I hate moving. I hate moving. I hate moving. I hate moving. I hate moving.
That should tell you how I’m doing today. I have done a lot of the packing, but have a couple of important things I need to do, like cancel internet service, and call the water guy to pick up the water cooler tomorrow morning (and to pay him for the weeks during which I didn’t order water), and of course there’s always just a couple of more boxes to get done. But this time, it really is something like just six or seven more boxes and a few backpacks to fill, computer hardware aside, some trash to toss, recyclables to haul downstairs, and the fridge to empty. I’m definitely in the home stretch, whatever that means, but it’s more than a day’s work for someone who really needs a few short hours of nothing as a break for the mind. I’ve been at this for twelve hours now, with little interruption.
Yes, yes, the positive. The worst is over. I’m well on my way to finishing my packing. But I still hate moving. I hate moving. I hate moving. I hate moving. I hate moving.
I believe that moving house is actually very high up on the list of things that cause stress. Not surprising really when you consider what a home represents in terms of security and all the rest of it. I think that’s why when you have enough cash, it’s great to pay someone to do the major packing or at least live with someone so you can share the stress. Stay cool and have a beer afterwards.
Well, the only thing is that I also had to kind of root through clothes and dispose of things I haven’t worn in years. (Something I’ll post about a bit later.)
I also am a little leery of paying someone else to pack my stuff, since there is a certain amount of delicate or fragile stuff. I’m also leery of letteing this fragile stuff be put into a truck, but I will mark it and hope for the best. (As my mother says, things are just things, but I’d prefer that these specific things survive the move. I’d prefer that if they get broken, it’s by me or someone I care about, and not some stranger I’m stuck trusting.)
Anyway, one of my friends has agreed to help me help the mover guy get the boxes and the very little amount of furniture I’m taking down to the truck. That means the only tough bit will be when I arrive in Bucheon, meet this guy, and haul stuff over to the apartment — not so bad after all, and Lime might even be free to help with some of the lighter stuff at that point.
But yeah, a beer afterward sounds great.
I don’t particularly like moving, but I always find that it’s the last stuff I pack, all the miscellaneous odds and ends, that take the most time and cause me the most frustration. I usually pack it in around 3am, and get up early the next morning.
P.S. I forgot to say, “Good luck and don’t hurt your back!”
While I have less time than I’d planned on, I can happily report that most of the packing is done and I have a full day (and much of a morning) to go before I’m meeting the mover guy. This is excellent news: it means I’ll be sleeping early tonight. It’ll be my first major move during which I could do that. The small stuff and the breakables is always my last go, too, but there’s only going to be one box of them (breakable kitchen stuff excluded). More frustrating for me, I think, will be the stuff that I’ve determined it’s best for me to haul with me as I go, in backpacks and so on. it’s all so random. But even that’s only going to be an hour’s work.
And since I’m leaving behind much of my furniture — some of it is unneeded, and some of it isn’t mine to begin with — my back should come out of this fine. I packed the books more intelleigently than I have in the past. Small boxes are the best for books, even if they do usually necessitate more trips. They necessitate fewer trips to the physiotherapist’s office.
Anyway, thanks for the good luck wishes.
What I love about moving in Korea is that I pay the movers and I don’t pack a thing. I just sit back and watch. They even clean your old house after moving everything out.
200,000 to 300,000 won is worth it to me. The only stress I ever get is finding a new apartment but even that is left mostly to the wife due to language issues.
It’s a little more expensive if you’re moving from the countryside in to Seoul, I think. I have one driver with a one-ton truck and it’s costing me 300,000, which was not the cheapest Lime could find — since she knew I wouldn’t want all my stuff arriving broken — but not the most expensive. I imagine for full service it’d be a bit more, and I am saving my money for the various visa runs I’ll probably have to do soon… sigh
We moved more than 3 1/2 years ago and just yesterday opened a couple of boxes from that move.
There are some more boxes from that move to be opened. We’re going to try to have them all opened by the end of March.
I’m going to pick up my jaw and hold it up…
I shouldn’t be so shocked, though. There were boxes of mine that I didn’t open until two years after I’d moved to Montreal. When you have enough stuff, it just goes that way. But I’m going to have my boxes all opened (and the cardboard dumped) in the next month, I think. The biggest part of the job will be figuring out which books to keep at my room, and which to deposit onto the shelving in my office… and of course, carrying them over, though the proximity helps reduce that from a huge job to merely a few days’ leisurly moving stuff over when I go there during the day.