.jpg)
Morning out: Ikea
The one thing I have learned (the hard way) in London is that it is very hard to get anywhere by car if you do not have satellite navigation. Of course, London is a highly populated, sprawling city with many old and narrow roads that are not meant to be used as through roads. There are often stories on the news about massive trucks that have literally become stuck between buildings on these roads after being diverted there by satellite navigation.
On Sunday morning, Stephen and I took ourselves off to Ikea in Croydon. Unfortunately, Croydon Road itself was closed for maintenance and we were diverted down the narrowest country road where parents just happened to be dropping their children off for football.
Part of the reason I took the photo was because we were stuck in traffic for a really long time and we were beginning to worry that we would miss our Ikea breakfast. We literally had to wait until the flow of traffic from the opposite direction abated before our side could start moving again. The other reason was to show just how beautiful the English countryside is.
I was just ready JAPRA's entry and I was reminded of when I moved here last year and lived in Westerham. These photos were taken really close to Westerham. I remember sending an email to Stephen telling him I had never seen such beauty in my life, that I had never seen so many different colours of green. I was reading Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows at the time and it was great looking into the greenery imagining Harry and friends camping in the forest.
We made it to Ikea, in time for a full cooked breakfast for 95p, no thanks to the satellite navigation being buggy and taking us to the other side of Croydon. The first thing you see when you are finally on the right road to Ikea is the Ikea Towers which are the old chimneys from the power station that used to be at that site.
It would be difficult to explain Ikea to anyone who doesn't have a concept of what it is. It is a gigantic home store with the most modern furniture and fittings you can imagine. They are masters of modular wardrobes and space saving systems. The very best thing about Ikea is that all their amazing modern and chic products are really, really inexpensive. Suffice to say I ♥ Ikea.
We bought two single and two double wardrobes, complete with special rails for skirts and drawer dividers for ties and all sorts of interesting things.
8 comments:
We went to IKEA within the first few months of us coming to London. We went to the one near Neasden Tube Station and ended up walking for more than 30min. But the meatballs were more than worth the hassle. :)
We've been to that Ikea! When we first moved to the country, we needed a few things (like dressers and wardrobes). So we took the train/taxi to Ikea (we didn't have a car then), spent six hours looking around for stuff, then spent another hour and a half looking for the furniture downstairs. About half of the stuff we wanted were out of stock. How disappointing! Oh well. We spent 50 pounds on transpo and actually had to walk most of the way back to the train station as the tramlines were being worked on. Delivery was 120 pounds! UGH!! We've not been back to Ikea since. Love Ikea, but that trip was so disappointing. I guess we've not gotten over it.
So glad you got your meatballs and wardrobes, though :-)
(PS Thanks for the shout out!!)
@ CK: Well, having read what you have said, it occurs to m that maybe Ikea themselves have no idea of where they are and perhaps they themselves were responsible for the downloaded instructions not working!! We had the meatballs the first time we went there but I am glad we were there early enough for the 95p breakfast this time.
@ JAPRA: Aren't they bad with their stock? We wanted the whole order delivered actually, but they forced us to take the door on delivery for some reason. I was going to have to sit in the back of the car while the doors took up the front seat. Anyway, we got downstairs and the doors were out of stock! Our wardrobe will arrive sans doors on Saturday and we have to go back to the store whenever the door come back in stock.
Oh no, you have to go BACK? I guess you could treat yourself to more meatballs!
Actually, did you know IKEA UK allows online ordering? The started this AFTER our crazy trip there, of course. So maybe you could order via the web and save the gas money. You could even learn how to make your own meatballs :-)
http://ikeahacker.blogspot.com/2006/08/how-to-make-your-own-swedish-meatballs.html
Pity IKEA don't do mail order.
@emm,
I'm surprised that you didn't get a bag of those meatballs back from IKEA. Well, they don't taste as well as they do in the store though.
Anyway, IKEA is quite popular in Singapore as well. In fact, their in-store cafe over there serves fried chicken wings at S$1 per piece (around £0.40) and the locals are fanatic about them. :p
I enjoyed your article and included it in my Blog Carnival (seen at http://cindyking.biz/international-marketer-review-blog-carnival-20/) .
Also, I stumbled this post
@ JAPRA: I was initially excited to go back to Ikea but a couple of weeks later I am indeed going to see if I can't rather order online. We have the wardrobes but no doors! I felt like I slept inside the wardrobe last night!!
@ Martin: You can buy certain items online now but not everything. I'll certainly give it a try!
@ CK: Those chicken wings sound good! Yummy. And 40p is nothing!
@ Cindy: Thanks for the inclusion into your site. It's very nice of you to do so!
Post a Comment
Comments are welcomed and appreciated on this blog.
Comments on this blog are therefore made DOFOLLOW for the Google Spiders.
Comments will remain unmoderated but spam will be deleted.
If at first your comment will not post, do try again - it is a Blogger glitch most likely.