The Strangest Museums

The Momofuku Ando Instant Ramen Museum

• Osaka, Japan
• The Instant Noodles Tunnel exhibit
displays approximately 800 packages of
noodles, revealing the evolution of
ramen throughout the decades.
• This museum honors the creator of the
instant ramen noodle, Momofuku
Ando -- featured in statue form on a
colossal stone cup of his instant meal --
who struggled to create an inexpensive
food for the impoverished survivors of
World War II.
• The museum itself is hardly dry and
flavorless, with a kitchen where
visitors can make their own instant
chicken substitute meal in a bowl, a
gourmet snack for people who can't
really cook for themselves. Hot water
is provided.
 International Spy Museum
Washington, D.C.
International Spy Museum features the largest ever public collection
of artifacts, shedding light on one of the world’s most secretive
professions. Mini cameras, counterfeit money, disguised weapons,
and cipher machines reveal the role of human intelligence and spies
throughout history. Visitors can participate in interactive spy
adventures, adopt their own covers, and unearth the stories behind
the world’s most elusive spies through historic photographs and
video interviews.
The Mummy Museum
Guanajuato, Mexico

• In the small mining town of Guanajuato—a UNESCO World Heritage

site—hundreds of bodies were buried in the Santa Paula Pantheon’s
crypts during the mid-19th century. If families were unable to pay
a burial tax imposed by the town, the bodies were exhumed. It
was then that they discovered the bodies had been mummified
through a natural process, likely due to the region’s unique
climactic factors. Their ghoulish corpses—including those of
infants—are now on display at the Museo de Las Momias, or
Mummy Museum.
Cancun Underwater Museum
Cancun, Mexico
• Constructed in 2009 in the azure waters
surrounding Cancun, Isla Mujeres, and Punta
Nizuc, Museo Subacuático de Arte (MUSA)
features over 500 life-size sculptures fixed to
the sea floor. The oceanic art doubles as an
artificial reef specially designed to promote
the growth of coral, which continually
transforms the aquatic landscape. The result
is an eerily beautiful visual representation of
humans’ interaction with the environment.
Visitors can explore the museum by glass
bottom boat, snorkeling, or scuba diving.
 Torture Museum
Amsterdam, Netherlands
• Among the lively bars and hotels in the
heart of Amsterdam, this sinister
museumtransports visitors back in time to
Europe’s dark history, when torture and
execution were commonplace. From the
spike-covered inquisition chair to
decapitation swords, the museum displays
over 40 instruments used in the
interrogations of suspected criminals,
witches, and political prisoners. The
museum also educates students on modern
torture—still practiced in nearly 100
countries—and pledges its support for the
United Nations Convention Against Torture.
Sulabh International Toilet Museum, New Delhi,
India
New Delhi’s International Museum
of Toilets isn’t just a tribute to the
porcelain throne (although you’ll
certainly be shocked at the variety
displayed), but a call for sanitation
improvements in third world
countries as a means to improve
overall health conditions. Museum
curator Dr. Bindeshwar Pathak
runs Sulabh International, the
largest nonprofit in India dedicated
to that very cause. We can all agree:
Life without toilets would be
seriously crappy.