublesome about this place is that you have to enter the building with a clean, non-sport shoes, and then enter the gym area with proper sport shoes. Yup. Since the bathroom is outside the basketball court, you have to change your shoes into the non-sport shoes if you want to go to the bathroom and you have to switch back to your sport shoes as you re-enter the basketball court.

The undoukai began with opening speeches from the principal and the teachers in charge, as well as an oath by student representative saying that everyone will play a fair match. After that, everyone lined up on the basketball court to do a radio taisou. I'm not sure if there is an exact English translation for that but it's some sort of easy aerobic movements for warm ups. In Indonesian, it would be some sort of senam pagi. My teacher said that everyone does this at school so everyone is bound to know the movements.

We played a mini game before the matches started. Basically, when the principal blew the whistle, he would show us an instruction on a board of how many people per group we should form. For example, if the board says "7 people", then you will have to form a group of 7 with anyone, as long as you have 7 in a group, no more no less. Those who cannot form a group lose and will have to go back to their own seats. Sometimes you'll be asked to form as many as 30 people, and sometimes the instructions are gender specific, like "3 boys 2 girls".

The team was split into two groups: aka (red) and shiro (white). I was on the red team. Most games are split into matches between the red and the white team, while some games are class-specific. Either ways, if you're not playing, you should be supporting your team or your classmates.

If you Google "undoukai" or search this term at Wikipedia, you'll probably find variety of games that can be played. We played 4 games:

1) Dekapan relay
Dekapan (a short term of dekai pantsu, which means huge underwear) relay involves a pair running together while sharing the same huge underwear (it's not a panty; more like a pair of boxers I would say). It's easier when the runner is kind of slim because your whole body is supposed to fit into one of the holes. I participated in this relay, and it was actually not that hard to run in those boxers. Unless your running speed is very different from your partner's.

2) 100m relay
Just like a normal 100m relay consisting of 4 people in a team. A runner has to run a lap and pass the baton to the next runner. I'm a slow runner so I had zero confidence to participate. This 100m relay was a match against classes.

3) Tsunahiki (tug-o-war)
It has the same rules as tug-o-war, so I don't think I need to explain too much about this :)

4) Shougaibutsu relay (obstacle relay)
It's nothing like running the hurdles in track and field. Each team comprised of 6 members to compete in danboru goro goro, mekakushi relay, henkindai, and ball hakobu. And instead of passing a baton, we use a stash.

Danboru goro goro was especially very interesting. It's basically the rolling wheel that you'd normally see in a hamster cage, but it's made out of cardboard boxes. If you look at it from the outside, you'd see something like a tank's wheel or even a caterpillar crawling forward. Well, I didn't do it but it seemed very difficult to do. First, you can't see anything inside the cardboard wheel so it's hard to know where you are and which direction you're heading. Second, you have to crawl inside the box, so your hands and feet will hurt a bit.

Mekakushi (blindfold) relay involves a pair, one whose eyes are blindfolded and one whose job is to guide the blindfolded partner towards the next relay point. I was the blindfolded one. The distance was short and there were only 3-4 teams per relay, so it was easy to estimate where my partner was and which direction I should be heading. It was fun :)

Henkindai is basically a very narrow balancing bar. The bar is probably about 30 cm away from the ground. I've seen some who struggled with the bar but most people were able to clear the challenge in a few seconds.

Ball hakobu (carrying) also involves a pair. I thought you would be carrying a huge ball without dropping it. It turned out that the pair has to carry 4-5 basketball balls. Bigger people would definitely have bigger advantage in this relay.

Those were the main events, and after that, we headed towards a park nearby to have lunch together. I tried making fried pork rolls but seems like I used too much ume paste (it has a strong sour and salty flavor) and nagaimo (the white stuffs in the middle) is not something everyone had tasted before. LOL. But I'm glad I tried. It took me a long time to make these @__@

The event continued after the lunch, and there was a tug-o-war match between teachers. Around 3:30 pm the undoukai was closed with announcing the results of the matches (red team won and we got a huge trophy!!), and a closing speech.

It's really nice to be out there with your classmates not thinking about anything related to your studies, although I can feel that some people had zero motivation to participate. Perhaps it's an Asian thing not to be involved too much in sports-related activities and just focus on studies. I personally think it was really fun, though. It's been a while since I did something fun like this!

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