Tokyo Day 5 (Yokohama)!!

Yo, everyone, Day 4 is up too! So read that too. You know you want to! It's about my host clubbing experience ;)

CAMERA PICTURES FROM DAYS 1, 2, AND 3 ARE UP AS WELL, SO PLEASE GO LOOK!!!! (They're at the bottom of each post)

They're funny, I promise!

Thrusday, March 20

So last night, I decided since it was going to rain tomorrow and therefore it wouldn't be fun to go to Meiji Shrine, I'd go to Yokohama with Minju and Sayaka!

And yeah, the Heavens peed on us all day.

I woke up to pouring rain. While I was eating breakfast, Sayaka checked out of Anne Hostel, because she hadn't been able to get a room for tonight. Then she had to leave to check into her new hostel. I finished eating and then left. I would have gotten to Hachiko at exactly 10, when we were all meeting, except there were a whole bunch of train delays. My first train was delayed 7 minutes (which was actually good, because I would have missed it otherwise) and my second was delayed 9 minutes!

Luckily, Minju and Sayaka were delayed too, so although I was the last one there, at least I wasn't the only one who was late.

Shibuya in the rain

 

Hachiko!

Minju wanted to go see the statue that girl had posted about too, so we went to go see it. Somehow, I remembered the way, so I led everyone!

Next, we went to lunch. I'd eaten a ton of breakfast at the hostel, so I wasn't too hungry. We ended up going to Shakey's, which is a famous American 900 yen all-you-can-eat pizza and pasta place in Japan. I'm not a big fan of either pizza or pasta, but Minju and Sayaka really wanted to go, and plus, I saw they had dessert pizza!

Fruit, marshmallow, and chocolate syrup on pizza... Mmmmm!

 
Then we headed to the station to take the train to Yokohama. We bought a Yokohama day ticket, because that was the cheapest option.

Cute pawprints at Hachiko station area

Cool entrance at the station

The day pass

On the train, Minju and I drew on the windows haha. The Japanese people started at us sometimes.

Minju drawing Haku

Then, about a half hour later, we reached Yokohama!! Yokohama is a port city.

It had a rainbow Ferris wheel! Yes!!

A pink roller coaster! Minju said it was the first roller coaster to drop down to the water. It looked so cool and I wanted to ride it, but the park was closed today

Drain covers here

We were going to the Cup Noodles Museum, because Minju had read about it and wanted to go. It was a short 10 minute walk from the station.

It was only 500 yen to enter and make ramen!

Outside of the Cup Noodles Museum

Cool paper Cup Noodle statue

There was a cute cup noodle statue with the chick mascot that we took our picture by. Sayaka has that picture. I'll have to get it from her...

Upstairs, we entered the ramen making area! There were a whole bunch of people making their cups.

We each bought a ramen cup for 300 yen

Then we headed over to the tables to design our ramen cups. They were the same cups as the giant Cup of Noodles that used to be in Times Square that I was obsessed with when I was younger.

While we were coloring our cups, this TV crew singled out Minju, Sayaka, and me out of all the Japanese people in the room and asked us to do an interview! We said sure.
They asked us all where we were from and how we came to know each other, and why we came to the Cup Noodles Museum. It seemed like they thought our answers were pretty boring, so when they asked if we'd known about Cup Noodles before coming here, I told them about the giant Cup of Noodles in Times Square and they loved that! The guy kept repeating what I said to his coworkers, lol. They totally ate it up.
Then I said that college students eat ramen because it's cheap and he asked how much ramen is in the U.S. I didn't know so I said $1.50. Is that right??

So yay, second time I've been on TV in Japan! I think Japanese people like filming foreigners because this guy in my hostel who sounds like he's from Australia was talking about how he got on TV at the airport and they filmed him buying a train ticket, lol.

The crew that interviewed us

My cup! That chick is the mascot

We had to write the date, so we remember to eat it within one month

 

Minju, the amazing artist, drew the three of us on her cup.

 

 

Then we got to go get our cups filled!

We got to turn this thing when it was our turn

Mine! They put the ramen in by turning the cup upside-down

Then they showed us the ramen in our cup!

Then we got to choose four fillings! I chose the fish cakes that said "Love", the ones with the chick mascot, shrimp, and string beans!

My ramen

The fillings

 

Then they put the cover on our cups and sealed them up!

All sealed up!

Yay!

And theeeen, we put the ramen in bags and used a pump to fill the bags up with air, although not to much, or the ramen container would break open!

So cute!

And then you wore your ramen around your neck!

 

Then we looked around the rest of the museum.

 

Some people are a little too obsessed with ramen...

 

Back on the first floor, we watched a movie about the creation of instant ramen. It was created by this guy named Momofuku, because he'd seen people line up for ramen during the wars. It was in Japanese with no subtitles, but I got an earpiece so I could hear it in English and Minju got one for Korean.

Anyway, Momofuku created instant ramen to be eaten in a bowl with chopsticks in his thirties. Then, in his fifties, he went to America to try to sell it there, but no one could use chopsticks. They said they would eat it in a cup with a fork, so he used that knowledge to make cup ramen. He had trouble getting it into the cup right, so he came up with the reversal method, turning the cup upside down and putting it over the ramen and then flipping the cup over.

Finally, in is nineties, he invented ramen that can be eaten in space because it is made so it doesn't float in zero gravity! Sugoi!

He never gave up.

And when people started copying his idea, since they didn't have copyrights back then, he released his secret formula to the public to better the ramen industry, instead of keeping all the glory to himself!

It was such an inspiring movie. And he only died a few years ago, in 2007.

Cool ramen noodle artowork

Sayaka noticed there were English words in it! Here is "noodle". Can you see it?

And a heart <3

Never give up! I'm standing in front of Momofuku

Golden Momofuku

The maruchan ramen Bridget and I like

The Ferris wheel again!

 

On the way back to the station, we passed tons of girls in kimonos like I'd seen the other day. It turns out they're for graduation from University, Sayaka told us. They're a special kind of kimono, called hakama. Sayaka's graduation is this Sunday, so she rented a hakama.

Next stop was a few stations over. It was Chinatown!

Omg this panda!

This is flipping for some reason...

Pandas everywhere!

 

 

Minju and Sayaka got meat buns and boba tea. So I got these sesame dumpling things that I love! They were always 6 for 600 yen, but I found the one place where it was 6 for 500 yen! :)

Pink buns!

Panda buns!

Saw these strawberry cheesecake Kit Kats. I like this packaging better than the one I bought. But this only had 9 in it, while mine had 12.

Then we headed back to Shibuya. All of us were too full for dinner. But I wanted to go outside quickly and take a picture of the crossing in the rain!

 

We headed back early because we were all SO exhausted! 

Also, on the train home, Minju let Sayaka and me try her Tokyo banana, because she doesn't like them. It was the special Sky Tree edition that looks like a giraffe with the spots!

It was so delicious!! It was a mix of chocolate and banana flavor with chocolate pudding inside. Mmmm!