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After moving to College Station, I thought it would be a while till I can visit a IKEA store again. I knew that there is one near Houston but heard that it was small, so I wasn't really looking foward to go there.
We needed a dresser and some shelves for our new place, and after doing some research, I found that the dressers at IKEA is much affordable and better for the price. So I told Sam maybe we can go to the Houston IKEA and pick one up when he has time. Out of my surprise, Sam said "Let's go right now!!". Well, I'm not going to let this chance go by, so we jumpped in the car and took off. The store was outside of Houston but it still took us 1.5 hour to get there.
I was really surprised to see that this store is actually fairly large. It was relocated here in 2004 so everything looks new and clean. Sam never been to one he said so it was an interesting experience for him, too. He said he wasn't a big fan of furniture shopping before, but he liked the stuff there cause everything looks interesting. We tried out all the chairs and sofa even though we are not buying it, and even had dinner there. Most people don't know that there is actually a food court in IKEA, their food is ok and the most speical dish is their Swedish meat ball.
There was a history wall by the food court, and while we were there, I actually learned that IKEA is really thinking outside the box. I think the reason that they are so successful it's because they are not afraid to expereince with different materials, and never think furniture the same way others do. They work with manufacturers that make supermarket curts to make sofas, use interior door materials to make side tables (so they are light weight and durable), and use the same plastic material that makes plastic beach buckets to make chairs. All this happened in the 70's and 80's. There were also a world map showing all the IKEA stores. We found Taiwan of course (I didn't know there were 2 stores in Taiwan), and was surprised to see that there are none in Japan or Korea. I thought it will be very popular there since space is a issue.
Anyway, after debating what we should get, we got a 5 teirre drewer and a long book shelf. We thought since we only spent $10 on our sofa (plus the $40 we spent on the slip cover...), we could spluge a little here in IKEA. Can't wait to start assembling them!
p.s.: while we were moving the heavy boxes out of the car last night after we got back, I twist my ankle!! Gee, my luck really sucks lately...... Poor Sam had to carry all the boxes all by himself!!
), Banana Republic, Ann Taylor, Polo are just some of it, they even have a huge Pottery Barn store and Neiman Marcus Clearance store (of course I still have afford anything from this store even the price are marked down...). We were there for 6 hours and we only went through one of the outlets.... 
