Ramendan

0-preparation.md

Ramendan

Find out more about the @ramendan event on their website http://ramendan.com.

Preparation

There is only a few days left, and here is how I prepare myself for Ramendan. First of all, I did some research to find restaurants in Berlin that serve Ramen. Recent search results are frustrating. There is only one listed place that serves the Ramen soup in Berlin.

Restaurants serving Ramen in Berlin

• [Places Tagged with Ramen] 1
• [Oliver Prestele's mobile Ramen kitchen] 2

Next I wanted to know how to make Ramen by myself. I turns out that Ramen is a dish cooked in thousands of variations and all its parts (noodles, soup, toppings) are very hard to master. During Ramendan I will definitely try to make some on my own, but I need constant supply with easy access.

So for most of the time I think "Instant Noodles" is the solution for me. Now I could just order a bunch great flavors and I'd be fine. No, I won't make it that easy for myself. So I started following my first thought: "What are the best Ramen amongst the instant noodles?" As I am going to eat them every night, I want them to as good as I can get them.

Instant Noodles Research

[Brands recommended on chowhound.chow.com] 3 (ordered by mentions):

• MAMA (4)
• Miko (1)
• Indo Mie (1)
• Dosirac (1)
• Myojo Chukazanmai (1)
• Kung Fu Ramen (1)
• Koyo Ramen (1)

Sunset times

I found out that a simple google search does wonders: Sunset in Berlin. I also tried to find a free sunset alarm clock with iCal events or mobile app, but with no luck. Sunset Berlin interpreted by WolframAlpha was surprisingly simple. I expected more like a graph with the sunset times for the next month or something similar.

The end?

No, this page will be filled with updates as they come in. I will extend my research and update this post here.

day1.md

Day 1

Update: Unfortunately ramendan.com seems to have a bug, and my first day was counted as missed. :(((( I hope it gets fixed, as I am really having fun with the whole idea.

Update 2: I think it was may fault. I forgot the geotag on my tweet. Now I hope that @jedschmidt can still make it count for...

Wow a day has passed. Would I've been asked, I'd say I won't make it. But now, having eaten nothing for a day, I totally enjoy having this steaming bowl of Ramen in front of me. My cooking fantasy went wild just before sunset, and I've enhanced my instant Ramen with all kinds of stuff.

Ramendan is the ultimate test of will. Now I know why. I have completed my first day, and it was hard. But I will go through the whole month!

Here's some things that helped me getting through the day. I started with drinking a lot of tea. Every time I got hungry, I had a cup of tea. And I consumed about 3-4 liters of water during the day. One kind of tea was especially helpful, Mate tea. It has the advantage of decreasing the famine feeling and being caffeinated. Lucky me, I have enough leftovers from DIY Club Mate brewing.

After this day, I feel ridicolously weak about me fighting with myself to withstand the famine. Thinking of the current world hunger and poverty, millions of people suffer from this feeling every day. Quickly I felt the freedom of having the choice not to eat. But I also realized many many people don't have that freedom. For them it is a matter of staying alive.

So I thought, let's try to do something good along this funny challenge. I will donate € 10 every day of Ramendan to the Red Cross Relief Fund.

day4.md

The day after day 3

It is incredible. I do the same things as I did before, but I feel soo much butter in general.

One big factor of my well-being is to have nothing to do.

But another is, that I'm consuming nothing but water, fruit jucies and lots of tea until sunset. The first day I thought I'm never going to make it, but the second was already "OK". And now I don't even drink Mate tea (which helped me reduce the famine).

Yesterday I was having a marvelous dinner at Cocolo's Ramen Bar in Berlin. For a long time now, I have not been so happy about my food. I enjoy every slurp and noodle so much now. What a great feeling.

Sleepyness is gone. Usually after lunch or around 4pm I was suffering from an awkward sleepy feeling. I was tired, motivation was down and the only thing that could keep me going was some Club Mate or similar caffeinated beverage. Now I am still consuming some amounts of caffeine by occasionally having a Black or Mate tea. But compared to the time before, it is so much less.

This day fasting really works well for me.

nice work, @Overbryd! i respect your tenacity. instant may indeed be the best bet for a city like berlin, although there are a few options in mitte from what i've heard.

as for sunset, i'm using the geonames api, which is conveniently built into yobot at co-up if you're there.

mmmm, getting hungry just thinking about ramen.