Yokohama Station
After the Gundam, we made a quick stop at Porta, the mall at Yokohama Station, where there was a Rilakkuma and Sumikko Gurashi pop-up store. Rule of every trip: if we see a Rilakkuma shop, we take a photo. Minmin had to.
And random: my friend @w.p.ictures happened to be in Yokohama that same day with his daughter, so we caught up at a café in Porta. Of all the places in Japan.
Into 1958
Then dinner at the Shin-Yokohama Ramen Museum. It opened in 1994, and the “museum” part is small: a gift shop and a wall of instant noodles upstairs. The real thing is down in the basement, made up as a Tokyo street at dusk in 1958. Old shopfronts, washing lines, a pachinko parlour, a sunset painted on the ceiling, and around ten ramen shops brought in from all over Japan.
Mini Bowls
The trick is that most shops do a mini bowl, so you can hop between two or three. We started with tonkotsu.
Upstairs, there’s a shop list, a ramen history wall and a little ramen cart.
Then the train back to Kamakura and our hotel for the next two nights.
Tomorrow: the Enoden and the Slam Dunk crossing.
Information About the Ramen Museum
Two basement floors made up as a Tokyo street in 1958, with about ten ramen shops from around Japan. Pay a small entry fee, then order at whichever shops you like.