I finally completed my move to a new apartment at the beginning of the month. Since I relocated within the same neighborhood, there was no drastic change of scenery, except that I'm now a whole lot closer to my workplace. The biggest change this move brought me was the need for new set of furniture, pots, pans and other household items. I've lived in a furnished apartment ever since I moved to Tokyo several years ago, and I realized that I really didn't own anything over here besides a couple of suitcases and duffel bags full of personal belongings. Luckily, a friend who used to live in this new place left her sofa bed, fridge, and TV, so that was a start. I went window shopping at neighborhood stores to purchase the rest of the stuff I needed.

I'm not sure if you know MUJI, a Japanese brand that was all the craze in New York City a while back. I remember watching the news few years ago showing a long, long line of impatient New Yorkers lining up in front of a MUJI store, waiting for it to open. This brand started out as a division of Seiyu Department Store (now owned by Walmart, I think), offering a line of quality merchandise intended to be "brandless" by stripping off excessive packaging and gaudy logos. Now the MUJI brand is a brand by itself, and their products still come in deceivingly simple designs and earthy colors that give consumers the false impression that they're affordable. Although I never thought their products were high-quality, at least the prices used to be decent.

There's a MUJI store almost across my apartment, and although I was not thrilled with their overly simplistic designs and colors, I ended up buying most of my bathroom accessories there for convenience's sake. Boy, my friends hated it. One of my friends was thinking about coordinating his household items with MUJI product, but he said he changed his mind after seeing my place. Yes, it was that bad. The MUJI brand is now spreading globally. A brand that started out as anti-brand is now just as fancy as any other high-end brand out there, but their stuff ended up making my bathroom look like one from a cheap business hotel. Go figure.