This will be the last of my two-cents' worth on packing for moving. In the past week, we've been taking our own sweet time - no pressure in all honesty - collecting the stuff we've accumulated post-Singapore for packing. It's all over the FIL's house: some in our bedroom cupboard, or under the bed, others in JL's own bedroom (which had recently been taken over by the 7-year-old nephew whenever), and mostly in the UPS boxes from our time in Cambridge at the garage.
Tomorrow the movers will come to pick up these ones, and the whole lot of the rest at the other garage (read: what used to constitute our "home" in Singapore). Apparently, the container will only be on the waters for 25 days. Add 10 working days or so to both ends of the customs, it should arrive in KL within 6-8 weeks. Fingers crossed that no fire incident onboard the ship this time!
Tomorrow the movers will come to pick up these ones, and the whole lot of the rest at the other garage (read: what used to constitute our "home" in Singapore). Apparently, the container will only be on the waters for 25 days. Add 10 working days or so to both ends of the customs, it should arrive in KL within 6-8 weeks. Fingers crossed that no fire incident onboard the ship this time!
When you move your entire home, it could easily mean 300 boxes of your wonderful collection of trash or treasure. (Hey, one man's meat is another man's poison, remember?) But how are you gonna make sure you know which ones are of immediate use or contain valuable/fragile items when all the boxes look the same externally? Surely you're not gonna spell out "collectors' Coke bottles" or "Neverfull, Birkin, Bamboo" on the box for the world to see?
Use your own codes. I remember in one of our moves, all the boxes marked for the "attic" contained our favourite items and critical documents. Not critical enough for us to bring along everywhere, but enough not to ever lose them. The trick is to keep things on low profile, so that it does not arouse any added interest nor suspicion on the customs' part, or any pair of itchy hands that come in between. But no, we don't actually have an attic, but who cares, right?
And when it comes to finally unpacking all these boxes in your new home, how are you supposed to know which box contains what? Where is the kettle? Where is the baby's daily set of toys to maintain the peace? Or in my case - very, very important - where's the SoundDock? That's easily the first box I look for, not because I am spoilt. But because I work more happily - in the mess of 300 random, sealed up boxes - when my favourite playlist fills up the room.
List your contents. No, no, I mean, do this on the inside flap of the box. For your own reference only. This is so that once you've laid out all the boxes in the room, run your cutter along the tapes, just by looking at the flap you'll know what is where. And you can then decide if you must empty them now, or they can wait till later in the week. By doing this, you'll only know if you should handle whatever you take out with care, or just rip them apart and not care if something falls off.
It also helps if you explain all these several times to everyone in the family, or whoever's kind (what's he thinking?!) enough to assist in (un)packing. Working as a team requires everyone to understand how things are done so that no one needs to raise a question every five minutes.
So that's it now for packing. We'll be making a trip to LeClerc to stock up on croissants, pain au chocolat, mineral water for the movers who'll arrive tomorrow morning. Homemade coffee will have to wait till then. That's how things are done here. In Singapore and Malaysia, it'd mean ice-cold cans of Coke, 100Plus, green tea (backup for those who don't take carbonated drinks) in the fridge. And some karipap and kueh keria for tea break.
Use your own codes. I remember in one of our moves, all the boxes marked for the "attic" contained our favourite items and critical documents. Not critical enough for us to bring along everywhere, but enough not to ever lose them. The trick is to keep things on low profile, so that it does not arouse any added interest nor suspicion on the customs' part, or any pair of itchy hands that come in between. But no, we don't actually have an attic, but who cares, right?
And when it comes to finally unpacking all these boxes in your new home, how are you supposed to know which box contains what? Where is the kettle? Where is the baby's daily set of toys to maintain the peace? Or in my case - very, very important - where's the SoundDock? That's easily the first box I look for, not because I am spoilt. But because I work more happily - in the mess of 300 random, sealed up boxes - when my favourite playlist fills up the room.
List your contents. No, no, I mean, do this on the inside flap of the box. For your own reference only. This is so that once you've laid out all the boxes in the room, run your cutter along the tapes, just by looking at the flap you'll know what is where. And you can then decide if you must empty them now, or they can wait till later in the week. By doing this, you'll only know if you should handle whatever you take out with care, or just rip them apart and not care if something falls off.
It also helps if you explain all these several times to everyone in the family, or whoever's kind (what's he thinking?!) enough to assist in (un)packing. Working as a team requires everyone to understand how things are done so that no one needs to raise a question every five minutes.
So that's it now for packing. We'll be making a trip to LeClerc to stock up on croissants, pain au chocolat, mineral water for the movers who'll arrive tomorrow morning. Homemade coffee will have to wait till then. That's how things are done here. In Singapore and Malaysia, it'd mean ice-cold cans of Coke, 100Plus, green tea (backup for those who don't take carbonated drinks) in the fridge. And some karipap and kueh keria for tea break.
