Not you usual Cup of Noodles

 I recently had the pleasure of actually visiting the Instant Ramen Museum in Ikeda City, Osaka.

As far as the museum goes, it is very small, but for its size, it is decently interactive with panels you can open and such. Unfortunately it is all in Japanese. It includes a house, more like a shack, which is a representation of the house where Momofuku Ando invented the instant chicken ramen. There is even a chicken pen outside. Inside you will find a huge cooking vat and the noodle shredder and various other equipment that he used to create his famous recipe.

One of the other, more like the only other, main attraction the the museum (which is in fact free) is the instant ramen tunnel. This is a timeline tunnel of all the different flavors of ramen that have been created since its birth in  1958. The timeline appears to only be limited to the Nissin variation of ramen products, but that is not much of a limitation, as you can see there is easily a few hundred ramen here. And to answer you question, no, these are not all currently on sale right now in Japan. Nissin frequently improves or varies their products to match the public's taste desires, as well as to keep their recipes and products innovation and to keep people coming back for seconds...or this is Japan so it might be more like thousandths with the amount of ramen they seem to eat!
So lastly and probably most importantly about this museum is its key feature. Here you can make your very own Nissin ramen. This recipe is not one that will go on sale anywhere. It is an original recipe that you can make and take home to eat, or to decorate your house and collect dust. It is a cheap fee of 300￥. You get a special cup which you then decorate to make original. It seems that many people like to go with the symbolic little mascot of the chicken that seems very affluent throughout the museum. Afterwards you then get to add your ramen noodles, your broth, and a choice of 4 toppings. Afterward the lid is then put in place and it is shrink-wrapped.
I took a video of the process!


all cheese....


Here are a few AWESOME Cup Noodle advertisements that I feel like everyone should watch.

Now from 1992 in Stop Motion


Also here is a pretty good site with more pictures and a wonderful description of the museum.