Ikea: There's A First Time For Everything

If you've heard of Ikea, you probably know it as a franchise of department stores with the furniture and funny names. That's part of the magic behind it but there's also a lot more. Earlier this month, I joined my mum & my nan on a trip to Ikea. I decided to tag along because a) I didn't really have a lot to do that day and b) They sold me the idea of a Full English breakfast with Hash Browns at a built in cafe.

Now, if you know me, you'll know I rarely turn down the opportunity for a cooked breakfast with Hash Browns on the menu. I maintain the belief that every Full English breakfast should include Hash Browns, Sausage, Bacon, Beans and Eggs of either a Scrambled, Fried, Poached or Omletted variety. Those are the Breakfast Power 5 and they are necessary for an acceptable Full English breakfast. Extra items such as Mushrooms, Black puddings and Tomatoes can improve it depending on your own taste. Personally, I dislike any breakfast that substitutes Hash Browns for Tomatoes. I only want Tomatoes on my plate if they've been made into Heinz Ketchup sauce.
Anyway, enough about that. I like my breakfast with Hash Browns and Ikea had that option. I tagged along and when we got there, I saw the glorious sign reading "Start with a hearty cooked breakfast. Set 6 item cooked breakfast: Ikea Family price 99p. Ordinary Price £1.75" with a picture of a lovely looking meal fit for yours truly. Since our Ikea Family card wouldn't work that day, I had to settle for the ordinary price. However, a 6 item Full English Breakfast consisting of Sausage, Bacon, Beans, Scrambled Eggs and 2 Hash Browns with a glass of fizzy Apple Juice for just over £2 is pretty awesome.
In the end, I was only able to take down about 4 plates of breakfast and a Vanilla milkshake for 90p. Bottom line is Ikea has great value on these items. They also sold Hot Dogs for 50p but I chose to have another plate of breakfast instead. After my mum & nan left me to my own devices with a series of cracking meals, I made my way into the furniture section of the store. Most department stores will have showrooms or dedicated areas to different items. Ikea is different. Ikea is like a museum or gallery with a set path to walk around. You start off in the sofa section and, if you follow the arrows on the ground, enter the Kid Bedroom section and so on. Like a theme park, each area had a different feel. From Kid Bedroom Zone to First Apartment Living Room Land. It's a cool experience if you're easily amused.

I made my way around the different areas, taking in the views of parents browsing, kids running around and random blokes on their own staring at beds. Once I'd finished that experience, I travelled to the next floor where all of the normal items were kept in a joint museum/warehouse storage facility. First came the walk-through exhibit of tat. Kooky lamps at £7.99, aprons at £5.99, everything at sale price. Good bargains for people who enjoy shopping, good entertainment for someone like me. Whilst walking through the different "lands", I noticed that the names of items weren't the same as other products as well. Oh no, Ikea's different in every sense!
It's like they've taken something that exists and then made it again in an unorthodox but great way. Ikea are a Swiss company, I believe, so things have Swiss names. They have sheets that are called Skubb and candles that are called...well, I can't remember the candle names. What I do remember is that everything sounded like it was named after a Pokemon. Morpig. Klamby. Tennenet. Seriously, if you're making a game with loads of identical critters yourself, get down to Ikea for inspiration on the names. Other than that, it's just a nice place to be. The atmosphere is friendly, the prices are great, the products are diverse and the customers are also kind of odd in their own way.
I remember seeing a fat woman wearing a T-Shirt that read something like "Little Miss Lazy". Good to see people able to joke about themselves...well, I assume that's the case. It's not like she had a shirt on referring to herself that read "Four Tits" but you get the picture. I enjoyed it at Ikea, possibly the first time I've gone to a massive shop and had a great time there. Where I live, nearly every other shop focuses on selling clothes. There are no record shops, no (more) milkshake shops, 1 DVD shop and about 15 clothes shops. They're building an extension to the shopping centre as well which, I can guarantee, will include at least 1 clothes shop.

Maybe that's why Ikea was so fun. Very little clothes on sale there, all beds and household items. Some useful, some utter wank, all different. Yes, there's a middle aged toss element to it all, what with people purchasing oven-mitt mitts called Skupfelsplorf and the like but it's worth going there at least once. Who knows, you may pick up a great deal. I'd like to remind readers that I do not, nor will I probably ever, work for Ikea in any way. I'm not being paid by Ikea, I'm not representing Ikea, I have no other connection but customer. I enjoyed my time there and I'm passing my thoughts onto you. Probably because I don't have an awful lot to do when I'm not working or gaming.
Kind of a poor reflection of my life if my idea of fun is heading down to Ikea. Oh well. Consider this a warm-up for an upcoming series of blog posts. I'm trying to write more rants/opinion pieces but I'm low on ideas. This was one of them and I have one more. I'll work on that later this week but, for now, that's me done. Either tomorrow or Wednesday, I'll look into getting a Doctor Who related post up. Tuesday has a GH related one. Be seeing you.