THERE’S NO TELLING what little treasures you’ll find when you look around on the English-language versions of Japanese websites. That’s why I keep adding sites to the list on the right.
For example, those of you who just can’t get enough ramen in your life and prefer Asian junk food to Western junk food might enjoy the website of the Japan Instant Food Industry Association, which will tell you everything you ever wanted to know about instant ramen, plus a few other things besides.

Accessing this website (which is also on the right sidebar) will enable you to discover the history of instant ramen starting from 1958, definitions of noodles and noodle categories, instant ramen ingredients, safety regulations, and the materials used to make the cups in which the soup is sold and eaten.
Want more? They’ve got it, including descriptions of how the noodles, soup, and condiments are made.
For the really hardcore ramen devotees, they also offer a file of statistical information, including the amount of flour used annually in Japan to make instant ramen, the length of one noodle, the length of all the noodles in one package, and the number of noodles in one package.
The last page on the site provides handy hints on how to diversify instant ramen meals, including recipes for ramen cabbage rolls, quail eggs in ramen, clams with milk ramen, crab, spinach and egg ramen, and other delights.
If that’s not enough, you can always slide on over to Worldramen.net, also on the right sidebar. The previous site gives you the industry’s perspective, but here you get the noodle gourmand’s view.
Down here in Kyushu, ramen means the variety made with pork broth (tonkotsu), and for the outlook in Fukuoka, take a look at this feature article in the magazine Fukuoka Now. You’re sure to enjoy it because I wrote it! (Note: neither of the two people in the photo are me.)
This is just a small sample of the discoveries that await the intrepid Internet explorer. And no, I don’t mean the browser!
Of course, if you’re above ramen culture and the riff-raff that eats it, you can always use the sidebar to access the Hagakure in English!
To say ‘Dying without attaining one’s aim is a foolish sacrifice of life’ is a flippant attitude of sophisticates in the Kyoto-Osaka area. In such a case, it is difficult to judge rightly. No one longs for death. We speculate on what we like. But if we live without attaining our aim, we are cowards. This is an important point.
From measuring the length of ramen noodles to examining the meaning of life and death…whatever your taste in websites, we got ‘em!
N.B.: The above photo is a still from the film Tampopo, which is about a ramen shop, among other things. You should make a point to watch it if you get the chance. Or even better, make your own chance!