22 Days in Japan, Day 6: I Went to a Wild Wild West Ramen Museum

Today starts out as a continuation of yesterday, at least weather-wise. Overcast with a slight drizzle, things are looking grim.

I start out the day taking the JR Keihin-Tohoku line to Sakuragicho, Yokohama. There’s lots of sights to see in the city, including a brick warehouse, amusement park, several museums, and a very large Chinatown. There are also the typical Japanese city staples: a gigantic mall, ANOTHER large-scale Ferris wheel, and YET ANOTHER really tall tower. All it needs are some temples and shrines to complete the ensemble.

Luckily for me, the drizzle reduces to a fine mist, and I’m ready to hit the city. Sakuragicho is probably not the best place to get off, as it’s a walk over to the Minatomirai area, where you probably want to be. (once you hit Yokohama station, take the Minatomirai line to the Minatomirai stop) There are two malls within throwing distance of the station, and I stop inside one to have a look see. $50 t-shirts? Check. I check out of there in a hurry.

I cross a couple of footbridges to get over to Minatomirai, and end up at the Red Brick Warehouse. The name really gives it away. It’s two old restored buildings that have been turned into (this will probably not be a surprise for previous visitors of Japan) – a mall. But a smaller, boutique-ish sort of mall, so it’s cool. No Gucci or Prada here son.

It’s fun browsing the various shops even for the non-shopper like me, and there’s a couple of decent-looking restaurants around too. Food prices are a little higher here – for a nice lunch it was about 800-1300 yen. You can, of course, always opt for the cheap route, aka sandwiches in the coffee shop.

A short walk away from the Red Brick Warehouse is an amusement park (sorry, didn’t catch the name) with the ubiquitous Ferris Wheel, among some other rides. It’s all very colorful, but I guess all of the kiddies are still in school because the place is pretty deserted. Or are they at home instead? When exactly do kids actually find the time to go to school, anyway? During my travels around Japan I’ve found students wandering about at all times of the day, seemingly having fun NOT studying. Whatever school they’re in, I want to be in.

Another short walk away from the Ferris Wheel is Yokohama’s ubiquitous Shopping Mall, in this case, Queen’s Square, a mammoth six-level establishment. My brain simply cannot fathom the sheer number of stores in this place. There is every type of store here that you could ever imagine, along with some you probably couldn’t. Like a dedicated Pokemon store. Amazing.

Once you get to the fourth, or fifth, or whatever level, you get on this walkway that has its own horizontal escalator, like the one they have in airports. Before that point is the elevator entrance to Landmark Tower, the tallest building in Japan. Nice if you like that sort of thing. The Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building was enough for me though.

The walkway out of/into the mall also takes you past a docked boat that offers a tour of the insides(not free). Looks interesting but it’s closed when I stroll by.

Aside from all of the fun Minatomirai stuff, Yokohama also has one of the largest Chinatowns (largest?) in Japan. I skip it because I know that soon I’ll be eating at…

The Raumen Museum. Yep, Raumen, not Ramen. Nope, I have no idea why they added the u, and it wasn’t explained anywhere in the museum. But it’s a ramen museum! I’ve been eating ramen nearly my entire life (or at least as long as I could remember) and I must admit I still know practically squat about it.

And after visiting the Raumen museum, I can say with certainty that I still know practically squat about it. Problem 1: 99% of the museum is in Japanese, except for the one odd New York Times article about the founder of ramen, Momofuku Ando. There’s an entire timeline of the history of ramen, and except for a couple of English words (“Start”, “Now!”) everything else might as well have been written in Greek.

Problem 2: A large, fat rope hung down from the ceiling in one corner of the room, and despite my overwhelming curiosity, I did not pull it. Why, you might ask? I’m still asking myself this, and also:

Problem 3: Why is the ramen in the Raumen Museum not as good as I expected it to be? That’s right, I said it. The bottom floor of the museum is a veritable treasure trove of small ramen shops, set to a backdrop of the Wild West (there’s even a carnival target shooting type game in the center). The decor is amazing, my ramen bowl was just…so-so. HOW DID THIS HAPPEN?

Portions in the basement aren’t necessarily cheap (they’re like 550-900 yen per bowl), and they’re a little less filling than your average bowl of ramen. It’s a bit of a shame, really, because it would have been cool to sample several small bowls of ramen (say 300 yen each maybe?) from different vendors. THAT is what a ramen museum should be.

The gift shop has a couple of fun knickknacks, like tiny versions of Cup Noodles and ramen packages, and plenty of bowls and chopsticks.

By now it’s around 6 pm, and, I figure, time to head back to Tokyo. Lady Luck sees it differently. Through some stroke of genius I take the wrong train, and manage not to notice until about five stops down. Oops. My second attempt back leads me to a city called Machida.

And it’s actually a nice, hip place. Sort of like an up-and-coming Shibuya. There are, of course, the standard shopping malls like Twins and Machida 109, but the shops inside are much more reasonably priced than any place in Tokyo and seemingly just as trendy. I manage to find my new favorite clothing store here, a shop called RageBlue (they have other branches around Tokyo). I also buy a 3500 yen shirt because, uh, it was cheaper than everything else.

For the more adventurous, one of the upper floors in Twins (I think it’s Twins, anyway) houses a used clothing shop which has racks and racks abound with cheap shirts, shorts, and pants. Lots of great stuff here.

The side streets are small and filled with small restaurants and shops, and what look like high schoolers. But it’s not quite as packed as Shibuya or Shinjuku, and actually a little peaceful. I like this place.

There’s a building on one of the side streets with a neon sign that says, “Machida Loves You”. It’s probably a love hotel, but I believe it anyway. Machida loves me, and the feeling’s mutual.