Blog - IKEA!

IKEA!

Today we got Tokyo Metro day-passes (¥710) with the intent of going down to the recently opened IKEA in Funabashi, Chiba.

We left around lunch time, and we first stopped by Jinbōchō where we went to eat at Mother's Kitchen, a restaurant that offers an all-you-can-eat buffet consisting of nothing but organic food, for only ¥1260. There was lots of vegetables, brown and red rice, curry,... everything very fresh and tasty.

Then, we went down to Kiba for a visit to the Museum of Contemporary Art currently showing "Collection of the Fondation Cartier pour l'art contemporain" featuring works by about 30 artists from various countries. Some of the most impressing to me were Ron Mueck's "In Bed" (2005) (a giant but realistic installation of a lady in bed), Liza Lou's "The Back Yard" (1996) (a life-size reproduction of a garden made of nothing but shiny colorful beads!), Dennis Oppenheim's "Table Piece" (1975) (a long table at both ends of which sit black and white puppets speaking through microphones).

We got out around 17:00, and then headed to IKEA Funabashi! This is the first IKEA in Japan (not counting a short presence about 20 years ago), and there's a lot of noise about good-looking Swedish furniture for cheap! Since it's Golden Week (three national holidays in a row), needless to say, the place was very crowded. There was a long queue at the entrance but it went rather quickly, it took us maybe about 20 minutes to get in.

When we got in it was already past 18:00, and being hungry we headed to the restaurant where I had delicious Swedish meatballs and a chocolate tart. Before we knew it, it was already about 19:30, 30 minutes from closing time. We ran around trying to see as much as possible, but the store being truly huge, it was all a bit overwhelming. We just got some small stuff (including batteries) and I also got to eat a hot dog on the way back, so I'm rather satisfied of this first visit.

We'll need to go back there sometime and spend the most part of a day, after deciding what we really need to buy. :)

Bonus random photo:

Larger sizes of photos at Flickr

Posted on May 5, 2006 at 00:49 | Tweet |

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