The food museums are supposed to be “educational.” The food theme parks are supposed to be “fun.” But who are they kidding? We all know that they’re just excuses to go eat some delicious and interesting foods. I know that’s why I’d go. So, let’s not beat around the bush here. Although this list of places consist of museums, theme parks, and more, it’s all about EATING. Strangely, there are a lot of these types of places, too (and I’m sure I’m missing a ton, so let me know in the comments).

If you’re in Japan, you’ll want to visit a few of these. I know I will, now that I know about them (especially this first one, yum).

Shin-Yokohama Ramen Museum:

The Shin-Yokohama Ramen museum can be found in Shin-Yokohama (duh), within walking distance of Shin-Yokohama Station (also duh). To get in, it’s a mere 300 yen for adults and 100 yen for children, though I expect you do have to pay for any ramen you want to eat… but boy do they have ramen. Besides having various educational offerings about ramen, they also have an area full of many of the various ramen styles from around Japan.

Delicious, right? My only regret is that I wouldn’t be able to try all of them. Normally, you have to travel all around Japan to try the different types of ramen (you should still do this, it’s a great reason to travel all over). But if you’re low on time, and in the Tokyo area (which you probably will be at some point if you’re in Japan), the Shin-Yokohama Ramen museum is probably the kind of place you want to visit. For a little more information on the types of ramen offered, you can find it here.

Japan, Kanagawa Prefecture, Yokohama, Kohoku Ward, Shinyokohama, ２丁目１４−２１
+81 45-471-0503

Before you leave, make sure you pick up some ramen to go, too. There’s plenty of dry ramen to choose from, though it’s never going to be as good as the fresh stuff. Speaking of dry ramen…

Momofuku Ando Instant Ramen Museum:

Cup Noodles… You grew up on them. You ate them all through college… now you have high blood pressure and cholesterol. It’s all thanks to Momofuku Ando, the creator of Cup Noodles – and guess what? He has his own museum. Not only can you learn about the history of Cup Noodle (borrrring), but you can make your very own customized cup noodle (awesome!) to take home with you. Then, one sad night when you’re feeling lonely and craving some MSG goodness, you can crack open your shrimp-egg-peas-beef-chicken-corn flavored Cup Noodle and slurp it down. It will be delicious, I’m sure.

〒563-0041 大阪府池田市満寿美町８－２５
+81 72-752-3484

If the “non-fresh” stuff doesn’t interest you, you can actually have fresh cup noodle too. I bet it tastes pretty good, actually. If you want to know more about this place, we actually wrote about it when it opened up their Yokohama branch sometime last year. Go take a gander.

Ikebukuro Gyoza Stadium

In the Sunshine City Shopping Center in Tokyo you can find Namja Town, which is home to three (that’s right, three) different food-related theme parks. Seriously, if the girlfriend wanted to go shopping in Sunshine City, this is where I want to be dropped off. I promise I’ll be a good boy and only devour everything in my path.

Japan, 東京都豊島区東池袋三丁目1番1号
+81 3-3989-3321

Gyoza Stadium features many many gyoza-related stalls… and I gotta say, if there’s something I’d like to eat with my Ramen Museum, it would be this. Can you guys please combine into one delicious theme park / museum already, please? According to the website, they have over 100 varieties. I’ll have to have seconds (or thirds, or fiftieths).

But that’s not all Namja Town offers. There’s two more food-related theme parks that they hold.

Ice Cream City & Tokyo Dessert Republic

I hope you’ll excuse me, but I’m going to combine the two dessert theme parks in Namja Park into one section. I’m more of a salty-food guy myself, so I’m totally being dessert-racist right now. They all look the same to me. Whoops, did I say that out loud? I’m sorry but it’s true. I know you were thinking it.

Ice Cream City covers the ice cream side of things, and Dessert Republic covers the non-ice-cream side of things. Together, they form a sort of Captain Planet of Dessert places, or so I imagine. Personally, I’d be way too stuffed on Gyoza down on the second floor of Namja Town to even fathom walking up all those steps to get here, but for you sweet tooth folk, Namja Town is an all-in-one package. Both sweet and salty all in one building.

So what one would you visit first? Maybe start at the dessert places so you can just roll down the stairs…

Daska aka “Yokohama Daiseikai”:

Daska’s theme is “Shanghai in the 1920s-30s.” Sounds like a good enough theme to me. It’s in Yokohama’s China Town, and was originally opened up in order to be more buddy-buddy with Yokohama’s sister city, Shanghai. Although this place isn’t only about food, a majority of the floors (3-5) make up the food court, and all it does is serve Chinese Food. I hear it’s pretty good, too.

Japan, 神奈川県横浜市中区山下町102
+81 45-681-5572

So, if you’re in Japan and hankering for some Chinese food, this sounds like the (most touristy, but also good) place to go. You can find more information on their website, here.

Kirin Yokohama Beer Village

No food-related place list is complete without the breweries. If you love watery Japanese beer, this will be one of your four four Meccas. If you’re in Yokohama for one of the many other food museums, might as well stop here to get all that gyoza, Anpanman, ramen, ice cream, and cakes washed down.

Japan, 神奈川県横浜市鶴見区生麦１丁目１７−１
+81 45-503-8250

There are tours and (of course) beer tastings, so if you’ve always wanted to know how Kirin was made, this is where you’ll want to be. Even if you think you’ve had it all, Kirin does sport something pretty interesting. There’s a mini brewery there that’s modeled after the breweries of the Meiji Era. You can drink “fresh beer” and see what it was like to be drunk in the late 1800s Japan.

“I’m TOTALLY gunna overthrow the Shogunate”
“Shudduppp. I’m gonna do it. The emperor’s my BRO.”

I imagine it’s something like that, though I’d have to check my sources to be sure.

Yokohama Curry Museum:

As if there weren’t enough Yokohama-based food attractions… I think there’s some kind of foodspiracy going on, here. Though, I guess I gotta admit, if there’s any museum I’d want to go to (besides ramen… ramen always wins) I’d want it to be Japanese style curry. And, as I mentioned earlier, you can find this in Yokohama, the home to many, many food-museums and attractions.

Oh, did I get your hopes up? Sorry. This museum is closed now :( I just want you to know that you’re missing out on things like this:

If this doesn’t bring a tear to the corner of your eye, you are a heartless, heartless person. Shame on you. Let’s move on to happier (and existing) locations.

OchanoSato (Tea Village) – The World Tea Museum

I like tea… like, I’m addicted to it. In fact, one of my many retirement plans is to start a tea farm and tea company, just to feed my addiction. This will definitely be on my list of places to go sometime in the future. I must learn all their secrets (and consume raw tea leaves).

Japan, Shizuoka Prefecture, Shimada, Kanayafujimicho, ３０５３−２
+81 547-46-5588

The World Tea Museum has 90 different types of tea from 30 countries in the world. You can touch and smell these tea leaves, though not all of them are for tasting. A lot of the focus, however, is on Japanese tea (to be expected). You can even go to the teahouse and garden and try out some matcha (which is powdered green tea – it makes the tea super strong and super wonderful).

Sounds like a really peaceful excursion to me, especially if you’re the type that likes tea (or, your doctor told you to stop drinking coffee, so you have no other choice). There’s even tea festivals once a year, which in the past seem to be in May (hey, that’s pretty soon). There’s more info on their website, of course. Go brew yourself some tea before heading over there, though. It’s the least you can do.

Sushi Museum In Shizuoka:

Located within the S-Pulse Dream Plaza, there are two sushi-related attractions that you’re sure to enjoy (as long as you didn’t go to the world’s best sushi restaurant right before, ruining all other sushi for the rest of your life). If you want to learn about sushi, you can go to the Shimizu Sushi Museum. But, if you’re more like me, you learn by doing. That’s why you’ll find me inside the Shimizu Sushi Yokocho Shop section, where 10 different sushi shops try to outdo each other so you’ll go to them and not any of the other nine shops vying for your attention.

Japan, Shizuoka Prefecture, Shizuoka, Shimizu Ward, Irifunecho, １３−１５
+81 54-354-3360

There’s a ton of other attractions inside the S-Pulse Dream Plaza, but this is a post about food-attractions, so you’ll have to check out their website to learn more about those other things.

Sapporo Beer Museum:

Out of all the main Japanese beer histories, I’d say Sapporo Beer has one of the most interesting (which actually makes it kind of cool that they have a museum). I won’t spoil that history for you, though, just in case you go (or in case you want to read about it). There’s tours at this museum (which is three floors of beer goodness!). There’s a restaurant and bar as well (how could there not be?), a beer garden, and even a shopping center. So, you can send off your lady friend to the shopping area (or vice versa) and get yourself a nice cold beer while you wait. I wish more shopping centers had this.

Japan, 〒065-8633 北海道札幌市東区北７条東９丁目１−１
+81 11-748-1876 ‎

Personally, I love the city of Sapporo (and all of Hokkaido) for food, so I wish there were more food/beer museums up here. I guess I can just manage to eat the regular not-museum food in the meantime. Those are pretty good.

Food And Agriculture Museum (Tokyo University Of Agriculture)

This is technically a university, but it has its own museum as well. And, because it’s a school that has to do with agriculture (i.e. food), it’s a food and agriculture museum. I have a feeling you have to be the right type of person to enjoy this place.

日本 〒156-8502 東京都世田谷区桜丘１丁目１－１
03-5477-2220

The idea of this museum is to showcase the things that the students have come up with showing the world what food-related inventions they’ve thought up. You can be that they’re a lot more useful than these unuseless inventions, at least.

Meatrea (The Meat Theme Park)

I’m guessing they didn’t mean to make this place sound like the word diarrhea, though I haven’t actually been here myself so I can’t say for sure (these people have been here though). Apparently this place is more like a glorified meat-related food court than a museum, though there is a very small meat museum in here (which is why it barely makes it on this list). It has a Spanish motif (the food court is called “Museo de Carne,” for example), and is actually run by Namco, strangely enough. Here’s where you can find it:

京王南大沢駅構内２丁目-１−６ Minamiosawa, Hachioji, Tokyo, Japan
042-674-8145

The meat museum will only take a couple minutes to get through, so don’t plan a whole day trip around this place. Instead, come here to try the food… unless you’re vegetarian, that is, then you probably should go somewhere else… perhaps the Anpanman Museum?

Anpanman Children’s Museum

Any food list wouldn’t be complete without the venerable Anpanman: Bread superhero loved by children (and hungry people). This is more of a children’s thing, but if your kid loves Anpanman then… well… you’ve probably already been here.

Japan, 神奈川県横浜市西区みなとみらい４丁目３−２
+81 45-227-8855

You can see a lot more about the museum/mall at their website, but essentially you’re going to find Anpanman-related activities for kids, Anpanman-related food, and Anpanman-related… well… everything! If you don’t like Anpanman you probably shouldn’t come here (and you probably don’t have a heart).

While we’re talking about Anpanman, I should do a shout-out for the Kochi Anpanman Museum. They’re a little smaller, but it seems like a really cool place. If you have kids and happen to be in Kochi, pop on over and take a look.

１２２４−２ Kahokucho Birafu, Kami, Kochi Prefecture 781-4212, Japan
+81 0887-59-2300

Anpanman was actually born in Kochi, so if you’re an Anpanman lover, you should make the pilgrimage down here. Plus, Kochi’s a pretty cool place, you should check it out. Here’s the museum’s website in case you’re interested.

A Map Of Japanese Food Museums, Attractions, And Theme Parks

I also took the time to put together a map for you, so you can kind of visualize where everything is (hint: Everything’s in Yokohama, pretty much). It should also help you to go to the places you want to go to, in case you’re craving a fooducational experience.

View Japanese Food Museums in a larger map

While food museums and theme parks may not be the most exciting museums or theme parks, they do have a special place in my own heart stomach. I think personally I’d like to go to the Ramen one the most (why? Because I loovvvve good ramen), but then again I could just go to even better places if I was in Japan anyways, so I’m not sure why I’d go there.

Either way, which food museum or theme park do you want to visit most? They all seem pretty tasty to me.

Header Images: Ramen, Beer, Sushi

A common misconception about Japan is that it’s so densely populated that every single town is just like Tokyo; urban, people all crammed together, few empty spaces. Not only are there still tons of rural places in Japan, but there are even abandoned places, places that were simply left behind to rot. The Japanese call these places haikyo (廃墟).

Some of the creepiest of all haikyo in Japan are amusement parks. Places where poeople used to gather to have fun or go on vacation now sit vacant to rust and become overrun by nature. And while not all of Japan’s abandoned parks are as creepy as rusty ol’ clown car above, some of them come pretty damn close.

Why do so many amusement parks fail? It seems kind of strange that so many amusement parks would simply just close shop.

There are a bunch of different reasons why amusement parks go out of business:

• Bigger Parks: Places like Universal Studios and Disneyland have put a lot of smaller parks out of business. Why would you go to some no-name amusement park when you can go see freakin’ Mickey Mouse?!
• Failing Banks: Lots of smaller parks were financed by banks that gave bad loans, or failed for other reasons. With those banks gone, the amusement parks couldn’t afford to stay open.
• Other Asian Parks: Lots of new amusement parks are opening up all across Asia too, which has brought attention and attendance away from Japanese amusement parks. Countries like China and South Korea are experiencing a kind of amusement park boom, while Japan’s amusement parks have kind of peaked.

Lots of these failed amusement parks have been either abandoned or torn down completely. Lots of people have taken it upon themselves to explore these abandoned parks and provide us all with nightmare fuel. Let’s take a look at some of the creepiest abandoned amusement parks in Japan.

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Takakanonuma Greenland

The closest you'll get to Silent Hill without putting a pyramid on your head.

Takakanonuma Greenland was an amusement park that opened up in the mid-70s and quickly closed down. In 1986, the park tried to open back up again after being closed down for about 10 years, but quickly failed again. Since its final closure, the park and its huge roller coasters have become overgrown by local plants and nearly completely rusted over. Still, that hasn’t stopped intrepid explorers from climbing all over these rabies hazards.

And for some reason, nearly every picture I’ve found of Takakanonuma Greenland has been in a dense fog. While some might attribute this to the local climate or the time of year these pictures were taken, I’d like to say that there’s so much fog because this place is creepy as hell.

[hr]

Nara Dreamland

Nara Dreamland it its glory days

It’s hard to imagine now, but when Disneyland first opened up back in 1955 it was a pretty big deal. There weren’t really many other amusement parks that were as big or that paid such attention to detail.

Some people visited Disneyland to try to capture all the magic. Some people built their own.

Nara Dreamland, which was built in 1961, was in a lot of ways a straight-up copy of the original Disneyland, complete with jungle cruise, monorail, and main street. If you compare maps of the two, they’re pretty much identical.

What Nara Dreamland looks like today

In 1983, Tokyo Disneyland finally opened. After Disney had an official presence in Japan, Nara Dreamland began its long and slow decline. The killing blow came when Universal Studios opened up its own park in nearby Osaka in 2001. Nara Dreamland closed down shortly thereafter in 2006.

How about an enchanting jungle cruise?

The park itself is still standing and largely untouched, so there are lots of unofficial visitors exploring and photographing the park.

[hr]

Gulliver’s Kingdom

"Just getting my eyes brushed in the shadow of Mount Fuji. No big deal."

Gulliver’s Kingdom was an amusement park based off the classic British book “Gulliver’s Travels,” which follows a British sailor who travels around the world finding strange and interesting civilizations. You might recognize the book’s most famous scene where the main character, Gulliver, is tied to the ground by an army of tiny people.

Unfortunately, Gulliver’s Kingdom had its own set of unique problems. The park didn’t have the best neighbors ever. Not only was it right by Japan’s infamous “suicide forest,” and was close to Kamikuishiki, a town that was home to the Aum Shinrikyo cult that launched a terrorist attack on Japan in 1995.

Needless to say, the area wasn’t a huge tourist attraction. People probably even avoided being in the area.

The park opened in 1998. Very few people came to visit, so the park was forced to close in 2001. The thing is, the park wasn’t demolished until 2007, which meant that for six whole years it became overgrown, decayed, and vandalized until it had reached a nice, ripe state of creepiness.

For a less terrifying Gulliver’s Travels experience, you can always watch the God-awful Jack Black movie (or, y’know, read the book).

[hr]

Koga Family Land

Koga Family Land (also sometimes unfortunately known as Koga Family Rand) was yet another small, independent amusement park that failed in the mid-90s. It stood abandoned for nearly 20 years before finally being torn down in 2008.

No creepy place is complete without kids' drawings.

Up until the park was torn down, many different buildings and rides remained, including a restaurant, a cart ride, and a Ferris wheel that made terrifying noises when the wind blew.

Check out this video from Florian from Abandoned Kansai to get a good idea about how empty this place is:

You guys got "phoenix" right but not "land?" C'mon!

[hr]

If you want to read up more on haikyo, check out these awesome sites:

• Michael John Grist
• Abandoned Kansai
• Gakuranman
• This Japanese explorer (site in Japanese).

P.S.: Don’t wanna have abandoned theme park nightmares? Better follow us on Twitter.
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