I love instant noodles. Whether it’s after a long watch on a ship at sea or for lunch in a hotel room there’s nothing better than having a hot meal ready in two minutes with no effort. A little garlic and a liberal amount of hot sauce and you’ve got a gourmet delicacy.
So when I decided I wanted to visit a museum recently in Hong Kong my search started and ended with the Cup Noodles Museum in Tsim Sha Tsui. Check out the museum website.
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Getting to Cup Noodles Museum
Hong Kong has so many options for transit but most visitors will find it convenient to ride the MRT. Cup Noodles Museum is an easy and pleasant walk from either TST or the East TST station. You can walk through a pedestrian underpass and come up inside a mall and walk about half a mile inside the air conditioned mall. This is not the same mall where the museum is located.
For visitors staying in Central it may be easier to take the ferry to Tsim Sha Tsui for about $.60. The TST ferry pier is even closer than the MRT stations.
Noodles From Around the World
Once you reach the mall containing the China Ferry terminal the museum is on the second floor. There’s a display about the invention and history of instant noodles, the first product being Chicken Ramen developed in 1958. You can read that history on Nissin’s website.
The museum is about Nissin noodles specifically, and not instant noodles generally. So it’s limited to that company’s products. They develop and sell various flavors in countries throughout the world to match the taste of locals’ palates. Here’s a sampling of what’s available throughout Asia.
It’s an Attraction for Children
I didn’t realize it before I visited but this place is entirely for children. Inside I felt like Kramer taking the karate class for kids on Seinfeld.
The actual attraction is one of two ‘tours’ they offer. One is 30 minutes and the other is 90. Having arrived in the afternoon only the 30 minute was available. The purpose of the tour is to show how cups are assembled in the “factory.” Visitors are given an empty cup and a menu of ingredients. The bulk of the 30 minutes is expected to be spent by children decorating the cups with markers. This is really just for kids from about 3 to 8 years old.
You pick your flavor and toppings from the menu and take your decorated custom cup to the ‘factory’ counter. Workers there fill it with noodles and flavor it to your specifications. Then they seal it up and shrink wrap it. For some unknown reason they also insert it into an inflated plastic pillow. I popped this open and just carried the cup away with me.
That’s All, Folks
That’s all there is to it. Without having kids to color the cups the whole thing only takes about two minutes. It wasn’t crowded at all when I visited.
Unfortunately I can’t recommend this place to anyone without children. Anyone interested in instant noodles is much better off just combing through the copious selection in any grocery store in Asia.
