Robot Claw – Page 141 – “Life In The So-Called Space Age”

“Human Beings Are Noodle Beings”

December 29, 2022

Today we visited Yokohama to see the Cup Noodle Museum!

This is a museum dedicated to Cup Noodles, the original instant noodle. It’s also dedicated to the memory of their inventor, Momofuku Ando, who invented instant ramen in 1958 and cup ramen in 1971. He was said to eat an instant chicken ramen every day after inventing until his death at aged 96 in 2007.

The museum is small but full of charm, and we both loved the room showcasing Nissin ramen products over the last 50+ years.

That’s less than a third of what was on display! It was fun seeing all the flavors and packaging, and hunting for the unique ones such as the first licensed one (Doraemon, in 1976), a version in a transparent cup, or even one that came with a mini Gundam kit!

But the highlight surely was making our own cup noodle! For a measly ¥500 each, we first got to decorate our cups:

Then we got to turn a crank to add noodles:

Then an attendant added flavour and four toppings of our choice. KLS picked cheese, kimchi, onions and corn on chili flavour, and I went with shrimp, onions, egg and little chicken naruto on ‘original’ flavour (there was no chicken option):

They were then sealed and shrinkwrapped:

And lastly we got to package them into bubble pouches for a safe trip home. Here they are in our hotel room:

It was a load of fun for a piddly price. Will we ever eat them? Who knows? 🙂

We saw a lot more in Yokohama today including a ropeway, an observatory and some amazing shops. But I’m too tired to write any more right now so I’ll dedicate this one just to the noodle museum. It was great 🙂

We’re In Japan

December 28, 2022

We’re back in Japan, for a winter trip! It’s my 10th (or 11th?) time here and Kristin’s 8th (9th), and we’ve been looking forward to this trip for a long time.

The flight was hellish – it’s almost impossible to get comfortable for long periods even in the ‘Premium Select’ class – but uneventful. Unfortunately one of our bags didn’t it: we could tell from the Apple tag we hid inside that it was still in Atlanta when we got to Japan! Delta will deliver it to our hotel once they get it here, which is hopefully soon. Luckily most of the important stuff (warm coats, toiletries, medicine) is in the suitcase that made it so it could have been worse.

Our first hotel room is large and comfy and very well-located and after check-in we spent a couple of hours exploring the Ameya-Yokocho and (of course) buying stuff like this guy:

That’s Ultraman 80 by the way, one of my favourite Ultras. He’s only the first of what I expect to be a lot of Ultra-purchases this trip. We also saw gachas, and played UFO machines and bought delicious snacks before crashing in the hotel. After about 30 hours with no sleep we better get a good rest tonight since tomorrow has a full schedule!

I plan on doing my best to blog daily, so stay tuned to see what adventures we get up to these next two weeks!

Let’s Assemble Lion Knight’s Castle

December 19, 2022

I bought the above a few months back, and at the time assumed I wouldn’t get to it for a year or more. But I’ve recently been on a LEGO-making bender and my backlog is almost empty. It was time therefore to open this magnificent kit.

With over 4500 pieces, this is the biggest LEGO set I’ve ever built. The pieces filled 35 individual bags, and the instructions were split between two hefty manuals. Happily the kit contained no stickers!

Construction took me many hours – more than 10 – over about a week. The engineering was incredible, and there are many unusual uses of pieces and assembly tricks to create the walls and turrets of the castle. It was enormously entertaining to put together: one of the funnest builds I’ve ever done.

One example of the creativity is shown above. This is a hinged section of the wall, above which is placed a triple-jointed crenellation. When the building is opened, the crenellation straightens and a section slides into a cavity in the leftmost wall. It’s smooth and seamless and an amazing achievement using just LEGO.

The castle is made in two halves, which connect together to make the whole. It’s massive, and no, I don’t know exactly where I’m going to display this thing!

Here’s photos of the finished model from front and back:

And here it is opened up showing the interior detail and all the minifigs:

The interiors are no less impressive than the exterior, and the rooms include a bakery, mill, blacksmith, music room, dining room, bedroom and more. Here’s a couple of detail shots:

Oh and the castle has many play-features as well, including dungeons with opening doors, a few trapdoors, a water wheel, a movable wall, a drawbridge that can be raised or lowered and a portcullis:

But my favourite little secret concerns one particular room high in the tower. Once called a garderobe, this room features a single seat above an opening in the wall, and down below at ground level a brown frog piece sits directly below the opening:

Hint: it’s not a frog!