Spent my first day in a week out of Tokyo by going out to Yokohama which is less than 30 mins from the west end of Tokyo.
I dunno why, but my first impressions of Yokohama are pretty good. Maybe because its not Tokyo, and probably because i spent most of my time visiting the sites around the harbor which are away from the city centre. Maybe its cuz its a weekday. For whatever reason, the yokohama harbor was a pretty pleasant place with hardly any crowds. Great for a stroll around some modern buildings, amusement parks, historic buildings, and gardens. Amazing considering that Yokohama is supposed to be Japans 2nd largest city nad also one of its busiest ports. Headed through Chinatown which was rather bland though, and also extremely expensive! I think they were chargin like 4 bucks for 1 (albeit large) pork bun. Passed by the Yokohama stadium, then hopped on the rather expensive subway to Shin-yokohama station which is where the instant ramen museum is.
My feelings on the Instant ramen museum are rather mixed cuz half of it is stores and restaurants, but they charge you 300 yen to get in! But i guess people go for it because they have little line number holders when the museum gets full! People apparently go to the museum JUST to eat in the ramen restaurant there which were picked out by the museum staff as the best reprsentatives from the various "ramen regions". I guess these regullars get the 1000 yen monthly pass..
So i chose the ramen from the Kumamoto region, which i missed (well, i had store bought instant curry ramen when i way there...). They describe it as "another white soup ramen with a mild salty flavor, the stock is made from pork and chiken bones. The relish is a delicious combination of char-shu jelly like kikurage mushrooms, bean sprouts, menma, and garlic chips."
I dont know what menma is. Overall it was OK. Still not better than my benchmark 500 yen ramen place in Shibuya. I think that place is the best cuz theyre the only ones which allow you to add unlimited condiments (amazingly ive acquired a taste for pickled ginger...go figure).
The museum was OK. It has plenty of good displays, but hardly any English so all i could do was look and try to guess what the things meant. One nice picture i got that i hope turns out was of an old cup-o-noodle container with none other than our new governor on the cover.
...
Myong should juuuuust about be landing about now...hope he make it through the rush hour OK.