Yesterday my wife and I went to the IKEA furniture store... for the third time since we moved in April. IKEA opened the first store in the Kansai area of Japan that month over in an area of Kobe called Port Island. It's the largest IKEA store in the world thus far. My wife just loves it. She likes the Western style of the furniture and goods, and a lot of Japanese people must feel the same way, because that place was extremely packed every time we went there.
When you enter IKEA, you are led straight up to the showroom, where you follow a winding one-way path taking you past displays of furniture, goods, etc. You take a pencil and a small form and write down the serial numbers of the stuff you want while you peruse. Next, you go downstairs where you can buy small stuff like curtains, light bulbs and lamps, dishes, etc. After that, you go to the warehouse where you get your unassembled furniture yourself, wrapped in flat boxes. You pay, then you go home.
I'm not as crazy about the store as my wife is. The furniture and goods are all European, so, for example, if you get a bed from there, like we did, you can only get bed covers that fit from IKEA. You can't get it from Japanese stores. Also, curtains may or may not fit Japanese-made windows. If you can get past that, though, they do have some good things. We especially like the comfortable pillows, IKEA 365+ FAST (pictured above). They also have a range of futons, from thin for the summer to thick ones for the winter.
No comments:
Post a Comment