Kelly and Laura's Adventure Days - Ramen Museum

On Sunday, Laura and I had been planning to go to Chiba to check out the fall foliage, but another tropical storm came our way and it rained all weekend and in to Monday. Instead, we went with Plan B and checked out Yokohama's Ramen Museum and went shopping with Gizelle and Annie.

The Ramen museum claims to be the only food themed amusement park in the world, but I think calling it an "amusement park" is a slight exaggeration. I'd go with "themed restaurant with gift shop" instead.

The museum consisted of 8 or 9 Ramen shops, each from a different part of Japan. Some have seafood, some are soy based or miso based. Different veggies, noodles, etc. We went with an area of Japan southwest of here called Hakata and their raman is described as Fukuchan. This type of ramen has basic seasonings, soy sauce, seafoods, chicken, garlic, ginger and pork. They had garlic chips and fresh garlic and a garlic press so you can flavor your soup more if you'd like.

The shops were located in a scale model of Tokyo from 1958. I think our favorite part was the sound effect of airplanes flying overhead. When you walked down in to the museum they even made it look like you were walking down in to the subway.

You can see how many people they fit into this place. They even had signs for each of the shops telling you how long the wait would be. It reminded me is Disney. You could order a smaller sample size of a bowl of ramen in case you wanted to try multiple places. We decided one line was long enough and went for the regular size. The ramen was delicious and perfect for a cold and rainy day!