Tonight Mario and I are going to check out our favorite home furnishing store.
[Life in Japan Theme Song]
It’s time for a trip to our favorite Japanese home furnishing store, Nitori
to see what makes these stores different from their Western counterparts.
Your hands...
Did you get them nice and clean? Nice and sanitized, Dude?
Clean and sanitized, alright!
When you first walk in, this whole section over here is just bedding and sheets and futons,
And everything to stay nice and cosy in the winter.
One very interesting thing here [in Japan] is that you buy everything seasonally,
I did not know that until I came to Japan.
So you have like spring and summer sheets,
And you have winter sheets.
And you can buy them at different levels of warmth.
Warm, Super Warm, Moist— I'm not quite sure why you would want moist, but...
It doesn't sound too cool. That doesn't sound very appealing, does it?
But warm and super warm are so cool.
And here the bedding sizes are so different!
They have the single, the semi-double, the double, the wide double and the queen.
So trying to figure out my American sheets to the Japanese futon and bedding sizes was a little crazy at first
But I've got it down now.
I just found my first purchase! I was not going to buy anything here, but...
I can hardly walk through this store without buying.
And this is so soft. It's kind of like a mattress cover.
There — and you can see it here over the futon.
And it just adds "Super Warm." Yes, that's it then.
We are buying the Super Warm for Joshua. Joshua's going to love it.
So another very interesting thing is sitting on the ground.
Everyone sits on the ground, so now they have sofas that are on the ground that make it a little more comfortable.
I'm going to try this one!
But they have heated rugs, they have these heated tables that I so want to buy,
Oh, look at you.
It can move. Yea it can.
What about this one? Oh, is that comfortable?
Yea, so are these...
If you look closely, and number of these plants are plants that we have in our house.
All of my curtains are from here.
They have such a great variety.
A lot of our windows are very very tall so we have to order them
They come in in about 2 weeks. It's great.
Joshua, let's go!
No touching. No touching, Big J!
Oh, all the dishes. So beautiful.
Oh! Fondue!
Oooo! Do you Fondue?
I fondue.
It's all made for small spaces.
So these things like this,
It goes inside your cabinet so your cabinet can still close,
But then it hangs underneath.
And you can hang things from it.
There's a lot of, like this...
It's magnetic, so it sticks to the side of your fridge.
This section is Nate's favorite section... It sure is.
Lights!
So we always come down to the light section.
And we have this light and that light
A lot of the lights from here we have.
Some clocks!
Oh, I need a set of these.
Then most of the times when we come, we're always organizing.
And that section is all about organization.
And we can go a little crazy in it sometimes.
Let's go get crazy.
And one great thing... Mario keeps popping out over there.
Is that everything interlocks.
So you can get any color, any size but they all fit into certain configurations, which is wonderful.
And you can buy them with lids or without lids,
Which is also really cool.
And then they have all the really cool wicker baskets.
But if you have seen our house, we have tons of these.
Tons of those!
And we have tons of these shelving units.
Did we get our Joshua here too?
Joshua, he was a special purchase.
He was a special purchase, that's right.
And who doesn't go a little crazy over baskets?!
I don't need it, but I want it!
So I try to come up with ideas of what I could use it for.
It's so hard. I love you, baskets. They're just so glorious!
Oh and see, here's some more.
I have this actually in my bathroom under the sink.
So I can put it in like this...
It just works great anywhere.
Oh, and we have this.
Yea, we sure do.
And one thing about Nitori is putting together their furniture is 20 times easier than IKEA.
So if you have the option of buying at Nitori versus IKEA, buy it at Nitori.
Sorry IKEA.
I have more than I can count of these types of shelves in our house.
Because we organize in one all the pencils and colored pencils,
And in another all of the crayons and markers,
And in another stickers, and da da da.
I have three girls who all love to craft
And a little boy who thinks he does too, so we have a lot of art supplies.
Oh Dude look! Look at that chair!
Oh Dude, look at this desk man!
That is awesome.
I'm going to drink some...
Oh it comes with some coffee, huh? That's nice.
They have some fun ways of envisioning your house here.
Adjustable table height so you can get it nice and low.
With low sofas, compact, meant for Japanese houses. Very cool.
What did you figure out here with this Dude?
Oh, you lift it up. You can put stuff in there if you need to, or use it like a table.
And then it comes back down nice and slow, huh?
Very nice, yea, it's going.
It's a full-size heated table. We could fit six chairs around this easy.
So these heated things. It's a heater underneath this.
You sit...
And you go underneath it,
And it's just ... game's over!
I mean, you could work all you want and stay nice and toasty.
And find out you have fallen asleep.
It's even got like a little pocket or a remote control or something.
What did we find over here Dude?
Did you find a little cubby hole for you? Yep.
It has a thing right here to put stuff.
Oh yeah. There's a thing there to put stuff?
You can only put stuffed animals on these.
Oh, ok.
This, look how much this yen.
Yeah, look how much that is, huh.
This one is hardly not worth it.
It's probably not worth it? Yeah.
But this one is ....
It's so softy! Yeah?
Oh my goodness, you are funny Dude.
This one is soft.
And all three of our girls, we have bought their randoserus here.
They range in price... And quality.
And quality.
This is usually seasonal and I guess it is because it's showing warm things but,
At Christmas time, it is full of Christmas decorations
At Halloween, full of Halloween (decorations)
At Easter, Easter (decorations)
But right now it is just blankets.
I found you!
Ohhh... Ohhh, aprons.
Aprons and utensils.
And all kinds of goodies. Look out!
Those are so great.
These tiny little pans.
These you can adjust the width of them so that they fit inside your walls
They go from 73-112 cm.
Then you can stack things on them then hang
Hang things on the side.
Mom, can I push it all by myself
They have all different sizes.
Sure you can push it all by yourself.
All the laundry baskets. I don't need any help.
Oh, I have this.
Yep, that is in our bedroom.
One thing that has been super useful are these things.
They go over your washing machine
So you put all your laundry detergent here
Your washing machine is right here,
And then when you are going to hang up your clothes,
Because in Japan they don't have dryers, you just hang them up outside,
You put your clothes line, clothes thinging here
And you can just pull it from the washing machine and hang everything up
And then carry your laundry outside.
So, I actually need to buy a new one because
I'm running low on mine.
I mean I wash clothes until the cows come home.
So, look at this its 52 pieces.
Interesting. I think I should buy a 40 though.
The classic 40.
I mean, the options are endless. Look at this.
And it all closes, so it's all compact.
Or you can hang them up individually if you only have one.
Nitori trips are rarely faster than 15 minutes.
Rarely
But it's so fun to look.
Got our purchases purchased.
Yes, unfortunately I wasn't going to buy anything, so I didn't bring any bags.
I had to buy them. Had to buy them. That's alright though.
Alright. That does it for tonight.
Going down!
Yes, we're cold! So cold, huh Joshua? Yea, so cold.
You like the smell of our car?
It smells nice, huh? Alright, should we go home?
Um, this is to put on Joshua's bed. Let's go make Joshua's bed with mommy?
OK, well I just made his Mario bed. Sweet!
I've got to unmake it.
Just unmake the bed, to make the bed.
Oh, we should have gotten something warm for Sarah too.
Yes!
Boy, it almost makes me want to sleep on it too.
Oh, I like how the sides go down around the mattress.
Sleeping just on that would have been glorious.
Are these your new pajamas?! Yea!
So nice!
Did you have any homework?
I already did mine. Good job.
Good job!
You're a good "studer"
A good "studer?"
A... a good "student."
Alright, looks great! Big J's got a warmer bed now.
It's still 7:04.
7:04? What did you guys do today?
Let's do some popcorn! Ah! Popcorn?!
Alright, popcorn time! Wait!
We didn't tell you what we did!
I gave Becca and Anna a message...
And then we watched something.
And then we played on the Switch... "Sound of Music"
Look at this — this is the best feature about this.
If it's too bright, you can turn that off so it's not a bright light there.
It projects on the ceiling.
So the kids can just lay in bed and know what time it is.
Hey Dude, is it almost time for our Mario game?!
No, can you please start the popcorn for me?
Yea! Somebody?
We have some announcers for us, huh?
Here we go!
Watch out! No no no no no no!
12th (place)
Aw, poor Momma-chan.
But she's having a good attitude!
Ohh! The popcorn's ready!
Beccster's doing her awesome popcorn job!
My famous popcorn!
Your famous popcorn!
Everybody's going to come from around the world to eat my popcorn!!
Whew! Yes!
OK guys, time for our next race!
Is the popcorn so yummy guys? Yea, it's so yummy.
It looks yummy. I want to get some.
Oh yes.
I'm sitting in your chair! My chair?! Hey!
I love you so much! OK, have a good night baby girl.
One kiss.
A kiss? OK.
Awww. And I want to give a kiss to the camera.
Aw, that's so nice.
Night night. Night night.
Joshua, we go the new thing for your bed — it's under the sheets.
It should feel even softer and even more warm.
Where?
You can't see it, it's under the sheet.
You can't see it! It's under the sheet, Dude!
It's already there.
The big sister can get you Apple juice.
Night night!
Night night. Can somebody get me apple juice?
Get me apple juice! OK, we'll get some for you.
I can get it. Can you run it upstairs?
I can open it!
Oh!!!
When people sometimes ask if we ever get upset at the kids, well tonight...
We just got the brand new bed skirt down, brand new sheets down,
And what does Joshua do but spill his whole drink on top of it.
Had to take off all the sheets, going to have to wash them all and put the other sheets on there.
Can any other parents relate? Oh my!
My new thing. It's beautiful!
So all of Joshua's sheets are going on this? Yea.
Oh my goodness!
We bought it just in time!
Japanese and Western home furnishings are very different.
In Japan, furnishings are compact and practical. In America, they’re large and inexpensive.
While we do enjoy American stores, we’ve also come to love Japanese home stores like Nitori
that offer many stylish and compact offerings that help facilitate life here in Japan.
Add it to my collection. No joke, huh?!
Well, when you have four kids, you have a lot of laundry and some of them spill sometimes...
Whew, it's chilly! Chilly, chilly!
Did we miss any of your favorite items?
Comment below, and as always, thanks for watching, liking and subscribing.
We’ll see you next time on Life in Japan.