Yokohama Ramen Museum

It's open again!
It's open again!
The Shin Yokohama Ramen Museum is finally open again!

If you're only in Tokyo for a few days, go to the ramen museum in Shin Yokohama.

It's not far from the glorious Yokohama station, itself a short ride from Tokyo. A few blocks from Shin Yokohama station is one of the weirdest, most interesting places in Kanto.
It closed down years ago, but as soon as I heard it had re-opened I grabbed my family and we trained it out there.

I'm not sure I'd call it a museum...maybe a theme restaurant / museum?
The ground floor houses a modest museum displaying the history of ramen in Japan and it's trappings. But it's that which lies below for which you should go.





The basement stairs are actually a time machine, taking you back to the year 1958 when ramen saw a boom period across Japan. There you'll find an amazing replica of an old, Japanese neighborhood consisting of a town square surrounded by dense little urban paths and filled with numerous ramen shops.







The Japanese fast-food equivalent of the American hamburger is a bowl of steaming ramen. While it's not the  healthiest meal, it's a good-sight better than tacos or burgers, and it's about as fast.

Now ramen shops are pervasive, ranging from sublime to awful, and like any fast food you learn to keep expectations low in touristy areas like theme parks and rest stops. You go do Disneyland for the rides, not the spaghetti, right? Not so here, where the museum showcases the best ramen Japan has to offer from Hokkaido to Okinawa; alot like EPCOT's World Showcase.


The shops rotate periodically, but the shop we found most interesting when we went in September was actually from Hollywood, CA. called Ikemen (a play on words, ikemen meaning handsome, and men meaning noodles).

The ramen is dipping style, where you take some noodles and dip them into the sauces. And in addition to great food, they have a great sense of humor, with menu items such as "Johnny Dip Ramen" and "Jurassic Pork."

Admission is about 300 yen for adults, 100 yen for kids.

It's the details that really complete an illusion and the detail the really sold me that I'd stepped back in time was a "public TV," mounted high on a post in the square so everyone could watch it (because hey, this is the 50's; who can afford their own TV???)

The secret to getting the most out of your visit, unless you plan on multiple visits, is to order the "mini" bowls of ramen at the various shops. These are half-sized servings. This way you don't fill up quite so quickly. We were able to sample three different shops this way and still have room for soft-serve ice cream at a nostalgic old "snack" bar (something between a coffee shop and a tavern).

We happened to get here in time to watch a TV station record a superhero scene in the square. TOO FUNNY!

The name of this shop translates out to "Fire Nation." As a fan of The Last Airbender, I entered cautiously.

...a WHAT booth??? How did the older generations ever survive without  iPhones?

Just enjoying a steam at the local sento bath-house.

Enjoying a frozen jelly, in the classic dagashiya style.

I took my dad here when he visited.
I took my wife here on one of our first dates.
I took every visitor here.
And everyone balked at the suggestion.
And everyone loved it.
And it was closed down before my son was old enough to experience it, which was a real bummer. But now I have been able to share this wonderful place with him, and he can't wait to go back.

And of course what night ramen would be complete without a few laps on an old slot car racetrack? Weird? Unrelated? Sure, but it was so much fun I'm not complaining.

For more information, follow this link to their English site or type Yokohama Ramen Museum into Google.

Smaller Cuter Better: Cupcakes

 It's almost unbearably cliche. Tiny, "demitasse" cupcakes in the Omotesando subway Echika.

Following the big cupcake boom back in the States, TABLES has taken the recently re-booted cupcake, miniaturized it, and is offering it in more flavors than you'll find for macaroons...and they're adorable! Just look at some of these:

Fig, orange, green tea, red velvet, pink berry, black vanilla, white chocolate...

one of my favorites was the gingerbread:

We stumbled across it changing trains in Omotesando, near Shibuya last month. The cakes were just the right size to make for a little pick-me-up treat. We actually ended up getting several. Luckily, there is a good coffee bar facing TABLES so we could have a good cuppa with the cup cakes. I took this picture from where we were sitting:

It's the kind of thing I'd have walked right past if I hadn't drifted into the kitchenware store behind it. Even after I saw it, I almost gave it a miss because at first glance it looked like any other confectioner. But now it's one of our Omotesando stops. If you're in Osaka, they're there, too.

Every flavor we've tried is top-notch. They're priced right. Easy to carry home.

...and they're just gorgeous to look at.

Here's a menu, but the items are always changing:

This is one of my killer holiday gifts this year. Everyone I've given them to loves them. 

Yes, I've got that American competitive gift-giving thing. 

My gift has to be the coolest thing you get.

Above-Average Chain Join: Bistro 309

A new Aeon mall opened near my son's school a few months ago and that's been a godsend for my wife and I. Now we can drop our son off, take care of some wholesale business in the area, then run by the mall for lunch and shopping. This Aeon is one of the smaller ones, comparatively, but it has some good eateries. The other day we tried one called Bistro 309. We stopped in out of curiosity, lured by fondue. The atmosphere was standard country-home/European kitchen motif. At alot of places, I get the feeling they took their motif out of a catalog...or more like a pamphlet. While 309 is a bit plastic, it's not irritatingly so, and the background music was a pleasant mix of jazz and intelligent pop.

One distinguishing feature is the bread bar in the middle that boasts about 15 different kinds of fresh bread rolls, all you can eat, and some interesting flavors at that. Basil, carrot, onion, corn, pumpkin, yomogi...and some pretty decent croissants.

The rest of the food could have been average and the bread would have been enough to bring us back, but the salad was also a cut above the average family restaurant. As you can see, mixed greens, and not drowned in dressing.

 I never had my fondue. I saw the cheese demi glace hamburg steak at another table and had to have that. And it was as good if not better than what I've had at Bikuri Donkey and places like that.

Food was prompt, service was courteous. They accommodated my requests. In the end, we had a tasty lunch at a reasonable price, with professional service (not the part-time college student sort you get at alot of places), and an atmosphere that didn't annoy me.

One other thing we noticed about the ambiance was a surprising absence of squalling tots. This sort of restaurant is usually thick with the screeching of colicky infants. But we were mercifully allowed to dine in peace. On our way out we saw why: strategic seating. All the baby groups were clustered at the front away from the rest of us. That's the kind of attention to detail I appreciate.

We'll be back soon to try some of the other items. If you come across a Bistro 309 I'd recommend you give it a try.

Halloween in Japan 2013 Progress Report #1: Food

One of my favorite things about Japan is how it assimilates foreign culture without imitating it. Take, for example, my favorite holiday - Halloween. We first started seeing the earliest glimmerings of it's presence here 20 years ago. Now it's becoming firmly positioned in the Japanese pop-holiday pantheon. But in the same way England and North America have their own ways of expressing it, so does Japan and it's about as similar the the American Halloween as is Mexico's Dia De Los Muertos.

This year, we're seeing two new sweets in the stores. This one is an apple pie that looks like a jack-o-lantern. Light, flaky crust and cinnamon-sweet apple filling.

...and this is a steamed pumpkin cake.

It has the consistency of sponge cake, but with a Japanese Kabocha "pumpkin," a variety of Asian squash. Very tasty.

I'm looking forward to what other confections Japan comes up with in the Halloweens to come.

Orbi: the New Multi-Media Theme Park

OK, I wouldn't call it a theme "park." It's really more of a theme theater, but that sounds odd; and Orbi in Yokohama is hard to describe.

It's equal parts movie theater, museum exhibition, and theme park.

BBC and SEGA have teamed up to create a space full of innovative, high definition video displays that showcase the magnificence of the natural world, the animals in particular.

What you have is a large, indoor area with a main cinema and nine surrounding exhibits. The main cinema is a semi-circular, curved panoramic screen where you watch a 30 minute montage of environments. It's visually stunning. Anyone should enjoy the outstanding nature shots, and small kids will be captivated by the animals. This time it was the four seasons of the arctic. The show was supposed to include aromas and while the entire theater had an odd, musky smell to it I couldn't make out any distinctive odors in the course of it. As far as I could make tell, it was just a high-def panoramic documentary which isn't to say it wasn't excellent. But they're promising perhaps more than they can deliver.

Why go?
This exhibition draws on the BBC's vast wealth of wildlife media and with SEGA's multi-media excellence, they present it so well that it transcends conventional natural history museums to stand as fine art. Honestly, the way the animals and environments were presented was nothing short of art. While the photos themselves were gorgeous, the presentations were themselves beautiful.

This is well-balanced for all ages. Toddlers and infants will be just as engaged as teens and adults, which is quite an achievement. It's a great place to take visitors. It was clear to see that this is also a first-rate date spot; I saw a good deal of hand-holding and shoulder-rubbing in the crowds.

It should be as interesting to environmental enthusiasts as to people who don't know a newt from a skink.

The ambiance is outstanding. We all agreed, when we get super-rich we want this to be our living room.

My favorite "room" was a presentation of jellyfish at various depths. I may despise jellies more than anything else in the sea, but some of these were dazzling! And anything less than HD just wouldn't work for these. I went through it several times. They tried to give the illusion of featured jellies suspended in mid-air by projecting them onto vapor cascades (you know, like in the Pirates of the Caribbean ride), but it didn't really work. But it didn't detract from the overall exhibition. Ultimately, it tries to impress on you how far down the lowest point in the ocean is, but it was the jellyfish that we all remembered.

We all loved the "cold room" where you can experience -20C degree blasts of arctic-cold winds. You don't hesitate to pack into a tight huddle with complete strangers as your survival instinct kicks in.

The weakest exhibit may have been the Animalpedia where you stand before a towering video wall and use hand gestures to select among silhouettes of animals and get pop-up displays of basic information about them. But the information was fairly bland; nothing we don't see on the internet all the time. And the controls were frustratingly difficult. So what it's essentially the novelty of a giant screen and an iterative system that while cool-looking will simply frustrate anyone who has grown up using mouses and touch screens.

There's a room that features the colors of nature and surrounds you with brilliant wildlife photos that match the color of whatever you place under a camera in the center of the room. If you love wildlife photography, you'll probably spend a good deal of time in this one.

Next to that there's a dark and winding corridor that features insects. I skipped through pretty hastily, expecting more of a haunted-house with simulated bee and spider attacks. In fact, it's just sights, sounds, and an occasional air jet. Mostly harmless.I may have been a little jumpy because we'd just come from the Komodo Dragon room where, after watching a short documentary on why Komodo Dragons should scare the hell outta us, they put us in total darkness and simulate a throng of Dragons stalking all about us, with synchronized audio, air jets in our seats, and a rumbling base.. Fun and interesting, great for a tepid date, but not for easily frightened children.

Another exhibition sought to put us in the midst of a wildebeest heard and give us a real understanding of what 1,300,000 of them really looked like. I'm grateful they didn't try and simulate smells on this one.

Finally a flying video takes you on a breathtaking 40,000 km landscape tour. If you're in the center of the theater, it's very realistic. If not, you'll have to try and ignore alot of concave distortion.

Why not go to Orbi? The reasons are few and slim:

I felt 2,600 yen / person (half price for minors) was a bit steep. But my wife contends that we spent over three hours in there and as theme parks go, the price was reasonable.

While the staff are eager to speak English and the most critical words are co-presented in English, the entire presentation is limited to Japanese. But it's largely visual and you need not understand a word of Japanese to understand most of it. English language brochures are also available. But this is Japan and English just isn't as globally important as it used to be.

And although they do regulate the crowds inside keep the numbers within limits, we still had to wait 20-45 minutes for most of the attractions. But the lines were close enough to the "base camp" that the little ones could run and play until their group's turn had come. The Base Camp isn't quite a playground, but it is a good space for little ones to run around and burn off steam.

Know this:
Small kids should absolutely avoid room C, the Komodo dragon room. It's not just scary, but the documetary is shocking and gory. It should be rated PG.
Wear good walking shoes because you're going to be doing alot of standing.
Drinks aren't allowed, and not provided, so be sure to smuggle in a bottle of water and maybe some snacks.
Also be aware that once you exit, there's no re-entry.
There's also a large gift shop at the end that carries quite a large array of natural history merch, mostof it direct from England. Alot of this stuff I've never seen in Japan, so this can be a great opportunity to buy novel gifts.

Verdict
A fun, informative afternoon for any kind of group or person. You won't be sorry. And after you're done, you'll be in Minatomirai which is one of the most awesome urban destinations in Japan, and a short walk from Chinatown, Yokohama station, and Kanae.

On a rainy Sunday afternoon, we had to wait about 45 min to get tickets, and another hour after that to get in.

"Base Camp" is a lounge area with animals and environments protected onto shapes. It makes for a striking rest area.

Various animals are projected onto this giant cushion, including this lizard, a polar bear, an killer whale and a caterpillar.

This logo is everywhere

A good idea of the space and the crowds within.

And a brochure is worth another thousand words:

Orbi: the New Multi-Media Theme Park

OK, I wouldn't call it a theme "park." It's really more of a theme theater, but that sounds odd; and Orbi in Yokohama is hard to describe.

It's equal parts movie theater, museum exhibition, and theme park.

BBC and SEGA have teamed up to create a space full of innovative, high definition video displays that showcase the magnificence of the natural world, the animals in particular.

What you have is a large, indoor area with a main cinema and nine surrounding exhibits. The main cinema is a semi-circular, curved panoramic screen where you watch a 30 minute montage of environments. It's visually stunning. Anyone should enjoy the outstanding nature shots, and small kids will be captivated by the animals. This time it was the four seasons of the arctic. The show was supposed to include aromas and while the entire theater had an odd, musky smell to it I couldn't make out any distinctive odors in the course of it. As far as I could make tell, it was just a high-def panoramic documentary which isn't to say it wasn't excellent. But they're promising perhaps more than they can deliver.

Why go?
This exhibition draws on the BBC's vast wealth of wildlife media and with SEGA's multi-media excellence, they present it so well that it transcends conventional natural history museums to stand as fine art. Honestly, the way the animals and environments were presented was nothing short of art. While the photos themselves were gorgeous, the presentations were themselves beautiful.

This is well-balanced for all ages. Toddlers and infants will be just as engaged as teens and adults, which is quite an achievement. It's a great place to take visitors. It was clear to see that this is also a first-rate date spot; I saw a good deal of hand-holding and shoulder-rubbing in the crowds.

It should be as interesting to environmental enthusiasts as to people who don't know a newt from a skink.

The ambiance is outstanding. We all agreed, when we get super-rich we want this to be our living room.

My favorite "room" was a presentation of jellyfish at various depths. I may despise jellies more than anything else in the sea, but some of these were dazzling! And anything less than HD just wouldn't work for these. I went through it several times. They tried to give the illusion of featured jellies suspended in mid-air by projecting them onto vapor cascades (you know, like in the Pirates of the Caribbean ride), but it didn't really work. But it didn't detract from the overall exhibition. Ultimately, it tries to impress on you how far down the lowest point in the ocean is, but it was the jellyfish that we all remembered.

We all loved the "cold room" where you can experience -20C degree blasts of arctic-cold winds. You don't hesitate to pack into a tight huddle with complete strangers as your survival instinct kicks in.

The weakest exhibit may have been the Animalpedia where you stand before a towering video wall and use hand gestures to select among silhouettes of animals and get pop-up displays of basic information about them. But the information was fairly bland; nothing we don't see on the internet all the time. And the controls were frustratingly difficult. So what it's essentially the novelty of a giant screen and an iterative system that while cool-looking will simply frustrate anyone who has grown up using mouses and touch screens.

There's a room that features the colors of nature and surrounds you with brilliant wildlife photos that match the color of whatever you place under a camera in the center of the room. If you love wildlife photography, you'll probably spend a good deal of time in this one.

Next to that there's a dark and winding corridor that features insects. I skipped through pretty hastily, expecting more of a haunted-house with simulated bee and spider attacks. In fact, it's just sights, sounds, and an occasional air jet. Mostly harmless.I may have been a little jumpy because we'd just come from the Komodo Dragon room where, after watching a short documentary on why Komodo Dragons should scare the hell outta us, they put us in total darkness and simulate a throng of Dragons stalking all about us, with synchronized audio, air jets in our seats, and a rumbling base.. Fun and interesting, great for a tepid date, but not for easily frightened children.

Another exhibition sought to put us in the midst of a wildebeest heard and give us a real understanding of what 1,300,000 of them really looked like. I'm grateful they didn't try and simulate smells on this one.

Finally a flying video takes you on a breathtaking 40,000 km landscape tour. If you're in the center of the theater, it's very realistic. If not, you'll have to try and ignore alot of concave distortion.

Why not go to Orbi? The reasons are few and slim:

I felt 2,600 yen / person (half price for minors) was a bit steep. But my wife contends that we spent over three hours in there and as theme parks go, the price was reasonable.

While the staff are eager to speak English and the most critical words are co-presented in English, the entire presentation is limited to Japanese. But it's largely visual and you need not understand a word of Japanese to understand most of it. English language brochures are also available. But this is Japan and English just isn't as globally important as it used to be.

And although they do regulate the crowds inside keep the numbers within limits, we still had to wait 20-45 minutes for most of the attractions. But the lines were close enough to the "base camp" that the little ones could run and play until their group's turn had come. The Base Camp isn't quite a playground, but it is a good space for little ones to run around and burn off steam.

Know this:
Small kids should absolutely avoid room C, the Komodo dragon room. It's not just scary, but the documetary is shocking and gory. It should be rated PG.
Wear good walking shoes because you're going to be doing alot of standing.
Drinks aren't allowed, and not provided, so be sure to smuggle in a bottle of water and maybe some snacks.
Also be aware that once you exit, there's no re-entry.
There's also a large gift shop at the end that carries quite a large array of natural history merch, mostof it direct from England. Alot of this stuff I've never seen in Japan, so this can be a great opportunity to buy novel gifts.

Verdict
A fun, informative afternoon for any kind of group or person. You won't be sorry. And after you're done, you'll be in Minatomirai which is one of the most awesome urban destinations in Japan, and a short walk from Chinatown, Yokohama station, and Kanae.

On a rainy Sunday afternoon, we had to wait about 45 min to get tickets, and another hour after that to get in.

"Base Camp" is a lounge area with animals and environments protected onto shapes. It makes for a striking rest area.

Various animals are projected onto this giant cushion, including this lizard, a polar bear, an killer whale and a caterpillar.

This logo is everywhere

A good idea of the space and the crowds within.

And a brochure is worth another thousand words: