Today marks the first day of our adventure in Sydney. Here we are at our serviced apartment at Meriton at Kent Street after an eventful flight! The front desk staff had been so kind to allocate a Level 55 apartment facing the Darling Harbour view for us.
The view from our room...
The apartment which looks clean and spacious (:
I have been pretty nervous so far and hoping that I would be able to settle down into this city soon while Mr Taro has been in high spirits haha.
The qantas overnight flight has been an eventful experience...
With a re-time of flight to 5am with a 5 hours delay which we were only informed by the check in counter staff in the airport. While waiting, we saw several customers who did not receive any notifications as well.
My booking of additional baggage allowance of 10kg at AUD 244 was apparently rejected without informing me; and in fact I received confirmation of my purchase. My online check in and selection of seats was also not processed which is a mystery to me.
Thankfully, the flight was less than half full which helps us to repay our accumulated sleep debts from the past weeks. We declared medicine and were thankfully let through by the immigration officer without any checks on our massive luggage!
We had a funny incident at the Sydney airport where a group of friends took one of my massive luggage off the belt conveyor mistakenly. Thank goodness I saw it in time lol.
Feeling very sleepy.. to be updated again~
The past month has been crazily busy. We have known for a few months that Mr Taro will be posted overseas for 2 years and I will be the tag-along spouse.
However, we only started packing recently after the visa was approved. Despite being only 2 persons staying in a 4-room HDB, the amount of items we have accumulated for just a 2-year period is unbelievable..in a not so positive way. There were days that I wondered (dejectedly) if the packing was ever going to end and there were slight challenges of deciding what items to give away/sell vs what items to bring overseas.
I have been packing and clearing daily past 2am and still, I barely make it on 1 Sept 2014 which is the day Allied Pickfords, the designated moving services by Mr Taro's company came to pack and ship our items to Sydney.
Our experience with Allied Pickfords have been excellent so far. The designated move coordinator came by our place 2-3 weeks before the actual moving day and went through all the items that we wish to ship to Australia. She also advised on specific items that are not ideal as Australia is very strict on this. We strive to keep within the volume limitation of 8 cubic metres paid by Mr Taro's company and hopefully our actual shipment will be within this *fingers crossed.
On the actual moving day, the supervisor came by our flat at 9.30am sharp. He walked through all the items that we wanted to ship over. He came back at 10am with 2 crew workers and they started packing with super-human speed. They were done packing with 31 boxes in one hour!
There's one thing that I have observed though.. the 3 packers had their own style of packing. One worker was meticulous enough to wrap my clothes with a layer of paper while the rest plopped my clothes right into the carton boxes.
Here are some observations/ experiences so far:
- Many people advised me to bring only my clothes and personal belongings over but given that we would be back in Sg permanently after 2 years and allowance is provided by Mr Taro's company, it doesn't make sense for me to throw/sell/give away household items which are only 2 years old, plus the recollection of the nightmare of stocking up the entire house necessities for our new flat 2 years back
- Being the shopaholic, I donated 5-6 big bags of brand new clothes away and dedicated much of my time selling off items in good condition. Still, I shipped large quantities of my remaining clothes to Aust which took up much of the 31 boxes I'm sure.
- I personally find it easier to collate small items in daiso/muji containers, which makes packing and unpacking so much easier. Only for glass items such as cups, the movers will pack them individually in paper and bubble wrap sheets.
- I prefer to consolidate all my stuff in one room so that the movers won't mistakenly pack items that are not supposed to be shipped. Valuables, items to be thrown or placed in checked in luggage should be kept separately.
I am thankful that my in-laws are generous enough to house bags of our belongings in their flat for us.. We had thought of the self-storage hubs but the monthly rental is way out of our budget and adds up to ~$5k for 2 years storage in one of the smallest rental spaces.
