Arrival

July 30 2007

The road to our new flat

The day finally came and what a day it was! We were officially supposed to move into the new flat only on July 31, but the former tenant was leaving early on July 30, Monday so why not move in earlier? We managed to convince the one mover to help us in the early evening on July 30. He was going to transport not only our fridge, washer and dryer, but he had also agreed to come to our old flat and help us move all our other baggage, including our huge sleeper couch.

colin was working that day so he arranged to meet me, dina and the mover at our new flat in the early evening. the mover arrived at around 4pm in a small flat-bed truck that was already half taken up by our washer, dryer and fridge. my heart dropped when i saw the truck, it was not what i had been expecting. how on earth were we going to fit all our mounds of baggage plus a rather large sleeper couch onto that little truck?! and then, how was the mover going to drive the truck all the way to the mountains without something falling off or breaking?!

i was very nervous and so was the mover. neither of us were quite prepared for the mammoth task ahead of us. firstly, dina and i had to help the mover carry all our stuff down three flights of stairs and onto his truck ... i was certain i kept hearing glasses break as he desperately tried to mash all of our possessions onto his little truck and tie them all down. finally, dina and i watched the truck waddle slowly away with all colin and my possessions waving from side to side. "please drive slowly" i had begged him. dina and i jumped into a taxi with extra baggage and headed for our new flat to meet colin and the mover.

dina and i arrived and clambered up five flights of stairs to the rooftop and colin and my new home at about 5:30pm. colin was still at work and we expected to have to wait for him to let us inside as he had the key so, imagine my surprise when i saw our door wide open and our senile, slightly crazy landlady and her toothless friend hauling things out of our flat. now, colin and i had been promised certain things such as bowls, plates, knives, forks, a toaster etc etc by the previous tenant, but i also knew that the previous tenant had sold the landlady her large appliances so, when i saw them pushing the old fridge out the door i didn't get too worried, but then i noticed that they were taking EVERYTHING. this was a free-for-all that i had to stop!

i stormed into the house and quickly started telling them, in no uncertain terms, what they could and could not take. i literally had to pull plates out of the toothless friend's (now just called 'toothless' ;-) hands commanding "zhe shi wode!", meaning "this is mine!" this is not the nicest way of arriving at one's new abode, to see one's landlady fleecing the place. but, thank god we had decided to move in early so that i could catch her in the act and save what was rightfully ours!

meanwhile, during this little 'drama of ownership', the mover had arrived, ostentiously with all of our belongings still precariously strapped to the back of his truck. he wanted to know how to get up to our flat and wanted help carrying things. as i was desperately trying to multi-task a very odd situation with taiwanese people who did not speak a word of english and a phillipino house assistant who seemed unable to carry anything heavier than a pair of shoes, colin finally arrived to help. our landlady and her friend were dispatched for the time being and colin commenced the laborious task of helping the mover carry everything from his truck up to our fifth floor apartment. i felt great sympathy for both of them as it was horribly hot and humid and they were carrying incredibly heavy objects up a ridiculous amount of stairs. both colin and the mover were bathed in sweat by the time they were finished, but the mover was still in good spirits. he connected our fridge and our washing machine and then left with a sigh of relief.

colin and i, however, were not in good spirits. in fact, we were livid. we had explained to dina beforehand that she would have to help carry, but she insisted on hiding around corners, disappearing to avoid doing the heavy work. colin and i both got angry and repeatedly told her to move her ass and start helping, but to no avail. i ended up doing more heavy lifting than she did and i was the one who had had brain surgery. by the time everything was inside the new flat, including dina who was listlessly sweeping the filthy floor, we were both tired and grumpy. colin went downstairs to find our landlady and toothless and managed to regain most of what they had taken from us. they were very apologetic and there were no hard feelings. not so with dina, we sent her home and then bitched to each other about how incredibly lazy she had been that day. finally we set up our sleeper couch amid our boxes and the amazing amount of trash and dirt that the previous tenant had left and went to sleep.