Today we ventured to Yokohama, to visit with Chieko, Takenori, and their two boys, Sola and Watalu. Chieko and my Mom are cousins. We arrived at the museum before they did, so the boys did some Pokemon Go-ing in a nearby park, and Elias did some bird watching.
Right by the museum stood a theme park, with what was once the largest clock in the world. https://en.japantravel.com/kanagawa/huge-ferris-wheel-in-yokohama-minato-mirai-cosmo-clock-21/437
We spent most of the day at the Cup Noodles Museum.
I found some cool sculptures throughout the museum.
Bayus found something that was written to honor Momofuku, the inventor of Cup Noodles, that he felt summed up his own life.
We learned about the history of Cup Noodles (we also learned that it is called Cup Noodles, not Cup of Noodles),
Bayus and Sola played in a park that demonstrated how a Cup Noodles is made in the factory, and we made our own, custom Cup Noodles.
These packages were funny. We put our Cup Noodles in, then pumped up the packaging, so it squeezed the Cup Noodles inside. 🙂
We were even able to decorate our own cups!
(Mom used the panoramic feature on her phone camera to take this picture)
The museum had a re-creation of the house that Momofuku was living in, when he invented Cup Noodles.
Momofuku was having a hard time figuring out how to dry the ramen noodles. He had his eureka moment when he was watching his wife make tempura.
“Aha!” he thought, “I will fry the noodles!”
After the Museum, we had lunch together at an Italian restaurant. Giving gifts is a strong Japanese custom, so we made sure we brought gifts for all of our Japanese relatives. Goldfish are not sold in Japan. We did not know this before we brought Watalu goldfish. He loved them!
We had a lot of fun being able to spend time with them all day. I had fun getting to know my little cousins 🙂
When we got home, Dad and Bayus (Mom and I weren’t feeling well, and Elias wanted to escort us because it was so dark and late at night) went to the store to pick up some flowers. They took the flowers to Uncle Yoshio and Aunt Tamiko’s house, because this Monday was a holiday to respect the elderly. We love you Yoshio and Tamiko!
Hannah 🙂
I love the way Japan respects and honors the elderly. We have lost that here. 🙁
We have only lost the expectation. Here, it is expected to do something special for the elderly in your life. In the United States, it is not that we do not respect our elderly, it is that we are no longer expected to do something extra special, on one extra special day in the year. Yes, some people are just flat out disrespectful, but that is true anywhere in the world.