September 01, 2005

The Art of Unpacking

If you went to our flat the last three days, you would not imagine it as a place where people stay. In fact, you would probably think you are in a warehouse. Boxes stacked on top of each other are in every nook and cranny of our place. Our shipment has arrived! FINALLY... after 10 whole months of living on a suitcase, now we are reunited with our old sofa, TV set, and all those kitchen appliances and gadgets that we have ( not that we have a lot!).

For the last three months, I was eagerly waiting for that knock on our door from the shipment company with all 40 boxes we have and now it is here. I cannot express the joy I have seeing our stuff but I was going crazy over the fact that I will have the lone task of unpacking everything. The shipment company asked us if we would need help in unpacking our stuff but husband dear refused the offer because he said it was more fun to unpack by ourselves. He just forgot to mention one thing. Most of the time he was busy at work and I was left on my own doing all the unpacking. Boy was I so anxious to get to the last box and just finish the whole thing so I can go to our pc and do my blogging ( hihihi) but unpacking proved to be an art that needs to me mastered.

First, you need to gather your essential tool which is your handy cutter or a paring knife( the little one you use to peel a fruit). This will be used to cut through the tape on top of the box. You need to do a fast and straight cut just betweent the tape so it directly opens the first two flaps of then box. After this you just need to do a swift motion to cut the tape that holds the reamining two flaps and voila! your box is open.

Next thing to do is to take out the gazillions of paper stuffed inside ( which basically served as a cushion to the things inside the box). I felt bad for all the trees cut just seeing the amount of paper they were able to stuff inside. I could fill a small room just with the paper alone.

At last, I saw my precious shoes. The ones I bought in Manila ( thank God for Janylin!) and our precious dibidi which is basically a mix of originals and Greenhills buys. Then I just couldn't stop opening one box after the other. I felt like a machine doing this but after opening quite a number of boxes, I decided to stop and slack a bit. Then the sentimental in me kicked in and I felt nostalgic looking at at all the two-hole electric sockets we have over here in Istanbul and the mostly three pinned sockets of our appliances. Weird as it may sound but it made me realized that my sockets need to be adjusted ones again to what is acceptable in the place I am living in.

I am still not finish with unpacking. I left two boxes unopened.One with the microwave inside and the other with a case full of chinese flatware.I feel I have no need to open the now. I have no plans of holding a lauriat party in our flat anytime soon and we have a microwave oven here compatible with the socket of this country. So... as the need will arise, that will be the time I will open those two boxes or when I want to practice the art of unpacking! hehehehe

Posted by duke at 9/01/2005 02:05:00 PM

23 Comments:

Anonymous said...: Finally! I can imagine how excited you must be. I so enjoy decorating. (hehe, although it is my line of work).

Busy busy bee! ;); 9/01/2005 03:47:00 PM
Punzi said...: Moving homes is such a trauma. I will blog about all my house moves some other time...(especially the last, most dramatic one...)

That is magnified in your case since you moved to another country...

But with your unpacking "finished" I do hope you get a feeling of being settled down... you're finally home now, it seems...

Please pray for our country...

regards to both of you; 9/01/2005 05:04:00 PM
duke said...: yes! the right word... FINALLY! i'm enjoying every moment!; 9/01/2005 05:04:00 PM
RAV Jr said...: wow! reunited, you finally you are home...at home with your things, and you can do what you used to do...

Goodluck on your tasks arranging your sets, etc...; 9/01/2005 05:17:00 PM
Anonymous said...: Yehey! Now you get to the best part of it all -- the decorating!

I envy you. Even with the boxes, your house looks neat. ;); 9/01/2005 05:50:00 PM
Teacher Sol said...: Ang daming boxes, grabe! Mga ilang araw kaya bago mo maayos yan? Kaya naman hate ko maglipat ng lugar, hate ko rin mag-ayos ng bahay. HAY!

MY REPLY TO YOUR COMMENT IN MY BLOG (I know were both busy may take a little while for us to visit our blogs again :D)

DUKE, yes, we know he has "it" to be on top, we need to voice our opinion and vote for him to show our Pinoy support. Please help us disseminate this info so more Filipinos (those who don't know yet) could cast their votes for him too...; 9/01/2005 07:07:00 PM
grace said...: i can not really relate to all your unpacking kasi i wasnt here when all the boxes came ... si husband ang unpack together with the staff from the shipping company. But from the looks of it mukha ngang overwhelming ang mga boxes mo ha ... but i'm sure you'd love putting things in order :) Enjoy!; 9/01/2005 08:33:00 PM
duke said...: dops - thank you! weird ng feeling to be reunited with our stuff again ( naks! drama!)

marni - hahaha I am actually looking forward to decorating but only finished the living room at the moment.

teacher sol - we have a total of 40 boxes and I'm down toopen the last two! obvious ba na sobrang excited? :)

ahhh I wish I could watch that INXS reality show as well! everyone's raving about it!

grace-ahhh I also did not undergo the unpacking when we moved to HK so this is my first time. I tell you.. nakakaloka but it is fun. It's like opening presents the only catch is you know what's inside :); 9/02/2005 12:21:00 AM
JO said...: hi duke,

did i understand it right? you unpacked 38 boxes in 1 day? ang galing mo naman... it may take me days to unpack that much boxes.; 9/02/2005 05:35:00 AM
Anonymous said...: Dukezki - ive seen this kind of boxes at Isay's mansion during their move. She's a very organized person and it has to go with the lists & which box goes first. You two must have a lot in common esp with the china wares. Yung mga halaman na lang ata ni Isay ang hindi na packed.

And how about the feng shui lists? Hahaha you shld start remembering things in order to fix them in shelves on time.

Besides that the gastos & pagod. Are those stuff lahat galing HONG K? Dami nyong abubotski.How many boxes of shoes?

If only I could help.; 9/02/2005 07:19:00 AM
silentmode_v2 said...: waw 40 boxes! how come these boxes took so long? moving is very difficult task especially reorganizing and readjusting stuffs (just like the three-holed plugs).

i'll be blogging my art of packing naman soon... hehehe.; 9/02/2005 09:47:00 AM
duke said...: isay - aba naman! I;ve been living teh past ten months with 3 pairs of shoes.1 formal, 1 rubber shoes, and 1 for going out during the days..I couldn't bare it any more! :) saya saya ko when I saw my shoes again!

ahh I can see you have become an expert at this.. I am only a young padouin compared to you pero I get OC with stuff so I unpacked the kitchen stuff first also then living room but I couldn't opening some kikay boxes along the way! ehehehe

come and bring your spring rolls and reds anytime! :); 9/02/2005 11:36:00 AM
duke said...: jo - yes I unpacked 38 boxes in one day!I was dying just seeing all of them scattered around.. may pagka Monk pa naman ako when it comes to order!; 9/02/2005 11:39:00 AM
duke said...: knoizki- we have so many small unimportant things (c/o yours truly of course). Shoes alone I have 2 boxes plus we got tons of kitchen appliances as wedding gifts and they were cute little things I couldn't help but bring along( example.. popcorn maker, cheese slicer et al).

ahh my feng shui list I have forgotten! I was so in a hurry to make things look in order kasi. Now that you have reminded me, I will check again and see how I put things!

I still need practice in unpacking.. I should learn from Isay!; 9/02/2005 11:47:00 AM
duke said...: jeff- yeah 40 boxes! We had them stored kasi in HK first since we went to visit otehr countries pa before we settled here. Kaya ayun.. ang tagal dumating!

uy! exciting yan! just make sure you will not be over baggaged with pasalubongs! :); 9/02/2005 11:53:00 AM
Analyse said...: naks, sa wakas!

i can imagine how excited you were...when we moved, i had all the boxes opened and arranged in a day, ganun ako ka excited. i wanted to put order na kagad sa bahay...you know, before the boxes arrived, been arranging every stuffs in my mind na, so when they came, ayun, it was almost automatic..

masakit lang sa likod after the works hehe..; 9/02/2005 12:49:00 PM
Anonymous said...: ah congratulations dear duke! i agree that a home isn't a home without the knick knacks and your OWN stuff. at least unpacking and rearranging will be something to occupy your time... plus arranging your stuff in a new flat is always exciting! good luck!
-kala; 9/02/2005 03:30:00 PM
duke said...: ana- YES! sa WAKAS! yun din ang sinabi ko! and tru eenough now my back hurts for being tring to do everything so fast! ( I just can't help myself!)

kala- Our flat for a couple of months just looks like a generic hotel room but now at least we know it is OUR stuff and it feels liek home :); 9/02/2005 06:20:00 PM
Abaniko said...: Duke, enjoy ka sa apg-aarrange ng mga gamit. Kaya mo yan.; 9/02/2005 07:47:00 PM
duke said...: abaniko - salamat sa support :); 9/02/2005 11:43:00 PM
Owen said...: hi, that was extraordinary. 38 out of 40boxes in three days? now you can take your own sweet time with the last two.

nice blog btw. just blog hoppin!; 9/03/2005 08:18:00 AM
dreaming-neko said...: boy you sure have alot of sante fe stuff there in those boxes! :); 9/04/2005 01:46:00 AM
duke said...: ahahahha neko- sante fe is teh name of the movers! lol; 9/04/2005 11:40:00 AM

Confessions of an Expat's Wife

September 01, 2005

The Art of Unpacking

23 Comments:

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