Subseastu's long emigration story

Right here we go. Part 1 (this is a little long)

I got home from work on the Friday and after a fairly drunken weekend with family and friends we set to getting everything packed on Monday for our flight on the coming Friday. First problem I encountered is cellphones. We’ve both got iPhones and got the wife’s from “Carphone warehouse” sim free. I cancelled both our mobile contacts, mine with EE, hers with virgin. Now sim free from “carphone warehouse” ain’t sim free. What they don’t tell you is that the first sim card you put in the phone then becomes locked to that network!! Spent 5 hours on the phone to carphone warehouse, virgin, orange (virgin piggyback off orange) and apple. Apple say the phone is registered to orange, orange have no record of it! Long story short no one claims responsibly for it, I waste all of Monday doing this and then give up, go to Leicester and try going into the apple shop, then EE then carphone warehouse (where I nearly punch the useless p***k “assistant” in the face! No joy so back to apple and drop 500 quid on a new unlocked iphone 5C thing for the wife!! A mental expense right when I could’ve done without it! This takes us to Tuesday lunch. I’ve now got two and a half days to sort the house and pack!
We flew with emirates and had 30kg each which along with the 2 balikbayon boxes I got I thought would be plenty to shift our lives across the globe. WRONG! 2 cases, a large grip and a piece of hand luggage each and we’re over. So go online and buy another 20kg allowance off the Emirates site. Job done, I’ve now got 80kg for the two of us. Weight our checked luggage and I reckon I’m within a couple of kg. Happy with that.

Now for the balikbayon boxes (we used B&N Lilley again). 2 XL boxes in the garage which where for pick up on the day we flew. I left them outside down the side of the house under a plastic sheet on the Friday. They tell me they were picked up ok and where happy to store them in manila until we could notify them of our new address. Very helpful, just hope they turn up! Right a bit of a list (can’t remember a lot of what we put in now to be honest, I was under a fair amount of stress by this point!) what we packed in the boxes:

Vacuum cleaner (half price out of Tesco)
Sonos play 5
NAS drive
Juicer
Fat fryer
Vacuum bags of clothes
Shoes / trainers etc.

It’s amazing how quick you can fill these boxes up. It’s also difficult to try to imagine what you need out here on a day to day basis that will makes your life that bit nicer / easier. Harder for us as this (at the moment) is a temporary move. We intend to return to the UK eventually.

The dog got picked up on Thursday morning and spent the night in a kennel before flying out via Cathy Pacific. The big plus of this was he arrived in Manila about 2 hours after us and by the time he cleared custom etc. it was another 2 hours or so. For the dog we used an outfit called “Petair uk” and they were great as where the agents in Manila. Now it’s not cheap, the UK end cost was in the region of 2200 quid. This was for their top package which I recommend to reduce any chance of a mess up. The Philippine end was just shy of 700 dollars (agent fees, brokerage fees, customs duty etc.) so all in to get the dog across was about 2600 quid. This doesn’t include shots (rabies) or pet passport etc. They were about 150 quid. It was reasonably easy in all as the Philippines have relaxed the requirements for pet imports. Plus on the way back the dog won’t have to go into quarantine as long as we keep his shots up to date.

So onto Friday morning, the taxi is booked for 10:30 and I was still running round at 10:15! The balikbayon boxes are outside ready for pick up, the car is in the garage because I didn’t manage to sell it on Thursday morning! That was a waste of half a day again. (Does anyone want and blue Alfa 156 2.0 JTS facelift model Jan 2004 with 72000 on the clock? I want 1200 quid for it!!!). So 2 cases, large grip and a hand baggage each and we’re off to brum airport to watch badly dressed stag and hen parties wonder around departures.

Get to the check in desk and weight the bags I’m 2 kg over but I think I can sweet talk the girl behind the desk. She then asks for the hand luggage to be weighed. Bugger I’ve not considered this, Emirates have a 7kg limit which is nothing. For work I regularly travel with 10-12kg in hand luggage. Weigh my bag and it 14kg!! Shes not allowing it and so we have to go off and repack the already bursting bags. More stress. In the end I get what I need out of the hand carry (paperwork etc.) and put it in the wife’s. We go back to check-in and get a bloke this time. With everything now for check in I’m 18kg over the limit (80kg with including the 20kg I brought online earlier), the bloke tells me it’s going to be about 700 quid in charges!! What can you do apart from slide the bank card across the desk and take the hit. Luckily he seems a decent bloke and says he’ll talk to his gaffer, calls over what must be the head guy that was walking round the check in area and asks him about it. Explains we’re emigrating and already paid for 20kg excess baggage. He looks at me and my sweaty, stressed face and then at the wife who always looks well done in makeup and waves the fee off!! Al last some good luck. To celebrate saving 700 quid I have an expensive pint (or two) in departures!! The rest of the time is fairly uneventful and we arrive in Manila on time.

Lessons learnt – It is possible to transport a family and pet 7500 miles and organize / pack in effectively what was two and a half days but by god its stressful. Its not only the packing etc but as in our case prepping the house for winter etc. I was bleeding radiators and topping up the central heating system 20 minutes before the taxi arrived! On the house front both my brother who is acting as caretaker and my folks will be popping in on a weekly basis which does make me feel a bit more at ease.

To be continued………………….

Good read. More, please!

Ha. Great read. LOL.

I bought an iPhone a couple of months ago on ebay and had the same problem. It was unlocked until the first sim went in and then it was locked to it ie Vodaphone in this case. I had to pay a small fortune to unlock it.

So the dog was in business class then? Champagne in the dog bowl and all that?

I hear you, but in our case it isnt Apple to blame. It was Vodaphone that locked it and charged the fee for unlocking it.

subseastu, that is a bit of an ordeal but glad that you and the wife are safely in the Philippines. Whereas in Manila (or the Philippines) are you staying? If you need any help, my husband and I are from Manila though he is now working offshore in a seismic boat somewhere near the equator as of the moment.

I see. I believe Aposhark used to do that.

Oh cool beans, it's hard seeing your husband only half the time and worrying half the time if his ship will be raided by pirates.

Ha. Subsea Stu himself has been working on drillships in pirate infested waters, I gather.

Still? well, oil and gas exploration is the way to go these days.. lucrative yet very dangerous. Honestly quite happy that he's now out of Africa.

I agree. I spent 26 or so years on rigs both onshore and offshore, working 2:2 or 4:4 . Its supported me okay.

I remain in the industry but office based, so am now home every night.

Yes John, blue_acid, I was on many seismic ships....

I dont know how I would have got on, on one of those things in rough weather. I dont have sea legs at all. I recall crew changing by boat in Angola, many years back and was as sick as a dog.

Excellent post, Stu.
That is one pampered pooch!
I know where you're coming from on the last minute packing up and making sure the house is prepped....
I used to have a printed out checklist for working away at one days' notice and regularly packed up for months away with a hangover and the bed was where everything was dumped onto.

The bloke waiving the extra luggage expense was a star.

All in all, a successful first step.
I wasn't aware or had forgotten that you were planning to return to the UK later. What is your time frame?

Keep the diary coming and thanks for the first installment

JohnAsh, it's now usually 4:4 to 6:6 depending on the season and it's hard because you never get all the important dates together. Whereas offshore are you now working? My husband and I are talking about him quitting the offshore job to have a more normal family life. We're exploring London and maybe Singapore if we can.

aposhark, that's nice. Seems like there is a couple of seismic guys here in the forum.

I recall that the seismic boats work long hitches? The most I ever did was 5 weeks and that was on two occasions and both onshore.

Yep John, little crew change boats could be a big shock after climbing down the rope ladders from the big ship.
Lots of people used to lose their lunches unfortunately
Coincidently, I used to arrange crew changes in Angola back in the 90's.