Yokohama Doll Museum

During the summer, I took another day trip to the Yokohama Doll Museum. It’s a small museum, and doesn’t take more than 45 minutes to go through, though I lingered a little longer in the air conditioning.

The entrance is actually on the second floor of the building, and the entrance fee is very cheap, only 400 yen for adults.

The first doll to greet you is a doll that was given to the city of Yokohama from America, as a symbol of good will and International friendship. She even has her own passport. As you go walk further, you will see more dolls that were exchanged between Japan and the USA over the years. One of the dolls exchanged is actually an American Girl Doll, Samantha, but for some reason, the label next to her says her name is Jessica. I’m guessing that a little girl decided to change the name of the doll before sending her over to Japan.

The good will doll to welcome you to the museum.

The renamed Samantha/Jessica doll.

The next room showcases different dolls from around the world, and are organized by European, African, Latin, Asian, and North American dolls. They also had some music playing in the background. I was amused that one of the background songs included bagpipes, even though there wasn’t a single Scottish doll on display. I didn’t take too many photos, because I actually wasn’t sure if photos were allowed or not, so I snapped some quick photos when no one was looking.

Lithuanian Doll

More European dolls

You continue through the museum by going upstairs, and as you walk upstairs, there is a timeline of the types of dolls and figures that were popular in Japan from the early 1900’s all the way to the early 2000’s. On the third floor, there is a display showing the differences between the dolls in Japan and Europe, and even displays of different doll houses and accessories from Japan and Europe. I love seeing the dollhouse displays and seeing all of the different tiny accessories.

Japanese doll house

They also had a display on the steps to making a bisque doll, versus making a traditional Japanese doll. Sadly, I didn’t take any photos of this display, but it was certainly fascinating. It made me wish that I knew how to build dolls.

If you go back down one floor, there is a special exhibition room for seasonal displays. The seasonal display they had when I visited was about a Japanese puppet artist’s production of Sherlock Holmes. There was definitely no photos allowed in this room. To be honest, I was not super impressed. This puppet artist basically based his puppets off of some manga artist’s rendition of Sherlock Holmes, and then gave all of the puppets blue and green skin. It was kind of creative, but the Sherlock and Watson puppets looked nothing like Sherlock and Watson.

Since it didn’t take long to go through, I took a stroll along Yamashita park, which is literally right across the street from the Doll Museum. I found the Girl Scout statue in Yamashita park, which shows an American and a Japanese Girl Scout joining hands in friendship.

Girl Scout statue in Yamashita Park

After strolling through the park, I stumbled and found the Yokohama Customs museum. I wasn’t super interested, until I saw a sign saying that admission was free, and I wasn’t going to say no free air conditioning. The Yokohama Customs museum even had it’s own mascot outside!

The Yokohama Customs mascot

The museum was super tiny, but a fun little surprise. The first displays talk about how Yokohama first opened up to merchant ships soon after Japan opened its borders after Commodore Perry’s arrival, and how Yokohama had to quickly form a group to inspect and record all of the goods coming in and leaving Yokohama on merchant ships. It seems kind of boring at first, but just around the corner from the boring history plaques, and copies of Meiji era customs forms, is a display of all kinds of confiscated contraband seized by customs officers in the last 20 years, including counterfeit designer bags, and products made from endangered animals. There is even a display showing how someone tried to smuggle a large amount of cocaine into Japan on a cargo ship.

After walking around this mini-museum, I took the train all the way back to Saitama. Having a low-key summer vacation, it was a good time to explore around Yokohama, and see a bunch of small sights not far from where I live.

This is all that I’m going to cover for my summer break. Next up, I’ll be writing about my last Inagakuen Culture Festival and Sports day. Hopefully I’ll have my September events caught up before Halloween comes!

Shin Yokohama Ramen Museum

During my summer vacation, I took a few last minute side trips not far from Saitama and Tokyo. Every year, I am given 20 days of nenkyu, or annual leave. If I don’t use all 20 days, they can be rolled over to the next year, but they can’t be rolled over forever. Basically, I cannot start a new contracted year with 40 plus days of nenkyu. So I took a few extra days off in the end of June, because it was a use or lose it situation.

Anyway, during one of these days, I decided to visit the Ramen Museum in Yokohama. It is a bit confusing, because there are technically two ramen museums in Yokohama. One is the Cup Noodle Ramen museum, which is within walking distance of the waterfront in Yokohama, and not far from Yokohama station. The one I went to, the Shin-Yokohama Ramen museum, shows a brief history of the ramen dish in Japan.

You actually have to transfer from Yokohama station, and then go on a separate line to Shin-Yokohama station. The ramen museum is just a ten minute walk from the station. Once you see the giant ramen bowls on the side of the building, you know you’re in the right place.

Exterior of Shin-Yokohama Ramen Museum

There is a small fee to enter the Ramen Museum, about 500 yen for adults. The museum isn’t so much a formal museum, so much as a “restaurant theme-park,” and all adults are required to eat at least one bowl of ramen.

The first floor is the gift shop, and a giant toy race car track for the children to play with. I don’t actually know why it’s there, but I guess of the kids have fun with it, why not? There is also a giant puppet-like mannequin on display. He is a character of a street-ramen peddler who used to appear in old Japanese commercials, selling instant ramen.

Vintage Ramen man

The rest of the Ramen Museum is downstairs, and is set up in a replica of a 1950’s Japanese neighborhood, around the time when instant noodles were first invented. That’s about the end of the relationship between ramen and instant ramen at this museum. None of the ramen that you buy is instant at all.

There’s even quaint alleyways to walk through.

There are about 12 mini ramen restaurants in all, each serving a different kind of ramen from different regions around Japan. At each restaurant, you can order a regular sized-bowl of their regional ramen, or order a smaller mini-bowl to sample. If you go, I recommend just getting the mini-bowls. Not only are they cheaper, you can down more ramen that way. I actually had the intention of trying at least 5 or 6 mini-bowls of ramen, but I was absolutely stuffed after the fourth bowl and couldn’t take it anymore.

You order your ramen buy choosing from an automated ticket vending machine outside of each restaurant. You insert your money, and press the buttons of the ramen, and any extra toppings, side dishes, and drinks you want to order. Then the tickets pop out, and you simply hand them all over to your server. All of the machines are in Japanese, but each one does have an English translation sheet, so it’s really easy to choose, even if you can’t read Japanese.

I picked my first ramen at random, and ended up getting gunkou ramen, which had skinny noodles, chunks of pork, and a sheet of nori in it.

Genkou Ramen

Overall, it was pretty good. I’m not a fan of super skinny noodles in ramen, but the broth was delicious.

My next bowl of ramen was Sapporo-style miso ramen, which is actually my favorite type of ramen. There’s actually a restaurant in my town of Ina that makes good miso ramen, and it’s pretty much my standby.

The miso ramen was delicious, though I didn’t like the bamboo shoots that came in it. I’m not a big fan of bamboo shoots, because they always have a funny after-taste.

Miso ramen

The Shin-Yokohama Ramen museum also has two mini-ramen restaurants that feature international style ramen. One featured Italian styled ramen, but I decided to forego that, since it was listed as a spicy ramen, and I’m not a big fan of spicy food. So my third mini-bowl of ramen was at the German Ramen restaurant.

The ramen I had was called muku ramen. It didn’t have any taste to it that I think was particularly German. From what I could gather muku ramen just happens to be the most popular flavor of ramen in Germany. But I went ahead and got a side of German beer to round out the international experience.

The last min-ramen restaurant I went to was actually right next door the the German ramen. I was actually greeted by the man who owns that particular ramen restaurant. His photo was even on the wall in the back.

He was so enthusiastic to welcome a foreigner into his restaurant, I just couldn’t refuse, even if I felt my stomach was close to exploding. I decided that this was definitely going to be my last stop.

Ramen master

The last bowl of ramen I got was called najima-tei ramen. This one had salt-based broth, and also had super skinny noodles. Definitely a lighter texture of ramen overall. I also ordered a side of gyoza, since I realized I hadn’t ordered this traditional ramen side-dish yet. The gyoza at this restaurant were small, and slightly crispy, though not as flavorful as I was expecting.  At least the ramen was still delicious.

Overall, I’m glad I went to the ramen museum. I would recommend it to anyone visiting Japan, but only had so much time to hit up a few cities. This is a great way to get in a few regional dishes. Also, just go for the mini-bowls, they fill you up just as fast. I would also treat going to the Ramen Museum as getting a whole meal, and not just a snack in between meals. I arrived at the Ramen museum around lunch time, and felt no need to eat dinner later that night.

This place is totally a diet-ruiner, but totally worth it!

Overdue update

It has been over a month since I last updated this blog. Not too much has happened, but I have been very busy.

Earlier in August my old macbook died, and I had to wait a week before I could get a new one. Shortly after getting my new computer and setting it up, I went on a short trip down to Osaka and Kyoto with a few friends. We went down there to visit Universal Studios and go to the Harry Potter theme park, and went to Kyoto afterwards to visit a few temples before going back home.

After my trip, I went back to work, and started studying for the GRE and starting on graduate school applications. This is basically what I’ve been doing with me free time since classes have started up again. So, I haven’t been writing on graduate school application essays instead of blog posts.

This year is my last year on JET, and I’m now looking into what I should do, and where I should go after my contract ends next July. I’m nervous and excited at the same time, but mostly nervous. I’ve really enjoyed my time on JET

However, I do have more free time coming up, so I’ll write some more posts this upcoming week. Silver Week is coming up very soon, so I’ll have plenty time to catch up with you all.

Mate ne!