The Saga of the Shipped Boxes

6-30-13

I just ordered a pick up of 10 12"x12"x12" boxes, 50 lbs each by ship to Taichung pick up in from 45-60 days of shipping. They'll come to my house July 9. The cost; $960.00. Much cheaper than sending it by air. It could arrive by the end of August. They will get in touch with me for more details. I paid with a credit card. I just saw 12"x12"x"12 boxes carry ten pounds of books. This is so convenient. I keep thinking it's too good to be true.

Meanwhile, I'm wondering about the $960 I paid on Visa for shipping ten boxes via sea; I don't have a receipt for the contract and the computer says it may be fraud. It seems like a real company but I have a booking form (HS 104008) from them but no e-mail receipt. I was told I would be contacted.

7-3-13 8:45am Wed. (*2)

I called up homeshippers.com to 'confirm' our arrangement. The credit card payment they take the day before they send Fed Ex to com pick the boxes up. I have to be packed by July 8th, by my own choice.

7-9-13

Leona and I went through this elaborate system to print the shipping labels returned a signed receipt. It was elaborate because our printer is connected to the desk-top which has no internet and the laptop which has no printer. Leona copied the attachments from homeshipping.com on a flash drive, uploaded it to the desk top, and printed it out. The attachment was sent, printed, signed, scanned, attached to a flash drive, downloaded in the laptop, and e-mailed back to the shipping agency.

7-10-13 6:16am Wed. (1)

At 3:30pm yesterday, FedEx came and picked up the ten 12"x12"x12" boxes to bring to the ship in New Jersey. It is supposed to arrive in Taichung 45-60 days later. I wonder which will get there first; the ten boxes or the sofa from Germany via China. Both are due by the end of August.

8-10-13

The Port of Taichung authority called yesterday for us to prepare customs documents for the ten boxes on the way here from Brooklyn. Right now they’re on a ship from L.A. somewhere on the Pacific Ocean. Leona said it would be $220us handling fee more.

Dining room furniture purchase

8-20-13 7:06am Thurs.(1) 141-86  

At the furniture store we bought three items totaling $700us: a hutch dresser, a vanity cabinet with hinged top revealing a ‘secret’ area, and a specialized chestnut, one-of-a-kind cat food (!) waste paper (?) cabinet all for the dining area, all solid wood.

      “A breakfront is a large cabinet or bookcase whose center section projects beyond the flanking end sections. A hutch is a set of shelves or cabinets placed on top of a lower unit with a counter and either drawers or cabinets. Hutches are often seen in the form of desks, dining room or kitchen furniture. It is frequently referred to by furniture aficionados as a hutch dresser. Meanwhile china cabinets feature two glass doors. Many china cabinets also feature glass sides encased in wood. This serves the purpose of fully displaying fine china or figurines. China cabinets often feature locks on the doors, as well. Hutches typically feature smaller display areas. While hutches often feature glass doors, the doors are much smaller than those found on china cabinets. Hutches are made from wood and can be painted or designed to fit the style of a house.” So say the experts

We bought a ‘hutch dresser’ yesterday because Taiwan, with its earthquakes, is not a good place for a china cabinet or breakfront to display upright china. We will lay the china and silverware down flat in its closets. On the hutch itself, we may put the strawberry teapot and some other stable dinner related items. I hope it doesn’t come with a glass table protector. Though it protects the furniture, the glass we have on the desk, coffee table and end table detract from the beauty of the wood.

Sofa Delivery Experience

      Today, our sofa is being delivered at 1:30pm

8-10-13 2:26pm Sat. (*2)

      The sofa was delivered and set up within the last hour.  I was unable to take any more photos or video of the sofa move.  I was able to take some videos on her camera of the crane lifting the sofa to our patio. I ended up using the camera feature on the Apple laptop to take the photos of them setting up the sofa.

      the deliverymen were positioning the furniture. They moved the entertainment center away from the center of the wall and pushed it to the right up against the shoe cabinet leaving a six foot space on the left side of the living room. I was making suggestions for how to place the sofa and entertainment center in the balance of the room. I suggested we move the hanging lamp to the left side of the sofa. The coffee table is the same length as the sofa, it leaves no space for the hassock meant to be in front. It was pushed off to the side near the fireplace; useless as a footrest. I rarely sit in the living room anyway because I don’t usually watch TV.

 

 

 

Back Home in Taichung

8-7-13 6:56am Wed. (1)

      We are back in our home in Taichung. We got to the airport at 10:30pm and home at 2am after a shaky drive back from Shih-Dong; he drove most of the way on the highway trying to stay in the left lane with his bright lights on! He had to stop at a rest stop to wake himself up. I offered to drive for him with my flashy new international driver’s license, but he ignored my offer.

      I wrote forty-three pages of the journal while I was on the road and in Brooklyn and am now up to page 290 for the year, with five months to go!

      The Giant ‘Roam’ bicycle is beckoning me. I put it in the dining room while we were away. I finally taught myself how to pump air into the tires by myself and it’s ready to ride. The front tire was half flat after not riding the bike for six weeks. I can’t wait to ride it up the Han-Xi River, which Leona said means “Dry Wash,” as descriptive as it is named.

      On the plane back, I read less than an hour of Last Words by George Carlin. I hardly did any reading at all in America. Also, I only wrote one depressing poem in six weeks there.

 America, in general, and New York City, specifically, is a depressing place. I feel lucky to have gotten away from there with only a scratch, now only scabs falling off of my right leg from a fall off the bike. 

 

8-7-13 5:23pm Wed. (*2)

      I’ve been putting away the extra books I brought back from Brooklyn. There are ten boxes more coming on a ship to Taichung forty-five to sixty days from July 9^th, the day they were picked up. There is space now in the three bookcases but they will be crowded once the ten boxes of mostly books arrive. It’s okay; there is room for another smaller bookcase in the study, if necessary.

Last Taichung day before Brooklyn visit

6-23-13 6:12am Sun. (2)

      Today is our last full day in Taiwan before we head back to Brooklyn for six weeks, mostly in July. I’m getting psyched by wearing jeans and my turquoise Caribbean black dude button –down shirt for the first time in weeks, to see if they fit and stretch them out. They do fit; they are a little tight. I will wear it on the airplane for two days; two days because we’ll fly to South Korea in the evening, spend the night in a hotel and continue our trip with another flight Tuesday.

 I just finished watching NYC News to check on the weather coming up. It will be almost Taiwan-like in the high 80’s with humidity and possible afternoon thunder- showers.

Today I’ll take the luggage down from the closets packing one carry-on bag inside two of the four suitcases. We will have one carry on for our stopover in Korea. All the suitcases and carry-ons will be empty when we go but all will be full when we return as we continue to move our belongings to Taiwan. In addition, I hope to pack up an additional ten boxes of printed material and electronics, even one French figurine lamp and lampshade from our living room in Brooklyn. We will have the lamp and shade repaired and restored here.

Taichung reading habits

6-18-13 9:58am Tues. (2) 141-80

      Rode the bike up     the Han River yesterday and got to the part in Return of the Native where Eustasia falls in the pond, Wildeve goes in after her, and Clym goes in after her, too. The first two die. Clym survives.

The past eight months in Taichung, the start of my retirement from FDR and the USA has seen me reading more than I had while I lived in Brooklyn. My increased reading time is directly related to not having to be at FDR seven to ten hours a day, and not smoking; I have more time and more concentration. My usual reading is non-fiction in the morning (especially when I went up on the roof of the Beverly with Sweeney-Poo, fiction when I ride up the Han River, newspapers in the afternoon (before or after lunch or before class on Tues. after the teachers’ meeting) and reading in bed before sleep. My reading habits have changed in the two weeks since we moved to the Renoir Condominium; no more roof-top reading with Sweeney-Poo and no more before bed reading for some reason, though I did start doing that again last evening.

New bike tire

 

6-4-13 9:29pm Tues. (*2)

      I got a new rear tire for the bicycle; 600NT ($20us.) It took seven months to wear the first one bald. The front tire is still okay and the Giant dealer left it on. I rode to the Giant dealer on Dong-Shan Road when I got back from my ride up the Han River this morning. They didn’t have the type of treaded road tire I use and told me to come back after 9pm to get it installed. I rode there on the way back from the class I was subbing for Tim from New Zealand; his parents were visiting Taiwan. They installed the tire right away and adjusted the gears.