IKEA + Costco
Obviously, Taiwan and the US are extremely different from each other. But, we've had the opportunity to visit both IKEA and Costco here to buy some stuff for the new place. Some things just don't change:
- They serve Swedish meatballs at the IKEA cafe. I wanted some but they weren't quite ready yet (it was only 10AM).
- They have the IKEA MALM line. Yes, the dressers that were recently recalled.
- The Costco carries Kirkland cranberry juice. And they have Sentry Safes.
4. Costco pizza and hotdogs are here too.
What's different:
- No night lights to be found. Strange. We couldn't understand why...there were lots of small LED lights, but they were all battery powered. We think it's a regulatory thing.
- People go to IKEA to eat. And hang out. You see people working too. At first we thought that it was strange...but then we went back a couple of days later to buy more stuff. And we had the breakfast, and we figured out why. IT'S REALLY GOOD! And cheap too. Between Joe and I, we spent 100NT. That's about $3 bucks.
None of these people have the blue shopping bags. Or any carts near them.
3. The Costco has a lot more SKUs. As an example, in the States, I remember there just being two kinds of liquid dish soap: Kirkland and Palmolive. But here, there was a German brand and a Japanese brand, in addition to Kirkland and another American brand. And there are a lot more bagels.
Look at all those bagels and dinner rolls! That's way more than in Mountain View...
Checking out is pretty much the same as in the States. Look how happy Joe is.
Checking out at IKEA. How many laundry hampers are there?!