イケア = I-KE-A

Just got back from a little outing to the new IKEA store located in Minami Funabashi. It's the first IKEA to open in Japan (well, technically it is not actually the first: apparently IKEA tried to conquer Japan in the eighties and it didn't work out, so let's say the first in 20 years...) and it is is *huge* (for those of you familiar with the Seattle IKEA, think 3x that size) and due to some stroke of business brilliance it is located right across from Minima Funabashi station. Granted, M-F is not exactly central Tokyo, but still I can't imagine what it takes to get a chunk of land like that within 30min of Tokyo center - kudos to our Swedish friends.


As a confessing IKEA-holic, I can report that the MF store is the real deal right down to the meat balls and Billy shelves, with a few Japanese quirks added: note that the kitchen display in this picture has a rice cooker sitting on the kitchen counter for example. This is the good old Mc-Shrimp-Burger approach (a JP MCD specialty) I presume, and I am a bit curious as to what the Japanese customers think of it -- it is still hard for me to imagine Japanese apartments decked out in IKEA's Swedish country style line for example, even if they do feature an added rice cooker.

Another fun little observation was the number of mothers / families with young children in the store. I've wondered for a while where the Japanese children are on a normal day. This may sound odd, but I always see plenty of school kids on the trains, however rarely any young (1-5) children anywhere. I now know that they are hanging out at IKEA in M-F. Maybe IKEA has a reputation of being a hot "where-to-go-with-your-toddler" destination in Tokyo, or maybe today was just "family day" - very peculiar.

The hot dog stand, complete with a JP style vending machine where you buy a ticket for your desired refreshment. The ticket is then handed to the hot-dog-stand person, who'll give you your food/drink.

See my hot dog ticket below - reading (for those not skilled in Katakana, he he):
"Hottodoggu" - Japanese isn't that hard after all, eh?!