Does anyone remember the Valentines episode of 30 Rock, when Liz Lemon and her boyfriend go to Ikea to buy a dinning table? Brilliant stuff. If you haven't seen it, drop whatever you are doing, watch it, and come back (the rest of my blog post will be patiently waiting.) I have friend who dread the very idea of going to Ikea. "It's too crowed," or "It takes too long to find what you need," or even "I get lost every time I go there." To anyone who feels anxiety any time someone suggest they go shop at Ikea I have a a quick world of advice: Never go to Ikea on a weekend during a holiday in China. You will immediately regret it and end up walking around with a new appreciation for people suffering from claustrophobia, getting bruised up like a salmon trying to swim up stream, and in the end forsaken your quest to buy bedding for your new apartment decided that the airplane blanket you took of the plane is "good enough." (Someday I'll tell this story in full.)

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