Today we went to the CupNoodles Museum in Yokohama. The train took about an hour with 2 transfers (at Shimbashi and Yokohama) and we got off at Minatomirai Station. The station is connected to Queen’s Square, a huge shopping and office complex. After we exited the station, we went up a really long escalator to reach ground level. From there, it was less than 10 minutes to CupNoodles Museum.
The entrance, very modern and stark:
This is their mascot. DS and I called him Ducky Momo after the duck in Phineas and Ferb. I thought it was fitting since the museum is all about the inventor of instant ramen – MOMOfuku Ando. But I’m pretty sure that’s not the duck’s name…actually, I don’t even know if he’s a duck or a chick. 
First we got admission tickets (500 yen for adults, anyone high school age or younger is free) and a time slot for the My CupNoodles Factory where you design your own Cup Noodles. At the activity area, there are vending machines to buy the cups for 300 yen each. First decorate the cup, take it to the station where they put the noodles in, pick the soup base and 4 toppings, then they vacuum seal it.
The “Ducky Momo” (not his real name) topping is so cute! I think it’s made of fish cake?
To the left is a counter where you can put your Cup Noodles in an inflatable bag:
After this, we were starving and went to the food court where they have noodles from around the world. It’s very retro in contrast to the modernism of the rest of the museum. All the portions are fairly small so you can try different ones. There is a ticket machine near each stall.
This one is the original chicken flavor ramen with the pork topping (there were other toppings, which I can’t remember now). It was 300 yen.
Korean cold noodles, I think it was 500 yen – very good.
We also had the Thai one, which was good, and some delicious shaved ice.
DS and I then had to rush off to the Chicken Ramen Factory where we made the actual ramen noodles from scratch. It’s only for elementary school kids and above, so DD had to stay behind with DH. It was 300 yen for DS and 500 yen for me, plus we each got a “Ducky Momo” head scarf to keep. I think this is the only activity that you can make a reservation for online, which is what I did. It’s only in Japanese though, but I was able to do it using Google translate and reading kanji. It was a Wednesday, but I was worried about the Yokohama Port Festival going on that day, I didn’t know if it would affect the crowd at all. The class wasn’t full, so I actually didn’t need to do that. Weekends or school holidays, a reservation probably would be a good idea.
The class is entirely in Japanese, but they gave us a laminated sheet with the instructions in English. There were 3 long tables where we sat to decorate the instant ramen bag and listen to instructions. I understood none of it of course, but at one point, the instructor looked at me and pointed to her wrist, so then I realized she had said to remove watches. Each table has a couple of instructors for the actual hands on stuff. We came last and ended up at our own table with our own instructor. He spoke very little English, but it was fine with demos, gestures, and the instruction sheet.
Noodle making counters:
This guy fried our noodles for us:
DS had fun making the noodles. The kids actually had never had instant ramen before, so I was a little worried they would ask me for it after all this instant ramen propaganda, but luckily they didn’t. We then moved on to the actual museum.
Wall of noodles – a little Andy Warholesque?
Instant ramen inventor – Momofuku Ando:
Hmm…comparison to Einstein, a little much maybe.
The exhibits were all about inspiration and innovation. There was one wall about how different inventions were inspired – like the hypodermic needles were inspired by mosquitoes, helicopters were inspired by dragonflies, etc. There was a display with a model of a forest and a light that moved on a track, when you look at the shadow that is projected on the wall, it looks like you are moving through the forest.
Last, we went to the CupNoodles Park. There are time slots again since they only let a certain number of kids in. It’s 300 yen/kid for 30 minutes, at least one adult needs to follow them in (no charge).
The yellow rope course is supposed to look like ramen noodles, at the end, the kids jump into a ball pit, yellow and orange balls only, to look like instant ramen ingredients.
Slide with the structure made out of instant ramen boxes. The slides have factory rollers, I tried it once – very weird sensation! The gigantic upside down cup, you go in and the walls rotate around you, like you’re in a Cup Noodles.
The kids had so much fun they went in twice.
Travels with 2 Kids 