New Stuff

One thing you have to consider when moving from one country to another is what to do with all your stuff. I originally moved to China with a suitcase and backpack. I have far more crap now. When we moved into the Yau Ma Tei apartment, we all threw away more than a few boxes full of clutter. Moving from China to Taiwan, we knew we would have to get more drastic.

Shipping boxes of stuff between countries is fast and easy. Both Hong Kong and Kaohsiung are port cities with large airports. It takes two days by sea and two hours by plane, not including all the sitting around and waiting time. Given that Hong Kong and Kaohsiung are so close to each other, we calculated that it would be cheaper to ship everything rather than unload in China and buy new in Taiwan.

The exception being large appliances. There is no benefit to shipping a refrigerator internationally. They are large and heavy, which means expensive, and brand new Japanese or Korean refrigerators in Taiwan are pretty cheap. Our washing machine was getting old anyway. And, not an unimportant point, Hong Kong and Taiwan sockets and voltage mostly do not match.

We sold and/or gave away our old refrigerator, washing machine, TV, sofa, beds, and all kinds of tables and chairs. That meant one pretty expensive shopping spree at the new place. We have been good to Taiwan's economy. As a city of almost three million people, Kaohsiung has more than a few places to buy a few things.

We bought our new refrigerator, washing machine and TV from Carrefour, which is probably not the ideal place to buy electronics. But they had what we wanted at a good price and delivered everything at a convenient time. Since we were in the middle of moving between countries, delivery time was important to us. And by getting several big ticket items at the same time, we were automatically made members of their super special VIP club. Realistically, that will probably only save us a few dollars a month, but we will likely use Carrefour as our main grocery store, so why not.

Buying furniture did not get us any special membership, but when you buy an apartment's worth of beds, tables and chairs at the same time, stores tend to be extra attentive. They also knock down the prices of everything. The sofa was custom made by some guy who makes sofas. I was more than a little skeptical at first, but he did a great job and delivered on time and in the rain what turned out to be larger than I expected. It is also far more nappable than our previous sofa.