It’s Valentine’s Day and I received gifts, social media greetings, post mails, and e-mails. One interesting electronic mail comes from IKEA. I really feel I belong to a big family receiving this monthly, mass-produced ad e-mail from this 76-year old Swedish furniture company.

There’s a big hype when IKEA was being built in my city. The famous international houseware store and the only branch in Metropolitan Tokyo can be enjoyed first by Tachikawa residents! Twice a week when I passed by this place by bicycle on my way to my private classes, I checked the building progress and even took pictures. In 2014, the 9th IKEA store in Japan was finally launched here and I was one of the happy spectators. It was so crowded then that I cannot really take my meals nor go around window-shopping.