Packing stresses
We got up this morning at 7am - after having gone to bed at way past 3am. The reason? I have no idea why, but I was convinced the removalists were coming on Wednesday. It wasn't until 1.30am that the Canadian said: "Hmm, are you sure they're not coming on Tuesday?" My heart sank when I realised he was right so we ran around like headless chickens in the wee small hours of the morning.
Don't get me wrong, we had actually done a lot of preparation already, but there was still a good day's tidying/organising to do as we had assumed we had another day left. It probably made us more efficient than we might otherwise have been, but it really wasn't a good feeling. The crazy thing is that unlike Australia or Hong Kong where I was able to get everything packed up and I could fly out on the next day or even the same day, here we have to set aside Tuesday and Wednesday for packing. We'll have to liaise with building management and the landlord today (we weren't allowed to do it in advance!?!) for permission to remove furniture from the apartment and the building. Then the removalists will take my passport and work permit and go to Chinese customs. This will take a couple of days or so. I am praying we can get the documents back in advance of Saturday because our flight is at 1.30pm and I don't want anything to hold us up.
The bright side is that as a 'returning citizen', our belongings won't be taxed under Australian customs. I just pray the Chinese don't decide to impose some stupid arbitrary tax on us. The customs duty they charged when the Canadian's furniture came over was absolutely insane.
We're just lucky that the apartment is partially furnished. This means that even though we're here in Beijing for Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday morning - we're not going to have to move to a hotel because we're in a totally empty apartment. There will still be some basic furniture, the fridge will be here etc. It's just meant that we won't be able to cook anything and since I want internet until we leave, we'll be carrying the wireless router back in luggage.
Also, although there's a bed, we need sheets so we had to decide which set of sheets we were going to discard i.e. not pack so that we can use them for the rest of the week.
Crappy sheets that we decided we didn't want:
Landlord's TV and stand marked with a post-it so that the removalists know that they're not supposed to pack it:
We went a bit nuts before we left and bought Converse sneakers because they're so expensive in Australia and so cheap here:
I particularly like the Pretty Converse sneakers:
The hall is a mess of boxes as we tried to stack boxes and bags in the corridor to make life easier for the removalists:
Spare room has boxes stacked there:
Kitchen:
Lounge - our stuffed toys are preparing themselves for their long, long journey ...
It's going to be interesting to see how we entertain ourselves for the next few days in an apartment that's largely devoid of all of our stuff. I just hope the trying formalities associated with anything foreign in China aren't toooooo painful. I've already told the Canadian that I predict that I'm going to lose my temper at some point in relation to some stupid act of bureaucracy that drives me buggy :D
Don't get me wrong, we had actually done a lot of preparation already, but there was still a good day's tidying/organising to do as we had assumed we had another day left. It probably made us more efficient than we might otherwise have been, but it really wasn't a good feeling. The crazy thing is that unlike Australia or Hong Kong where I was able to get everything packed up and I could fly out on the next day or even the same day, here we have to set aside Tuesday and Wednesday for packing. We'll have to liaise with building management and the landlord today (we weren't allowed to do it in advance!?!) for permission to remove furniture from the apartment and the building. Then the removalists will take my passport and work permit and go to Chinese customs. This will take a couple of days or so. I am praying we can get the documents back in advance of Saturday because our flight is at 1.30pm and I don't want anything to hold us up.
The bright side is that as a 'returning citizen', our belongings won't be taxed under Australian customs. I just pray the Chinese don't decide to impose some stupid arbitrary tax on us. The customs duty they charged when the Canadian's furniture came over was absolutely insane.
We're just lucky that the apartment is partially furnished. This means that even though we're here in Beijing for Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday morning - we're not going to have to move to a hotel because we're in a totally empty apartment. There will still be some basic furniture, the fridge will be here etc. It's just meant that we won't be able to cook anything and since I want internet until we leave, we'll be carrying the wireless router back in luggage.
Also, although there's a bed, we need sheets so we had to decide which set of sheets we were going to discard i.e. not pack so that we can use them for the rest of the week.
Crappy sheets that we decided we didn't want:
Landlord's TV and stand marked with a post-it so that the removalists know that they're not supposed to pack it:
We went a bit nuts before we left and bought Converse sneakers because they're so expensive in Australia and so cheap here:
I particularly like the Pretty Converse sneakers:
The hall is a mess of boxes as we tried to stack boxes and bags in the corridor to make life easier for the removalists:
Spare room has boxes stacked there:
Kitchen:
Lounge - our stuffed toys are preparing themselves for their long, long journey ...
It's going to be interesting to see how we entertain ourselves for the next few days in an apartment that's largely devoid of all of our stuff. I just hope the trying formalities associated with anything foreign in China aren't toooooo painful. I've already told the Canadian that I predict that I'm going to lose my temper at some point in relation to some stupid act of bureaucracy that drives me buggy :D