Memento - A Picture Tells A Thousand Words

Packing Up

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Packing Up
Paranaque City (August 2004)

"He who would travel happily, must travel light."
Antoine de Saint Exupery

280 lbs. Nope, that's not my current weight. It's the weight allocation for our 2 suitcases and 2 boxes. Our new life is in 4 boxes.

Funny when my wife left for Switzerland, she only had with her 80 lbs. of luggage just within the weight allocation for her. It included a few clothes, some shoes, some books, some CDs, some Pinoy condiments and a picture frame. Then I joined her 10 times from 2001 to 2003, bringing with me fresh amount of goods from magazines, to books, to more DVDs, and more pinoy home decors. When we left for home last year, we had to pack 21 boxes accumulated in 2.5 years.

This didnt include the "bigger" things I packed during my trips : a VCD player, a wok and several cooking pans, a big breakable picture frame, consummable canned goods (one trip had 30 kilos of canned goods, which are of course not allowed in Canada) and hold your breath, an electric fan. Yes, we lived in the Swiss Riviera and temps go down to 30 to 34 degrees, which the Swiss so much love, but to us, spells migraines or means we have to take showers every 4 hours.

This time, we know better. Not because Swiss woks are priced 4x the ones we have in the Philippines or canned goods are a big no-no especially in FMD-conscious countries like Canada. But we take the above quoted line from St. Exupery by heart. We didnt have to consult helpful packing sites such as this site or this one, to know what to do. Friends and relatives gave us the tips we wanted to hear. All the CDs are in mp3 version. All the thick jackets have been vaccumed sealed. We're not bringing shoes which are not usable in Canada, nor our Harman Kardon surround-sound receiver/amplifier which runs in 220, and not in 110. All the canned goods are left in our cupboards and definitely, I assure you of this, definitely, under the pain of death, we're not bringing with us an electric fan.

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