My First Bowl of Ramen in Japan

I just got back from a two week holiday in Japan! This was our first trip to Japan and it was to say the least – amazing. There were so many highlights from our trip that it is going to be hard to write about everything! I will try my best to give you a glimpse into the trip but overall, we loved Japan, the people were so nice and friendly, the food was awesome, we enjoyed exploring the different places (including getting lost) and experiencing the culture.

After spending 9.5 hours on a flight, 1.5 hours getting through immigration, an hour travelling by train from the airport to the world’s busiest railway station then deciphering the local street maps to locate our hotel, we finally checked into our hotel, dropped our bags off and set out to find somewhere to eat- hoping places would still be open. Thankfully, many eateries in this part of town is open 24/7 so we walked into this ramen shop at midnight. Although it was late, this place was still buzzing with Japanese men slurping their ramen with a bottle of beer after a long day’s work.

Neither of us can speak or read Japanese so the first culture-shock test came when we tried to order a bowl of ramen. There was a vending machine near the door with lots of buttons in Japanese – we stared at it and pressed the buttons but nothing happened. The chef eventually came over to show us lost tourists how to place an order (!!) First insert your yen into the vending machine then make your selection, the machine then produces a small ticket which you give to the kitchen so that they can prepare your food. I don’t have a photo of the vending machine from that shop (honestly, I was a bit embarrassed to take a photo of it after being such noobs!) but I will show you how they look like in another post.

I have no idea what we ordered that night but it was like eating ramen for the first time in my life! Everything was perfect, the noodles, the broth, the half-cooked egg, the slices of pork…. I kept whispering to Peter saying ‘this tastes so good!’ and ‘I can’t believe we’re eating ramen in Japan!’ haha it was pretty surreal to finally be in Japan.

Unfortunately as I can’t read Japanese, I don’t have a name nor an address to give you, but this ramen shop was within walking distance from our hotel Sunroute Plaza Shinjuku and the JR Shinjuku station. It is open 24/7 and as you can see in the photo above the average price of a bowl of ramen is about 700 Yen, that’s about AUD 7.30! So cheap and so delicious, take me back to Japan!

*Foodsaurus