it's fun being a giraffe, don't u think :)
giraffes
Help me find Olaf the Giraffe!!!
21 year ago
Hello there! It’s me, Ikea!
first of all, i have to tell u a big secret – i am not the only giraffe! well, of course there are lots of giraffes, like in africa or in zoos, but that’s not what i mean. there are, in fact many giraffes, like me – exactly. apparently the don’t exactly travel or blog or take fotografs, but what i mean is that they look like me. more or less. u could say we look alike. a little smaller than regular giraffes too, i’m afraid. we have, in fact the same name too, “the Giraffe”. i guess you could say it is a surname perhaps.
so, now that you know that, let me tell you another thing. the Giraffes (the one’s like me) family is originally from Netherlands. they lived in fact with an artist called Leendert Jan Vis. he is pretty good at drawing, so many cute animals hang around in his place. for example the Bono bears and sheep Jaap. so naturally, there were some giraffes too.
however, here’s another mystery – not all Giraffes have the same name everywhere they go. for example only few of them are called Ikea. i’d have to say, only the Giraffes in Scandinavia are called Ikea in fact. in most other European countries, they are called – guess what? – Olaf! especially in Netherlands, Germany and UK. so, when i go to Germany, i can check into a hotel and say my name is Olaf the Giraffe and everything works out just fine.
hooh, this is probably the longest introduction i have written so far? well, i guess i have to write more this time because i only have one picture for u, hehe..
so, here’s the thing. me and my friend Sipsik (who is a great big fan of giraffes and Giraffes) have been thinking that we could in fact house more giraffes in Kadriorg. although we already have many friends living with me, there is always room for more giraffes, don’t you think? but here’s a little problem – i have no contacts to other Giraffes, like me, the Olafs. but also, when i have been travelling, i have not met the Olafs recently at all! so i tried searching on the Internet and found a few places they have been on sale, but not recently. so, a big problem, really.
that said, with all of you reading this blog, i hope we can find some Olafs, or maybe even Ikeas? so, let me post a little poster that i have made here:
and then, the last place that i know Olaf has been spotted was on CuddlyKingdom. if you see Olaf – please contact me immediately. or even better, get hold of them right away. i’m sure my friend Sipsik will compensate for you (i think) if it takes some money to bail ‘em out. i think we can easily fit 3, maybe even 5-6 Olaf the Giraffe’s here.
what else could i say. hmm.. Olaf is not from plastic, u know. he is soft and cute, like me. he can be smaller than me, but he has big eyes and orange spots. he has been seen in bookstores and gift shops in many countries like Sweden or Germany to France and UK. he has been featuring on a bunch of really nice postcards, so he should be fairly well-known. so, if u read this PLEASE share and HELP us to FIND OLAF the Giraffe! please leave a comment or u can also write me directly – ikea[at]ikeathegiraffe.com if u find him or have any clues.
other than that, have fun and cu l8r!
.. where Ikea goes to Montmartre
12 years ago
Hello there! It’s me, Ikea!
as i promised, here’s my first day in Paris. well, it’s not like the whole day, but more like a morning when i climbed up the hill to see a big white church. i’m not a big fan of churches myself, but i have a little fotograf at home taken from the same place with a giraffe on it. so, i wanted to see where this giraffe is. but then of course, i took some other pictures too.
for example, here you can see me and the church. and people. first i tried to see if i could scare everybody away. but it seems to me that giraffes are not so scary, i’m afraid. so, i guess you can see me, people and some of the church then. but if you have really good eyes, you can see even more things, hehe!
then, after many hours of tourist fotografs and little geocaching (yep!) i carefully investigated the surrondings. as you can see, there is a really mysterious bird on this fotograf. so i tried to talk this bird into searchig for giraffes with me, but no luck there.
another good thing about this place Montmartre is that is up on a hill. so, you can use these funny instruments to observe a lot of Paris. and as much as i know, you should be able to spot any running giraffe with these because 1. giraffes are tall 2. with these binoculars u can see very far. for example, i saw the Montparnasse tower by where the Pari-Roller friday night skate starts. oh, did i not tell you about it last time? wohoo, u can see me attending the FNS on this little video here. well, i did not actually skate myself, i was just riding along, so to speak :)
unfortunately, i did not spot any giraffes. so instead, i bought a little train! i like trains a lot, as u know. of course, Angel has now totally owned it and has made it in parts so that he could spell ANGEL instead of IKEA. i can secretly tell you that it won’t work!
so, that’s pretty much all a giraffe, like me, can do for one morning. we’ll exept this other thing i did (we’ll of course besides eating baguette and cherry leaves – they smelled so nice). you can see it from this fotograf below. this will be a mystery for you – how did i do this trick? let me know! have fun and cu l8er!
.. where Ikea is meeting real giraffes!!!
02 years ago
Hello there! It’s me, Ikea! (updated)
So, like i said, i finally had the chance to meet my brothers!! I have to say, they are in the zoo and not in the wild, but hey – i also flew on the plane! I have to say, i was very exited, so i almost forgot to take fotografs. so you’ll see these have been taken by other people. not to mention the fotografs not done by the place where they were given cookies. i will post some video link on that on twitter/facebook later on. so, without much more saying, here come the fotografs:
guess how many giraffes on this out-of-focus fotograf:
Hello there, it’s me, Ikea here! This waaay!!
Ok now, what is your name? 
(well, it’s either Boris, Randall or Billy i think). and the answer for the question asked earlier above is four :) now, let’s see if you get how many giraffes you find on these two:
Okou, a little scary this place. right next to actually hippos :)
That’s if for now. i have to say we did not know back then that they had three more giraffes behind-the-scenes: Bengwa, Timmy and Tango Tango (Ugandan giraffe). So if you go there, take the safari tour and say hi from me! Here’s some more fotografs of me and this skull on facebook too :) But my meetings with other animals at this zoo already in the next post!