The Incredible House-Moving Tale

Well, I've recently (read: about a month now) moved from the suburb of Mile End with it's never ending sounds of low flying planes to the quieter suburb of Kent Town on the opposite end of the city. Let me just say that it's an experience I hope I won't have to go through much in the future. Basically the previous landlord wanted his place back so we had to move. I personally cannot believe the amount of luggage we had to move. Check it out.
That's me standing there obviously. The white bundle contains my quilt and pillow. That black luggage bag beneath it is my main luggage bag. I also have another luggage bag around 2/3rd the size of the 1st one (you can't see it cuz it's obstructed by the front row of bags). Throw in another couple of bags and boxes and that's essentially all my belongings.
Those blue IKEA bags and other plastic bags on the left of the pic hold our shared items, like pots and pans etc.
Everything else is Leng Hui's. I cannot imagine how she acquired so much stuff in her 6 months over here. That brown luggage bag next to my black one holds all her books which amounts to 40kgs. That was undoubtedly the heaviest bag I've moved so far. In her defense, I do leech off a few of her books every now and then.
Anyway we had to call a couple of cabs with wagons and enlist the help of Jason and Cynthia who have a car. Just those two cabs set us back $40. Geez.


Fortunately we were able to acquire this nice little townhouse but it was completely unfurnished. This is the view from the front.

As you can see it's a semi-detached two-storey townhouse and ours is the one on the left. The wall on the left conceals our backyard which is pretty big, and at the moment pretty bare. Apparently our place also includes the plants and trees outside the front door.

The backyard which is pretty bare. Well, now there are shoots poking out of the ground in some places but otherwise still looks similar.

That's the pic of the lounge and dining room. Past the wooden sliding door is the kitchen and those stairs lead up to the bedrooms and toilet and bathroom. There is an arbitrary line dividing the lounge from the dining room and the line starts just a bit after where the base of the stairs ends. Not that it makes any difference to us but I just thought it unusual. You can also see one of our mattresses and something which I can't remember at the entrance to the kitchen.


That's a cacated pic of my room, or at least part of it with my semi-assembled bedframe. The empty space below the large windows is where I'm currently at, typing this out on my IKEA table and IKEA chair and IKEA glass and...well...we did get quite a number of things from IKEA.

Anyway I found out that if we wanted to connect the electricity, we were supposed to give the company at least 3 working days notice but due to uncontrollable circumstances we didn't have 3 days. Fortunately our agent said that it was a slow period and we should be able to get the power up and running on the day itself, since apparently all it involved was flipping a switch. Well, we weren't that lucky but we did get power the next day, so the 1st night was spent without power. It wasn't all that bad as our quilts kept us warm and thanks to Jason and Cynthia (again) who lent us a portable camping lantern so we had some light by which I assembled my bed.

For the phone, we had a toss up between Telstra, the major provider here, and another one (whose name I shall not reveal) but cost $1 less per month. We opted for the cheaper one and were told the line would be connected a couple of weeks down the road. As the day drew nearer we discovered that none of us would be free to remain at home for the guy to connect the line so Leng Hui called to ask if we could postpone it. It was only then that she was told that our area was actually serviced by Telstra so they wouldn't be doing it. So why didn't they call us to let us know? Oh, there was some lame excuse that they were having disruptions and having to have it sorted out. Bleagh.
As Leng Hui pointed out - it's as bad as Telekom back home.
Honestly we were fannoyed as we couldn't apply for internet without a phone line. The next day I immediately went to Telstra and they had the line up and running the following day. Now that's good service.


And lastly this pic has nothing whatsoever to do with us moving house. That's me at the Villagers' place. It was a unique type of TimTams as you can see.