Ramen came to Japan from China about a hundred years ago, but Japanese cooks made it their own. Different regions invented different kinds. In Hokkaido, the broth is salty and milky-white. In Tokyo, it is brown and made with soy sauce. In Kyushu, it is creamy from cooking pork bones for hours.
Making ramen broth takes a long, slow morning. A ramen cook starts before the sun is up, simmering bones, dried fish, vegetables and seaweed for hours and hours, until the water turns into a deep golden flavour. By the time the shop opens at lunch, the broth has been bubbling for half a day.
Ramen has its own rules in Japan. It is normal - even polite - to slurp the noodles loudly as you eat. Slurping cools the noodles down and also brings in air, which helps you taste more flavour. In a ramen shop, you can hear the noisy slurping of every customer at once. It sounds amazing.
You eat ramen with chopsticks (for the noodles) and a wide flat spoon (for the broth). Most people lift the bowl close to their mouth and tip it gently to drink the last drops. Japanese children grow up eating ramen and have favourite shops the same way other children have favourite pizza places.