Monday was the last day of school and early dismissal at noon. I showed Don around the school and snapped this quick photo. Then Tessa and Don headed down to Motomachi for lunch while Cy and I ate at sushi-go-round. After lunch we regrouped for a quick outing.

A pop quiz for all of you fans of New York’s and Washington DC’s Momofuku restaurants: what does that name mean, anyway?

The answer: The restaurants are named after Momofuku Ando, the inventor of instant ramen and Cup Noodles. Don, the kids and I learned his story Monday afternoon at Yokohama’s Cup Noodles Museum.

The museum itself is a gorgeous space. It’s beautifully executed and worth a visit jus to see the creative design of the building and individual rooms. Even the parking garage is photo worthy!

Our first stop at the museum was the My Cup Noodles Factory. We decorated the cups themselves, chose the fillings, and watched while factory workers sealed up the packaging.

After that we visited the exhibit about Momofuku Ando. His story is interesting enough: inventor, eventual industry leader, and so on. He invented instant ramen and later Cup Noodles after World War II to help feed the hungry masses for cheap. The exhibit included many glowing terms to discuss the genius of Ando, but honestly I could only think of the omitted words–like “sodium” and “nutrition.” But I digress.

After our Cup Noodles stop we headed home to relax for a bit, then picked up Mark at the train station on his way home from work. We took Don to a local shabu shabu restaurant where we introduced him to the joys of cooking meat and veggies in a pot of broth on your table.