Trains and Ramen in Yokohama

We decided to have a quieter day today after such a mammoth trip yesterday, so after a lazy morning we headed a couple of stops down the line to Yokohama.  Yokohama is apparently a different city from Tokyo, but there was no break in buildings whizzing past, not sure how you define where one ends and the next begins.

First stop was the Model Railway Museum just round the corner from Yokohama Station.  This is one that Matt found out about recently (or was it on Tokyo Eye?), once we knew of its existence we had to visit to find out more.  It is actually located in an office building, but it was quite easy to spot - there were lots of mums with small boys heading in the same direction.

The museum displays many model trains collected by one person (Nobutaro Hara) over the years.  He went all around the world collecting trains, and as a result there are a lot of display cases.  All very interesting, but none of them are moving - Tom tugged at us to move faster as he was sure there would be something better around the corner.

He was right.  Around the corner was a massive model railway, modelled on 'somewhere in Europe' in 1 gauge (quite big).  It had a number of big locomotives going round which were frequently changed.  We even recognised one from our videos at home of SP4449 - a big orange steam train from the US.  There was lots to see - the landscape went from city to beach, to cable car and mountain and everything in between.  There was an engine shed with a working turntable, and the lights kept changing to represent night and day.  Tom was in his element and very happy.

The large layout

It took a while for him to realise that there was another room in which there was yet another model railway - this time in HO gauge and modelled on Yokohama.  This also had lights changing to represent the day, in fact between midnight and 6am nothing moved at all.  This was my and Tom's favourite of the two.  He wasn't able to explain why it was his favourite, but it was mine because there were lots of quirky things going on:  a horse rearing up whilst pulling a carriage, people actually moving across the road at a crossing, some people practising callisthenics in the park and levitating as they did it.  There were people on each train as well which made it all the more interesting.  We ended up spending 1.5 hrs there, with Tom running between the two layouts until he was tired and hungry.

The smaller layout of Yokohama

Ramen Museum

Now, there was only one place to go for lunch as we were in Yokohama and that was the Ramen Museum.  This has always been my claim to Japanese fame with Matt as I have been there and he hasn't.  He put that right.  The museum hasn't changed at all in the 14 years since I last visited it, it is still dingy, olde worlde type place, with 'pretend' dirt over everything and the whole place kitted out to look like a nasty old square of restaurants from the past.

Excited boys

Happy boy

SLURP

Ramen is one of Matt's favourite foods, and there are 8 restaurants to choose from here, so it took a while for him to decide where to start.  He plumped for a Tonkotsu one first (his favourite) and then one called Ganja second. Ganja was different in that the noodles and the stuff and soup are served separately (tsukemen).  Matt was very happy and I enjoyed them too - the quality of the noodles made it - really firm, so so different to the instant ones we get in the UK.

Tom with HIS noodles

A new addition to the museum was an opportunity to put together your own ramen.  We had to do this as it included a photo of yourself on the pack.  He chose thin noodles, pork soup, and leek flavouring, but most of all he played along and happily put on a coat and a hachimaki (bandana) to make Tom's Ramen.  Very cool.

By now it was 3.30 so we decided it was time to leave and head home.  As we were in Shin-Yokohama we decided to get the shinkansen home - it was only one short stop, but hey why use a local train when you can use the shinkansen (and it was the very latest N700A series).

Then home, dinner at home (yet more noodles as I had got some spaghetti in!), shower, bath and bed.  Tom was asleep in seconds again, he was so tired he couldn't even remember that he had been to a train museum in the morning!