By John

Day 36. Today we woke up from our ryokan 1-Night stay, sleeping on cots and tatami mats while over looking the Tokyo Skytree (the second tallest building in the world), and everyone loved the traditional experience of an Onsen (Japanese hot springs) in the hotel.

We had purchased breakfast last night, and most of us go down in our Yukata Robes (Justin and I didn’t get the memo). Breakfast was lovely, we check out, and prepare to go out for our day trip to Yokohama.

I the fearless metro navigator get us on two local subway lines, and the main line without getting lost. I consider this a great feat on the worlds largest metro system in a country where almost nobody speaks English.

Anyway, we get off at the Pokémon themed Yokohama train station and make our way to the Cup noodle muesam (sponsored by broke college kids everywhere), which was surprisingly informative and interesting. We watched a Japanese movie about the founder of three inventions, instant ramen, Cup noodles, and Space ramen, the later of which he invented at the age of 95. It was inspirational to me, showing that age is no barrier to success and innovation.

Then we got to do something really cool, make your own cup noodles, we got to customize our cup with markers, choose our flavor (original is the best, but Justin disagrees), pick our toppings, seal it, and shrink wrap it.

Unfortunately, they forbid you from eating the cup noodles in the muesam, so we head out to find some hot water, our search leads us to Starbucks, and a exsperated, confused barista looking at 7 people holding out cup noodles and asking for hot water. After a moment, she regains her witts and we order some drinks and get our hot water, but she tells us we have to find a place outside of Starbucks to eat it. As we leave the store, we hear laughter from the staff. Apperantly not a lot of tourists ask for hot water to heat their customized cup noodles at Starbucks. 

Then we head off to Cosmo World, a local theme park. We ride the water slide and count our scream meters, (me and Corey won with 280). Then we ride the main attraction, Ferris wheel 21, one of the worlds largest. Despite its world class status, it was almost half empty and there wasn’t even a line to get in. It was an amazing ride, and Leanne’s face alone was worth the 50 dollars we paid.

Then we head off to the Yokohama Landmark tower to go to the Shonen Jump store. The store was full of anime and manga merch of Japan’s numeber one publisher, Shonen Jump. Finally we head back on the subway system to our Airbnb.

We are exhausted so we opt to send Corey to get McDonald’s for all of us. Not the most glamouras meal or the most cultural but at this point no one wanted to walk to the mile plus to the nearest sit-down restaurant.