Chocolate Sauce and Flatpacks

I was going to rip into stingy transnational companies like McDonalds for being so mean with the chocolate sauce on their sundaes, and international sporting venues, like the State Sports Centre at Homebush for making my wife stand outside and finish her Boost juice before allowing her to enter - not to mention the fact that they force you to buy tickets on line and charge a service fee per ticket instead of per transaction - but I decided to go with a positive. Yesterday, on the same day that the aforementioned tragedies occurred, I had my first encounter with another internationally acclaimed company. IKEA.

The Swedish legends of homewares and flatpack furniture are new arrivals on the Australian scene. There are only five stores, and they are only on the east coast but like all new arrivals we have welcomed them with open arms. The nearest store is roughly an hour an half's drive from my place, and was, until yesterday, an undiscovered country.

We had some time to kill between competition and presentation at the NSW Gymnastics championships where my daughter was competing. We went to Rhodes shopping centre and via an inconspicuous shop front we were transported by an escalator into a wonderland. Wow! That's the best I can do. Seriously,we were only window shopping but the range of products, the low prices, the sheer innovation, the brilliant colours, the unique styles...blew us away. Admittedly, after an eternity of following the arrows around through the entire store we were physically exhausted and emotionally drained, but it was inspirational and we spent a bit of money too. Irresistible is a word that comes to mind when I think of some of those amazing products. 


I have heard the cliche about shopping being an experience but until yesterday, I had never experienced it. At the risk of sounding like a commercial for IKEA, I have to say, and you may have picked up on this already, we were super impressed and we will return to spend some more of our hard earned dollars. I saw my dream office there and as I soon as I finally get the book deal that I have been chasing, I will march back into IKEA, and make it mine.