last month I was looking for a sofa to replace the one that I had in my apartment when I arrived. The old sofa has ‘served its purpose’ for the last two people that lived there… but now it was old, torn, and probably very very dirty. To replace it I had to think if I wanted ‘new’ or ‘used.’ I searched around Mutsu’s various used and new furniture stores looking for something, but didn’t find anything that really ‘caught my eye.’ At one store (Minato) I was even monitored and hassled by some old lady to buy some $500 or $600 sofa. That… was creepy because it reminded me of one of my first jobs out of high school working for a furniture store. She was just like one of the sales reps that I sorta despised.

A friend and other JET living in Mutsu suggested a store in Aomori City called “Nitori.” I decided the next weekend to visit Nitori to check it out. While the drive there was long, I felt it was worth it. Nitori market’s themselves as a “Home Fashion” supply store… A catchy name to describe a store that resembles a Japanese IKEA. Nitori is not as big as Ikea, but with four floors of ‘ikea-like’ furniture and appliances I could have been fooled. The second floor was where all the sofas were. There was a decent selection of both leather and fabric sofas for sale ranging from from about $150 to upwards of $700 or more. My range I decided was between $200-$400. For that, I thought I could get a decent comfortable sofa. It was a tough decision… There were so many things to think about… styles, colors, etc… I finally picked two sofas that were similar but one was $100 more then the other. One was more ‘cushiony’ then the other, but I finally decided that over time if I bought the cheaper one it was ‘wear in.’

I took the ticket and presented it to the store clerk where I was asked if I wanted a point card (of course..) then a receipt to take to the cashier. While there I also bought a coat rack and a lamp.

A few weeks later my sofa was delivered to my apartment. The delivery cost was only 3000 yen (cheap) and they even place it in your apartment where ever you want it. Here’s some pics of it in my place.

side view

It’s very comfy and pretty good to sleep on when I get home from work and want to crash… The total cost was around $300 or so which I paid by my Japanese visa (which I blogged about earlier).

Good times… Glad I did it.

~J out

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