Is it Swedish?

Is it Swedish? That is my question of the Ikea products I bought today. More on this in a bit.

I was off to Ikea today to pick up some curtains for my apartment's living room windows. I happened to notice in the Toronto Star on Thursday that Ikea had a whole whack of things on sale for the living room. Feeling my living room was a little sparse and a Saturday morning free I headed to Ikea in Vaughan.

Being the environmental concious guy I am, I hopped on VIVA in Aurora and headed south to Richmond Hill Centre where I changed from riding VIVA Blue route to the VIVA Purple Route. I had to wait 15 minutes to make the transfer ("this is supposed to be convient?" I thought to myself). Then I changed from VIVA Purple over to VIVA orange (another 15 minute wait...same question as before...). At last I got to Ikea Vaughan to do some shopping.

I immediatly skipped the Ikea furniture showroom and headed to the marketplace. I was looking for some pillows and blanket for my futon. I also picked up the white curtains that were onsale. I didn't have any problems until I relized:

1. Pillows need pillow covers. Who knew pillows needed covers to go over them. Wouldn't pillows come with existing covers when you buy them? Wouldn't new pillow covers be for older pillows that simply need a recovering because the pillow doesn't look so hot? Apparently not. Even new pillows need covers.

2. Who designed the layout of Ikea? You cannot go from the restaurant (second floor) down to the exit after purchasing your items without going through the entire store again. I wanted to get my shopping done first and then eat. That is not a good idea....or so I learned.

An interesting thing I came across while I was opening the packaging of Ikea and noticed most of Ikea's products are made in the People's Republic of China (which makes the Ikea store opening in Taiwan even more interesting...just think of the shipping!). Also, if all the products are being made in China, doesn't that make this a Chinese company or is Ikea a Swedish company because all of their designs come from Sweden? I'm so confused! Which is it?