7:07pm, the Shin-Yokohama Raumen Museum (新横浜ラーメン博物館), billed as the first food amusement park in the world. The ‘u’ in “Raumen” is intentional; while it has never been officially explained why, my guess is that it’s a portmanteau of the words “ramen” and “amusement park”.

7:10pm. The centerpiece of the Raumen Museum, dubbed the “Ramusement Park,” is a 1:1 replica of Shitamachi (下盯), the lower part of old Tokyo circa 1958, the year Shōwa ’33. It was during the Taishō (大正時代) and Shōwa (昭和時代) periods—most of the 20th century—that the popularity of ramen spread from Yokohama (横浜市), Hakodate (函館市) and other port cities to every corner of Japan. Also, of significance, 1958 was the year instant noodles were invented.

7:33pm. A kamishibai (紙芝居) performance, in which a kamishibai storyteller, riding from village to village, told stories using a set of illustrated boards on a small wooden stage on his bicycle. The global depression of the late 1920s, during the Shōwa era, saw a revival in kamishibai.

8:06pm. A shop for everything milk.

The drink bar.

The souvenir shop and exhibition hall, of which the displays are, unfortunately, only in Japanese.

It would seem most everything in Japan has a mascot. This is Taishō (大将), a cat who runs a ramen restaurant called Neko Rahmen (猫ラーメン) in the manga and anime of the same title.

The way out. Cute. For my non-Chinese readers, the sign says “the future.”