IKEA Kohoku Yokohama 横浜, Kanagawa-ken 神奈川県
I don’t know why but I decided to take a little trip to IKEA with the kids. I think maybe its because I actually do feel slightly homesick rather than have a need for furniture. Not that I am from Sweden, but our old NY apartment was furnished mainly with stuff from IKEA and Crate and Barrel. But there is no Crate and Barrel here so I thought IKEA would be fun to check out… I was thinking the IKEA in Kohoku was going to be closer to us than the one in Funabashi. But it was a bit of a pain to get there since you have to take a bus from Shin-Yokohama Station. Once we got there it was a relief. We first had lunch and it’s a pretty nice and spacious cafeteria which looks like an extension of the showroom with all IKEA chairs, tables,
and lighting. They have on the menu their famous Swedish meatballs and some other salmon dishes. Although I don’t think anyone would even really notice if you brought your own lunch and heated it up at a microwave that is set up at a little water station. After lunch it was on to the showrooms and fortunately it was fun for the kids. There are display toys they can play with and model children’s rooms where they automatically made themselves at home. The showrooms look exactly like the ones in IKEA in NY. Sadly, the smallest sofas there are still too big for our tiny living room/playroom! But that will be another story. Scattered throughout the Market Hall section of the store there are also little puzzle play thingies for kids to amuse themselves while parents shop. I made the mistake of spending too much time at the Showroom area daydreaming about re-creating an IKEA showroom in my home (even though I say I’m fully against that) so I had little time left at the Market Hall area where you can actually pick up all the merchandise you want to buy. But I’m happy I at least made off with a pair of cute red plastic kid’s chairs for 390 yen each.
