Cup Noodles Museum Osaka Ikeda

This guide to the Cup Noodles Museum in Osaka's Ikeda opens before dawn in a backyard shed, where a 48-year-old Momofuku Ando has spent a year failing to solve one problem. It traces his path here: a lost textile fortune, a wrongful two-year imprisonment, and a fresh start in Ikeda chasing noodles you could make with only hot water. The shed he worked alone in still stands, rebuilt, inside this museum, tools and all.