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<\/a><\/p>\nWe could smell the beans roasting as soon as we got into the arcade. Unfortunately I don\u2019t think he\u2019s doing a lot of business and the coffee shop upstairs is no longer fully open. You buy coffee downstairs, and he brings it up to you in paper cups. It\u2019s still the fresh roasted and ground coffee as before, but there\u2019s no real service or ambiance. On the plus side, a cup of coffee that used to be \u00a5600-800 is now only \u00a5200!<\/p>\n
Our second stop was also close to the station and it\u2019s the shrine to the goddess of weaving. If you looked at my pictures last year, you know that if I was left on my own I\u2019d be visiting and taking pictures of every shrine I could find. This is one I visited last year as well. I figured the goddess of weaving would be something my sister could get behind. She\u2019s not the touristy type, really, she likes shopping a lot more.<\/p>\n Here\u2019s more proof that I got her to a shrine. I think those are stained glass windows on either side of the entrance and quite beautiful as well.<\/p>\n The next stop was the Ando Momofuku Instant Ramen Museum. We took a very quick trip through because it was full of kids! I guess this is the season for field trips. Most of the museum is pretty simple. There\u2019s a re-creation of Ando Momofuku\u2019s shack where he experimented on instant ramen, and then there\u2019s a repetitive but interesting story of how he developed the packs of instant ramen and also Cup Noodle! Then there\u2019s a theatre and you can make your own flavor of Cup Noodle, add it to the pre-made noodles, decorate the cup, and take it home.<\/p>\n If you sign up way in advance, you can even take a class where you make instant noodles from the basic ingredients.<\/p>\n I mean seriously, this dude invented CUP NOODLE!\u00a0<\/p>\n We found some lunch at a soba restaurant that we recognized a little too late was the same chain as the place we had dinner last night. It was so nice that we went to Ikeda Castle to wander around.<\/p>\n We got back to Umeda in the early afternoon and I went to last night\u2019s soba restaurant to look for the hat my mom lost (they had it!) and then went to Kinokuniya so my mom could buy more books. Very near Kinokuniya is one of our favorite spots to get Japanese snacks. I\u2019m sure I have tons of pictures of this because we\u2019ve been coming here for years.\u00a0<\/p>\n My mom got something different this time.\u00a0<\/p>\n By this time it was about 4 and my sister and I went on a shopping trip to get whatever the hell it is she gets when she goes shopping. OK, this time it was fabric, and no the store was not called \u201casse\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n There\u2019s a picture of my sister taking a picture of ATELIER to nani IRO, a fabric store.<\/p>\n She spent a bunch of money on fabric, just like she said she wouldn\u2019t.<\/p>\n Dinner was another trip wandering and we decided to go get hamburg steaks. Mine was filled with cheese!<\/p>\n My sister got loco mock and this is just proof that I still take a lot of crappy pictures.<\/p>\n My mom got hamburger and porcini mushrooms cooked in foil.\u00a0<\/p>\n It doesn\u2019t seem Japanese, but it is. And it was really tasty, too.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It was a beautiful day in Japan today, about 72\u00baF. I was expecting this to be a shopping day, but when we left the hotel after doing some laundry my mom asked me, \u201cWhat are you showing me today?\u201d I thought of a few things but a quick trip to Ikeda City and the Ando Momofuku Instant Ramen museum sounded like fun. Our first stop, though, was to the coffee roaster I went to last year. It\u2019s in another old-school shopping street. We could smell the beans roasting as soon as we got into the arcade. Unfortunately I don\u2019t think he\u2019s doing a lot of business and the coffee shop … Continue reading Japan Day 10<\/span> <\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n