Rudasaki Do Japan 2016
July 8, 2016
Day 6: We woke up well rested and ready to take on the day. Ikuko and Masami had prepared a traditional Japanese breakfast with tamago, fried aji, miso soup, thousand year old picked veggies,
We decided to make a trip to Yokohama for the day. Masami was kind enough to drop us off at the train station
We did not know that Yokohama was the most populated city in Japan, and the most desired place to live, but we weren’t surprised. The area was gorgeous! There was also enough cloud coverage that walking around was bearable.
It felt like a Japanese version of Seattle (it’s a port city). It also just so happened to have both the ramen museum AND cup of noodles museum there. So of course, that was what we ended up doing for the day… eating. All day.
We first went to make our very own personalized cup of noodles. You purchase a cup then head over to design your cup
After the cup making, you head over to turn your noodles into the cup:
Next, you pick out your soup base (we both picked Curry) and 4 toppings.
After picking your toppings, they seal your lid
Then heat seal it and it is good for one month.
We then went to the Yokohama lookout area:
And sampled a mini bowl of cup of noodles
We went downstairs to the museum of all the cup of noodles through the years by different countries
Next, we headed over to the Ramen Museum, which basically, is an area that features different types of ramen from different areas of Japan, with different noodle types, different broth types, and packed into a building designed to look like old Japan.
We were determined to try every shop, but there were 8 shops and the half portions were still huge!
I wanted to try a miso ramen, so we tried Sumire. It was pretty good, but I must say, Monta in Las Vegas in my opinion is still better… 😁
We were already full, so we took a small jasmine tea with sake break at an Okinawan style izakaya since we can’t make it to Okinawa this trip:
Next we tried a pork broth style which is popular with the locals; Najima-tei, also popular in the south.
Surprisingly, for the appearance of the broth, it was pretty rich and flavorful. This shop used thin noodles, which I can’t say I was a huge fan of.
Sadly, we couldn’t fit anything more in our stomachs, so we had to leave. We walked around “old Japan”
We made our way back to Epinard and Masami wanted to photograph us while walking Livi, his border collie, so we went for an evening stroll before heading out to the Tanabata Festival. Livi has actually been featured in numerous calendar photos, music videos, etc. there is so much history with Masami and Ikuko’s home in Oiso, and it was wonderful getting to experience their hospitality!
The Tanabata Festival (Star Festival) normally is celebrated on 7/7 so we were a day late, but it has become a weekend event. The story is that that day is a day for wishes to come true. There was a couple in love that were separated by a river and 7/7 was the only day the two lovers could meet. Masami and Ikuko told us that it is normally raining during this festival, but we were fortunate to have beautiful weather! We were also fortunate that Masami took many beautiful candid photos of us at the festival!
We went to his childhood friend’s restaurant that just opened, “70's Kitchen” and had a delicious dinner of fried fish, squid, hamburger, cake and coffee.
We got a priceless group photo taken with the owner and friend of Masami’s.
We were both really fascinated with was the fact that the festival ended at 9, and the streets looked as though there was never any event happening. Here, we were heading back to the car, and the streets were pristine. You would never know thousands of people were gathered here just 60 minutes ago!
We headed home for the night, and got to fall asleep to the heavy pounding rain on the tin roofs… it happened later in the evening after the festival, so we were extremely lucky that we got to enjoy the night dry! This unplanned trip to Oiso has been a beautiful and special part of our vacation because of the sharing of stories and cultural exchange with Ikuko and Masami. I don’t want to leave!
Oyasumi!
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