Almost there....

...well I am nearly in Hong Kong. Today the motor bike and car were collected for shipping to NZ and I handed over the apartment keys after the managment company did their final inspection (I kid you not... they were on their hands and knees inspecting every inch of the wooden floors to see if we had damaged them...). I'm now at the Conrad Tokyo (yeah Hilton Honors points that have me staying here for free!) for my second to last night in Tokyo. Tomorrow I pick up the cat (expensive animal...) and after taking her on a train back to my hotel and then a bus out to the aiport, deposit her for the night at the 'Pet Hotel' at Narita airport. I'll be bunking down at the Hilton NArita Airport :-)

(Just in case you were wondering, according to the Apartment Managment Company we scratched the wallpaper once (acutally I am sure that was Sachi not Andrew or I!) and made two dents in the floor boards. They are threatening to charge us for each of these misdemeanors....only in Japan!)

Then on Monday morning, between work conference calls I will be getting Sachi quarantine inspected and then to a cargo company who will get her onto a plane. We fly to HK - me with a seat and Sachi in "cargo" - at 4pm and will meet Andrew who is conventiently coming off a plane from Singpore 10 minutes earlier than we land, at Hong Kong Airport. We then bave about a week of sleeping on an airbed, with no curtains at the windows, until our shipping arrives in Hong Kong. The joys of international relocation :-)


I have however learned some things about moving house and am happy to share:
1. Buy may rolls of paper towels. No matter how carefully you wash out cleaning clothes they leave marks on white Japanese wallpaper. Paper towels do not. Estimate how many rolls you will need and then double it.... or have a convenient supermarket in the basement of your apartment block so you can purchase more at will.
2. If you are going to hang wallpaper (and the whole of Japan does) then applying a thin bead of silicon at the skirting is a great idea - I could spray kitchen cleaner at it to my hearts content and it never budged the wallpaper
3. The person who designed skirting boards with a decorative grove mid-way up the board was a man - he has clearly never had to clean them
4. Waxing wooden floors is a nightmare. It is impossible to get the wax even. I will NEVER have wooden floors in my own house
5. Aunty Anne was right - you really do need rubber gloves when cleaning. The appalling state of my hands and nails is testament to what happens if you do not...


I guess the next post will be from Hong Kong - we'll see if we can manage some pictures of the apartment :-)

Sonia