National Noodles

One of the highlights of our trip was going to be Runshi Rekishi Shiryokan, the tattoo museum run by Horiyoshi the Third, the most talented tattoo master in Japan.

We took the short train ride from Tokyo to Yokohama, armed with directions from the Lonely Planet Guide.

Trying to line up the vague directions with a confusing Japanese map outside the train station was too great a challenge for us. We wandered through a residential area for at least an hour, until I needed to pee urgently.

It was hard to give up the search, but we could still salvage the day with a trip to the Ramen Museum.

After more wandering, we decided to ignore the guide book directions and then quickly found the museum on the opposide side of the station from where we had been directed. So much for guide books.

The main floor of the museum was a big, cheesy marketing campaign, but the lower floors were transformed into a 1950's Tokyo street scene. The way the Japanese rave about their ramen noodles, I thought they'd been eating them for thousands of years, but they are really no older than the Beatles.
After sampling "small" bowls of noodles from several famous shops my stomach was bursting at the seams and sloshing around uncomfortably.

I had my fill of ramen and couldn't quite see what was so great about it.

However you feel about noodle soup, the museum is a neat glimpse into history. If you go, note that they won't let you into any of the noodle shops unless you are actually buying a bowl yourself, so be prepared to try all the same noodles as your travel mates or dine separately.

Noodle Nazis.