Day 2: Yokohama Cup Noodle Museum

It was going to be another blistering, hot day in Tokyo.

KC fell in love with this squeezy ice cream.

I was loving my solar umbrella!

Art and I have been to Yokohama a couple of times before and it never occurred to us to go to the Cup Noodle Museum. KC and family LOVE noodles, not necessarily instant noodles, but this was something they had to see.

The place was PACKED, and not just with tourists but locals as well who brought their children to have some fun.

We were first seated at a table to design our own Cup Noodle styrofoam container.

We were then directed to where we could choose what ingredients we wanted to add to our container.

Once we'd made our choice, our Cup Noodles were vacuum sealed.

Would you believe we were then shown how to put a balloon protector around our noodle cups?

We had lunch at their Noodle Bazaar which had booths with noodles from different parts of the world.

We then toured the museum which showed the history of instant noodles.

There was a shopping mall almost next door called Yokohama World Porters. We were amazed to see a lot of shops selling Hawaiian goods, even Leonard's malasadas. Granted, the Hawaiian goods were priced 2-3 times more than you can buy them here in Hawaii.

It was Tanabata festival time.

This is from Wikipedia:

Tanabata (Japanese: たなばた or 七夕, meaning "Evening of the seventh"), also known as the Star Festival, is a Japanese festival originating from the Chinese Qixi Festival. It celebrates the meeting of the deities Orihime and Hikoboshi (represented by the stars Vegaand Altair respectively). According to legend, the Milky Way separates these lovers, and they are allowed to meet only once a year on the seventh day of the seventh lunar month of the lunisolar calendar.

In Japan the festival is celebrated by writing wishes and attaching them to bamboo bushes.

I read some very funny wishes on the bamboo. KC wrote her wish but didn't tell us what she wrote.

That evening we had dinner with my mother's younger sister and her family. They asked KC if she'd made a wish and what it was. KC said she wished to do well in school. That produced a lot of "Ahhhhhs" and smiles on everybody. My aunt was especially thrilled. Education is extremely important to my mother's family.

All in all, a very interesting and different kind of travel day for us.