My IKEA idea

So sorry for my absence..while I realize that some of you may be enjoying a life of leisure I actually work (right Julie) and haven't had a spare moment to blog in awhile. I have had a spare moment to do the "all you can drink" 13 dollar special..eat overly priced American-chain-restaurant Mexican food while wearing a sombrero...and pose for an impromptu photo shoot on the metal statue of a crocodile in the art colony across the street. As you can see...I lead a very busy life.

Speaking of the art colony across the street..which is called Heyri by the way...I discovered it with friends about a week ago because it was rumored that there is an IKEA there. As the rest of the place is all galleries...an amazing chocolate shop...and a garden full of giant plastic flowers and bugs a la Alice in Wonderland it is only logical to assume that the missing piece of the Heyri puzzle is, yes, an IKEA. So my friend Rachel and I donned white sundresses and floppy hats, so obviously artsy attire, and headed across the street to check it out.

Half an hour of wandering, and 3 photo shoots of ourselves communing with the art later, we found it. I cannot tell you my excitement at being able to purchase Scandinavian modern style furniture and accessories, never mind that Korea has some of the most plentiful and reasonably priced shopping I've found (ever). To make a house (or a closet in the case of my "studio apartment") a home you really can't do without IKEA.

Excitedly I opened the door, grabbed a giant yellow IKEA shopping bag from the hook, and began the adventure which I was sure would result in total shopping victory. Compared to the markets and "shopping malls" of Korea which are always packed so closely with people, and even more closely with piles and piles and piles of t-shirts and cubic zirconia encrusted jewelry, IKEA was the wide open prairie, a warehouse of wonder where I could maneuver freely, setting my path from kitchen accessories to tea light candles and back again without ever having to change my route.

Unfortunately there was a reason for this abundance of space. Lack of product. I had found the last stop on the IKEA train, the home decor wasteland where "Living rooms made for living" came to die. Where there should have been racks of rugs and piles of posters were a few left over Christmas decorations, a pasta strainer, and some severely over priced purple velour curtains covered in white fuzz and dust. Ok, so maybe I'm exaggerating just a little, but after setting my sights on home decor heaven, I felt robbed.

I did manage to purchase a stack of note cards with water colors of Korean women in traditional dress on them..actually now that I think about it they were probably Japanese women..but that's neither here nor there. I was able to use my incredible crafting skills to matte them with red construction paper, put them in my $1.99 Korean bought gold frames, and hang them on my wall in an incredibly artsy fashion. So though my IKEA idea was a bust, at least my wall looks artsy.