You were watching the movie 500 Days of Summer during your angsty teen, rom-com loving phase (thanks Tumblr) and witnessed Tom and Summer play house on a casual date.
Ever since, you'd always wanted to have such a cute, wholesome experience, but there were always a couple of problems:
So when Michelle and I moved in together into a shoebox of an apartment last year, it was a practical excuse for us to venture to Ikea.
The first stop at Ikea is the cafeteria.
It's reminiscent of what a school canteen would have been like in the 80s and 90s: sterile white walls, with two lines to order food from people dressed in aprons wearing transparent plastic caps who use Ikea ladles to scoop up swedish meatballs, mashed potato, peas and gravy from bain maries.
Trust me though, you'll want to eat up because it's going to be a long afternoon. For the vegans and vegetarians, their vegie balls and mash are a good choice, as are their "exclusive" swedish berry sodas. Where else are you going to have lingonberry soda?
But this is all part of Ikea's plan through store design to get you stuck in their maze and spend money.
After scoffing down lunch, Michelle and I headed to the showrooms.
You can skip and go into the inner ring of the store where they have individual products on sale. But what's the point if you're not going to play house and be there for six hours?
We played house and pretended to be interior designers for our shoebox. A lot of the rooms were bigger than our apartment (sad for us!), and so after an hour and a half dreaming about what our home could be like, we arrived into the inner ring of Ikea's maze empty-handed.
Imagine being surrounded by 9 million different products? From bowls and plates, to toilet brushes, to fake indoor plants, and designer feature lighting, there is anything and everything home-related in this inner ring.
It is also the busiest part of the store, so be prepared to stand your ground against foot traffic who are likely to ram into you being distracted by whatever product they see, or not-so-politely speedily cut through a gap so you're not stuck behind people.
At this point we hit the two and a half hour mark, and delirium was starting to kick in for me. My feet and legs were cursing at me. Michelle was still loving it, which helped keep spirits up.
Towards the end of the maze lies a section for children's rooms.
Who knew Ikea had such soft plushies! We loved the dog, the shark and the crocodile.
By the time we reached blankets and cushions, it hit 5pm and we'd been there for over three hours.
Not to be dramatic, but I had reached exhaustion and consequently insanity.
It was time to ride home.
After a long day working hard to browse furniture, the only thing to satisfy my state of mind was a beer and vegan cheese burger from The B-EAST, a local bar responsible for me becoming the unhealthiest vegan to exist on this planet.
But to bring it all back, my final thoughts on Ikea:
© 2026 Thomas Feng
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