Ikea on a Sunday afternoon...

...is utterly, completely packed. I am shocked how well Ikea is doing in Japan considering their furniture is fun to look at but, well, leaves a lot to be desired in terms of quality. Yes, it's discount furniture, but for discount furniture it's quite expensive still!

Hubby and I went to the Kohoku location nearest to us and spent 4+ hours being herded around the massive maze of the second floor furniture display. Thankfully, we made out alive (phew!) and with only a few things, among which are 4 large Malla boxes and 2 Nordby canvas drawing cabinets. For the life of me I cannot find a picture of the Nordby on Ikea Japan's website, so I took a picture of the one in the corner of our bedroom instead. We carried the smaller items home and had the larger ones delivered right to our door for an extra $12 or so for under 20 kg.

Large Malla boxes

***Picture from Ikea Japan.

Nordby Canvas Drawing Cabinet

Like every other shopping center/department store in Japan, there's a cafeteria/food section inside Ikea too. On the 2nd floor, it was more of a self-serving buffet style, and there wasn't anything appetizing to us, so we snacked on some vegetable juices and ice creams, both of which were way too sweet for my taste. On the first floor, there's a section of food that sold soft serve ice cream and hot dogs. And I spotted this funny arrangement of condiments. Yes, you squeeze them like you would milking a cow. *giggles* I'm so immature ^.^

Anyway, if you are moving to Japan and are looking to furnish your empty apartment, I would say skip Ikea and go straight to Craigslist Japan as there are always Sayonara Sales, i.e. expats/foreign students leaving Japan and are looking to get rid of their furniture quickly. These Sayonara Sales are always dirt cheap, and occasionally the furniture are just given away free of charge! You're probably thinking tattered, ratty, falling apart things, but you'll be happy to know the vast majority of those furnitures are in very good shape with many less than 6 months old!

So then why are those almost new furniture sold for dirt cheap or given for free?

A few reasons:

1. The owners are leaving Japan permanently and are in desperate need of getting rid of their things asap (and perhaps get some money back for them)!

2. Unlike shopping at a store where you can have your items delivered for a small price, you will have to pick up the furniture yourself. If you don't have a car, which you most likely won't since everyone's on foot or bike using public transportation, you will have to arrange for pick up service, which will be more costly. Even if you're game to hand carry furniture onto the subway trains, you can only do so with smaller items. Imagine dragging a sofa onto the train. Not going to happen.

3. Garbage disposal system in Japan is a bit complicated (more on that later), and you cannot just put your furniture out onto the street with a "HELP YOURSELF" sign and hope they'll disappear like in NYC. Nope. Doesn't work that way.