Let's go to the CUPNOODLES MUSEUM OSAKA IKEDA !

Japan, of course, is not the only nation where instant noodles are very popular. The global annual consumption of instant noodles amounts to 102.7 billion servings! I cannot imagine this astronomical amount, but I believe that we may call instant noodles even "global" food, because they are eaten almost every country throughout the world; even astronauts now take instant noodle products into space! In fact, I keep at least five instant noodle packages always in stock in my house. They are indispensable to me. How many times have I been helped out by instant noodles? When, for example, if I come home late or I am short of money, they are a great help. Who on earth invented this incredible food?

Today, I will introduce to you the "CUPNOODLES MUSEUM OSAKA IKEDA ," located in Ikeda City, Osaka. As a matter of fact, Ikeda City is the birthplace of instant noodles. In 1958, the world's first instant noodle product, "Chicken Ramen," famous for its TV commercial, originated in a "Research Shed" in Ikeda City, in the yard of the house of Momofuku Ando, the inventor of instant noodles and the founder of Nissin Food Products Co., Ltd. The CUPNOODLES MUSEUM OSAKA IKEDA was established in 1999 to introduce the history of instant noodles and convey the significance of innovation and discovery in the stages of invention.

The first thing you see is a replica of Mr. Ando's "Work Shed." To all appearances, however, it looks like an ordinary wooden hut, just like in "The Three Little Pigs" or other fairytales... Outside you can see a bicycle, said to have been used to convey wheat bags on its carrier, and a replica of a chicken used for soup. The scene where noodles are spread and dried is reproduced at the entrance. The shed is about the size of a four-and-a-half mat room (approximately 7 sq. meters), with a naked light bulb, a pendulum clock and common kitchen utensils found in any house, including a Chinese frying pan, a bowl, a scale, a ladle, a bamboo sieve and a steamer. I had imagined that instant noodles were invented with much more advanced technology, so I was amazed to discover that they were actually born in a "kitchen" like this. I heard that Mr. Ando devoted himself to development of instant noodles for a whole year in this Shed, hardly even allowing himself time for sleep.

By the way, why was the soup made from chicken? One day, one of the chickens kept close by the Shed suddenly went into frenzy while the chicken was being cooked, and Mr. Ando's little son saw that and became frightened. As a result, he became unable to eat chicken. However, he liked soup made from chicken stock. Mr. Ando, therefore, decided that the soup for his instant noodles should be chicken-flavored. Mr. Ando later said that there are no countries in which people do not eat chickens and thus chicken flavor has been universally accepted.

Let's begin with thinking "why noodles?" On the monitor are pictures of towns taken soon after World War II. On a winter night soon after the war, Mr. Ando saw people forming a line more than 20 meters long in front of a noodle stall at the black market in Osaka. He was surprised that people would make such great efforts for only a bowl of noodles in the cold and became convinced that food is very important for people. This feeling eventually led to the development of instant noodles.

Chicken Ramen was made by all of the family members at first. Mr. Ando's wife made soup, his children helped their parents with packing and all of the members bagged the packed noodles, which were distributed by the family members. One day, at a tasting event held in a department store in Osaka, Chicken Ramen caught the interest of homemakers! The product achieved great popularity, as it can be made just with hot water. Mr. Ando, who had a positive response at the event, would like people throughout Japan to eat this product and built a plant, aiming to mass-produce Chicken Ramen through full automation.

Mr. Ando visited U.S.A. with Chicken Ramen, aiming at spreading instant noodles to other countries. Americans, of course, were deeply interested in Chicken Ramen. However, there was a problem. There were neither appropriate bowls for noodles nor chopsticks in the U.S.A. As a result, an American buyer split the noodles of Chicken Ramen, put them into a paper cup and poured hot water into the cup, and then began eating them with a fork. It was just at that moment that Mr. Ando hit upon a good idea... "noodles in a cup"! After that, "Cup Noodle" was originated in 1971. This is surely an ultimate instant noodle product, which can be made only with hot water.

Packages of instant noodles from around the world were also exhibited, including those that are tomato-flavored, creamy-type, full of vegetables, and spicy. They are made according to each nation's climate and people's sense of taste. By the way, I have eaten Thai tomyamkung-flavored instant noodles, which were nice with hot, acid taste.

On July 26, 2005, the space shuttle Discovery was launched successfully. It was the world's first instant noodle product launched into outer space, "Space Ram," that took off with Japanese astronaut Soichi Noguchi on Discovery. There were four flavors: soy sauce, miso, curry and tonkotsu (pork broth). It was specially made to be edible using hot water at 70˚C, which is the boiling point in outer space. Even under weightless conditions, which change people's sense of taste, it tastes as good as on earth; Mr. Noguchi said that he truly enjoyed the earthly taste that was reproduced to a startling degree. Eating noodles in the shuttle, Mr. Noguchi looked very happy. You can see a photograph of the neighborhood of the Museum, taken from outer space, that Mr. Noguchi brought to the Museum after returning to Japan. I could not identify the Museum on the photograph; however, please look closely at the photograph, where the Museum is indicated by the arrow of "Here.

First, I went to the My CUPNOODLES Factory, located at the end of the Museum. The Factory was crowded with groups of young people, couples, families, etc. I also saw many tourists from other Asian countries, including China. In this corner where visitors can make their own Cup Noodle by, for example, drawing pictures by themselves on the famous Cup Noodle container and selecting favorite ingredients of their choice. Let's begin!

Then, you can freely design the space on the middle of the container using color pens. When I glanced at the participants around me, a person was drawing a colorful flower, another was copying Hiyoko-chan, the symbol character of Chicken Ramen, and another was drawing a never-seen-before mystery organism... What could I do? I knew that I was a poor painter. After much thought, I wrote a thick "U-Ma-I" (meaning tasty) with a green pen. I'm sure that it is tasty, so it was O.K. for me; however, I myself was amazed at such a direct approach as this.

The next step was selecting the soup flavor. You can select one of the four flavors: regular (soy sauce), seafood, curry and Chili Tomato. For your reference, seafood or Chili Tomato is popular in women and regular or curry is popular in men. I selected the regular flavor, which I believe is the most ordinary. A staff member recommended curry with cheese, which is rich in flavor.

The next was selecting ingredients. You can choose four of the 12 ingredients, including freeze-dried shrimps, crab-flavored fish sausage, Chinese-style barbecued pork, cheese and corns. Taking this opportunity, I chose Hiyoko-chan illustrated naruto (boiled fish paste) which was not for sale, the limited time special ingredient, asparagus and egg. It was fun to select ingredients while imagining the taste after they were mixed. After the container was sealed, packaged with films and boxed into the "air package," My Cup Noodle was completed. I hesitate to say this, but the design of "U-Ma-I" was appropriate, because it was surely tasty.

If you become hungry while making Cup Noodle, go to the Tasting Room. There, visitors can buy rare noodle products that are sold in limited areas and not available in Kansai, and ones that are served only in the business or higher class (airplane-illustrated naruto is in it) from vending machines. I heard that eastern Japan and western Japan differ in the soup flavor of Donbei Kitsune Udon noodle products. Both versions are sold there, so why don't you compare them? You can eat noodles in a room with a view of the inner court while remembering various difficulties and devices that you learned at the exhibition. (You cannot eat the noodles that you made at the My CUPNOODLES Factory or the Chicken Ramen Factory. Details are subject to change.)

At around 2:25 in the afternoon I went to the Chicken Ramen Factory on the second floor. Participants sat at tables, separated into several groups in the large room like a cooking laboratory. I joined a group of four nurses from Kyoto, a third-grade schoolboy and his mother and two senior men living in the neighborhood. Each participant wore an apron and a bandana that were provided. All wearing Hiyoko-chan illustrated bandanas, regardless of age and sex, participants looked very pretty. After receiving a brief explanation, we went to the work tables.

Next, we rolled out the dough. Since the dough was harder than I imagined, this process, requiring me to put my weight on the rolling pin, was pretty difficult. I realized that noodle-making requires much power. When the dough became around one centimeter thick, we put the dough into the noodle-making machine. We let the dough pass through the rollers to smooth it by turning the lever, not one or two times, but around ten times. This is similar to the process for making udon noodles, to make the noodles chewy by pressing their dough. My right arm felt heavy and sweat appeared on my forehead.

Then, we put the dough that had matured for a while through the noodle-making machine again until the dough became 0.7 millimeters thick and 2 meters long. The next process was cutting the dough into noodles. With scissors, we cut the noodles that were made thin with the cutting edge of the noodle-making machine. The most suitable length for slurping noodles is 20 centimeters. Then, we weighed out servings of 100 grams of noodles, using scales.

Now, noodles were done. While staff members were steaming the noodles, we resumed making our package designs. On the package of the schoolboy sitting across was the phrase, "3 minutes with hot water, 1 minute in a pot, Chicken Ramen." Its powerful letters impressed me. The nurses next to me drew snowball-like images of Hiyoko-chan and Hiyoko-chan taking a bath. Their packages were colorful and pleasing. I added orange stripes in the background, borrowing their style.

The noodles were put into the mold and finally put into oil at 160˚C. Because it is difficult and would be dangerous to fry noodles, a staff member did this process. The noodles were becoming brown in oil with spluttering sound through the "Flash-frying method," which had been used since the method was invented by Mr. Ando. It was nice and impressing to see that live. The noodles were done at last! We had a staff member pack the noodles in the package that we designed before, and it was completed. The orange stripes looked good.

It took 90 minutes. The time passed very quickly. I enjoyed transforming mere wheat flour to noodles gradually. The nurses sitting next to me, too, seemed to enjoy this experience, saying, "I had a very good time," "It was fun making this by myself," and "It is easy to eat noodles, but it is hard to make them." I agreed with all of their remarks.

By the way, an advance reservation is necessary to make Chicken Ramen at the Chicken Ramen Factory. The participation fee is 500 yen for junior high school students and older and 300 yen for elementary school students. Intended participants are all visitors from elementary school student age up, and parental guidance is required for third grade children and younger.

A man stopped in front of the display of Cup Noodle in 1971. I wondered whether he was remembering his childhood. I could understand that visitors cannot help but time-trip when seeing the transition of instant noodle products on display. I remembered that when eating Nissin UFO Yakisoba noodles, I waited for three minutes while dancing to a Pink Lady song (I am afraid that I am showing my age), and that when studying for an examination, I ate udon noodles packaged like this. The display of instant noodle products tends to make us recall past experiences. Near the exit was the display of latest products. Various new products reflecting the times, including an instant noodle product with a reusable eco-cup, appeared. I was impressed by the fact that instant noodles, which became widespread in our daily life to this degree, are moving forward to the future with us.

Ikeda City, located in the northern part of Osaka Prefecture, has flourished as a key place for distribution from olden days. The Nose Highway, which runs from north to south through the City, connected the Hokusetsu region (northern part of Osaka) and Nose and Tamba, located way up north, with a large city Ozaka (present Osaka) and was busy with people who transported lumber, clothes, liquor and other products. When seeing sake breweries of Goshun and Midoriichi (both are names of sake) that continue to make high-quality sake in areas where old stores and houses still remain, you can find vestiges of the old days. In the "Rakugo Museum", you can envisage Ikeda in Edo Period through rakugo (Japanese traditional comic stories) of the Kyoto-Osaka area whose setting is in Ikeda like "Ushihome" and "Ikeda no shishi kai." I recommend taking in the view of Ikeda City, once called the north capital, from Ikeda Castle Site Park, located on top of a small hill.