Day 170 in Japan - Cup Noodle Museum with Atsushi!

Today was Coming of Age Day in Japan so everywhere we went today, we saw lots of kimono and suits. It was a really nice day to be out and about - everyone was a bit exciting, and everything seemed to buzz with energy just a little bit, even though it was freezing cold. It was also a public holiday! And it probably explains why there were festivals on all around the place last night.

Today, we FINALLY met up with Atsushi Sakuda - my friend from Osaka University who had visited Melbourne for a few months. We've been playing phone tag with him for the last few months, but he has been finishing up his thesis, so has been understandably occupied. But he handed in his thesis last week, so together we met with him and his girlfriend, Yuko, to celebrate a little. We met in Osaka, went for our first real sushi restaurant experience (we have been to kaiten sushi - sushi train - many times, but this was the first classy restaurant we had visited), and then decided to visit the Cup Noodle Museum in Ikeda (Osaka). We learned all about the nearby invention of instant ramen, saw some awesome videos, watched other people construct their own personalised ramen (selecting the flavourings, vegetables to add, meat bits, colouring their own containers, and finally sealing and preserving the noodles), and generally didn't understand much of what was going on around us. Most everything was in Japanese, so we were lucky to have Atsushi along to point out what was what and explain things to us. It was still a really cool experience - who can say they have been to an instant ramen museum!? It started some light snowing on our walk back to the station, and we ended up going for coffees and bread at a nearby nice little bakery in an interesting mall.

Yuko, Atsushi and Sam at the Nissin Cup Noodle Museum

This is part of the make-your-own cup noodle exhibition, but it was too packed to do. But you can choose your own flavour, choose your own fixin's, design your cup etc.

The fixin"s chart for your noodley design (is this pastafarianism meets intelligent design?)

Two fools, one cup noodle.

(About half of the) Timeline of noodles all made by Niisin since the 1970's.

Colourful noodles.

Food Highlight of the Day: Not noodles, actually. At the classy sushi shop, and the maguro sushi was excellent! Complemented our celebratory beers perfectly.