My Summer Vacation

I always loved the first day of school. It meant a new unicorn Trapper Keeper, a closet full of new Fall clothes and a fun little assignment called "What I Did Over My Summer Vacation."  Still sun burnt and scratching at lingering mosquito bites, I enjoyed reminiscing over my summer and writing about my family vacations and frequent trips to the community pool.

So here it is, What I Did Over My Summer Vacation: Jewshi Edition. This will mostly be a photo essay, but I can't resist a few words.

In a nut shell: I saw a lot of art, played a lot of Scrabble, ate approximately 5,657 ice cream cones, sweat so much I looked liked like my entire body was painted in melted butter and wore the same outfit nearly every day while hauling a massive backpack full of unworn clothes around Naoshima, Takamatsu, Tokushima, Miyajima and Hiroshima. Oh, and I went camping. So I was dirty, sweaty and fashion challenged. But you should still look at the photos because dirty sweaty vacations are the best kind. Well, minus the dirt and sweat parts. 

If you ever come to Japan, or if you're currently here, you must must must visit Naoshima. I just used bold and italics so you should know I'm being totally serious. It's famous for being an art island, which means it's crawling with modern art galleries and outdoor sculptures, funky cafes and restaurants (something I constantly long for here), chill people and the most amazingly cool public bathhouse that looks like this on the outside:

And like this on the inside:

We were sleeping on the beach, so it was a nice treat to do our nightly scrubbing and soaking at this artsy little sento. Naoshima also has beautiful beaches and everything on the island can be reached by pedaling a bright blue rented bicycle.

Another highlight of the trip was the Awa Odori dance festival in Tokushima. The normally sleepy city is invaded by a million tourists who come to watch the 80,000 participating locals who wear costumes and do traditional dancing and drumming in the streets. We wandered the streets, beer in hand, sometimes getting pulled into the big dance circles to shake our booties, old school Japanese style.

There was, of course, lots of eating: Tom and I took an udon making class, which you already know about, ate oysters in Miyajima and visited Okinomiyaki Village in Hiroshima, which fulfilled my gimmicky food tourist needs. This "village" was, in fact, three floors of okinomiyaki stalls. Hiroshima-style okinomiyaki is different than it's Kansai cousin; instead of a mixed up meat, seafood and vegetable pancake, it's meat, seafood and vegetables are sandwiched between a thin crepe and a thin omelet. It's also stuffed with noodles, usually soba but we also tried one with udon.  


Ok, I'm doing that thing. I'm doing that thing where I say I'm not gonna say much and then I can't stop blabbing. It's the "you hang up, no you hang up" of blogging. So without any more adjectives, nouns, verbs or even adverbs, I give you:

What I Did Over My Summer Vacation

Instant Ramen Museum: Osaka Weekend Part II

I have recently taken on the role of Crazy Food Museum Girl. If I had children they would probably be sitting in the back of a station wagon right now, sighing, rolling their eyes and whining. "Mommmmm! Do we have to go to the canned corn factory? We just toured the Ritz Crackers museum for Dad's birthday!" So I'm thinking it's a pretty good thing I don't have children. They would have totally ruined my plan to visit The Instant Ramen Museum in Osaka and that would have totally sucked because this museum is what dreams are made of. 

Top 5 Reasons Why The Momofuku Ando Instant Ramen Museum Made My Heart Go Pitter Patter:

1.) They have English audio guides! As I mentioned before, Yokohama's Ramen Museum was a bit of a let down because everything was in Japanese. But here I was able to soak up all kinds of useful instant ramen knowledge. Like, did you know that Momofuku Ando, creator of Cup Noodles, also invented the Styrofoam cup? Fascinating! These facts don't just grow on trees, people.

2.)YOU GET TO MAKE YOUR OWN CUP OF NOODLE! That's right: capital letters. Capital letters mean I'm serious about how awesome this is. This is awesome. Drop three 100 yen coins into a vending machine and an empty Styrofoam cup will drop out. You are then invited to sit down, in my case with an entire elementary school class on a field trip, with a basket of markers and decorate your cup. Then, take it up to the assembly line to receive your noodles. Here you get to choose what flavor broth you want (I chose Seafood) and four ingredients. I selected little bits of freeze dried asparagus, imitation crab, scallions and fish cakes shaped like little pink hearts and stamped with "Love." Next, watch as your cup is properly sealed and wrapped in cellophane. Brilliant! The Cup Noodle Factory wenches should also be mentioned: not only are they amazingly chipper and patient, they know that everyone wants to take about a billion photos of their personalized Cup Noodles. Without being asked, they automatically pose and hold up the cup for photos after every step.

3.) The museum is bright, clean, colorful and The Instant Ramen Tunnel highlights Cup Noodle and instant ramen packages sold around the world, from past to present.

4.) If you come on a day that was not the day that I came, you have the opportunity to make fresh ramen noodles. The museum offers hands-on courses, every day except Monday and Tuesday, so you can learn to stretch, knead, roll, cut and taste homemade ramen noodles. This only costs about $5.
 
5.) Oh, and speaking of money: the museum is free. Hurrah!

Perhaps I've slurped up all the noodle museums Japan has to offer. Fortunately the country is full of food obsessed tourists, which means there are many culinary theme parks.  Get in the car, kids! We're going to Gyoza Stadium!