First of all - if you do this kind of move make sure that you do that with an organisation that supports you or at least understands what it takes to move a family from one country to another (did I mention that before?).
My new boss wanted me to come to Germany as soon as possible so some coworker could transfer all her information to me (she ended up spending half a day with me, and then disappeared - suddenly she was "sick" and took vacation until her officially last day - so no transfer at all). So when I told my boss that I would have to come back to Taiwan in around May to deal with some issues and to bring over my wife and my son he was like: "Hm, that is high season and even our veteran staff members don't get vacation during that time. And i don't want anyone to get special treatment." Hm, wouldn't you call moving a family from Taiwan to Germany a somewhat special situation which calls for a somewhat special handling?
Anyways, I ended up promising him that i will of course work while I am in Taiwan and even visit our supplier.
So we tried to clean the apartment, boxed a little bit more than 50 boxes, ran errands (like transferring money, picking up passports, returning modems, etc) and on top of that I worked almost full time and really visited our supplier. The result was almost a week with two hours of sleep on average (two nights with no sleep at all).
My wife was great, she did a lot of the packing by herself, and had to organize and handle a lot of issues (e.g a shipping of the boxes). She only complained once (when I was once again running back and forth between my computer and the boxes): "If you have to work the whole time anyways, you could have come back later."
Unfortunately we couldn't finish all. Like cancellation of our cell phone contracts. Funny story - I went to a Taiwan Mobile service center (with my ARC) and told them I need to cancel my contract. I also told them I would pay the fine for cancelling the contract early. Their reaction: "Sorry, you need to bring you passport. And you cannot pay the complete fine today. You have to wait until your next bill arrives next month." Even telling them that I would leave the country didn't help. They didn't want me to pay now.
We ended leaving in a real rush. I just returned from a last trip to the post office, and when i returned, the car taking us to the airport was almost there. So I just put on my shoes (without socks) and only a light jacket (which turned out to be a real disaster during the flight), then we grabbed son and baggage and left for the airport. More about the flight in the next entry.
Friday, May 24, 2013
Saturday, May 18, 2013
Move the Family from Taipei To Stuttgart, Part 1 - Flight to Taipei "We Have Great High Tech Solutions - But No One Else Knows About Them"
Finally another entry. The last couple of weeks were crazy because I finally brought my wife and son to Germany. Sounds easy, but it was quite a project.
First the flight back to Taipei which was not the worst part, apart from the fact that I just had gotten back from a business trip to the Czech Republic (two day trip to a factory, 1600 km driving, mostly with the boss driving going between 160 and 220 km/h, yelling at the other drivers while waving his hands), and that i was still replying to emails while checking it.
The only other issue from this flight worth mentioning were the problems caused by high tech solutions by one party which the other parties don't know about or don't accept.
1) If you have a permit to live in Taiwan, Taiwan issues that on your ARC, but it doesn't show on your passport. Apparently a lot of other countries/airports don't know about it, and the people there are wondering, while your passport doesn't show a valid visa. So when I went to the passport check at the Frankfurt Airport the officer asked why i don't have a valid visa if, and i had to explain him the ARC thing. Fortunately nowadays you don't have to have a visa for a visit to Taiwan anymore, so he probably thought "What the heck" and let me go after a few minutes. Once in Amsterdam they held me up 30 minutes to discuss this issue.
2) Nowadays you can check in online and often even print out your boarding pass. I even got a reminder from Lufthansa and Cathay Pacific (my flight was operated by these two airlines) to check in and print out the boarding pass. Great way to save time - unless you get to the HK airport and want to pass through the transfer check with your printed boarding pass. "No - you need the old traditional boarding pass, printed out at the desks. Please go to the Cathay Pacific desk and get a boarding pass there." And that after I asked in Frankfurt at the desk, if my printed Boarding Pass is good also for HK. The lady there had replied full of enthusiasm: "Yes, you can go straight to your gate, you don't have to go the the Cathay Pacific desk to get another boarding pass" So much for a well working cooperation.
But otherwise I made the flight without problems and then the week of stress and almost no sleep began. See the next entry.
First the flight back to Taipei which was not the worst part, apart from the fact that I just had gotten back from a business trip to the Czech Republic (two day trip to a factory, 1600 km driving, mostly with the boss driving going between 160 and 220 km/h, yelling at the other drivers while waving his hands), and that i was still replying to emails while checking it.
The only other issue from this flight worth mentioning were the problems caused by high tech solutions by one party which the other parties don't know about or don't accept.
1) If you have a permit to live in Taiwan, Taiwan issues that on your ARC, but it doesn't show on your passport. Apparently a lot of other countries/airports don't know about it, and the people there are wondering, while your passport doesn't show a valid visa. So when I went to the passport check at the Frankfurt Airport the officer asked why i don't have a valid visa if, and i had to explain him the ARC thing. Fortunately nowadays you don't have to have a visa for a visit to Taiwan anymore, so he probably thought "What the heck" and let me go after a few minutes. Once in Amsterdam they held me up 30 minutes to discuss this issue.
2) Nowadays you can check in online and often even print out your boarding pass. I even got a reminder from Lufthansa and Cathay Pacific (my flight was operated by these two airlines) to check in and print out the boarding pass. Great way to save time - unless you get to the HK airport and want to pass through the transfer check with your printed boarding pass. "No - you need the old traditional boarding pass, printed out at the desks. Please go to the Cathay Pacific desk and get a boarding pass there." And that after I asked in Frankfurt at the desk, if my printed Boarding Pass is good also for HK. The lady there had replied full of enthusiasm: "Yes, you can go straight to your gate, you don't have to go the the Cathay Pacific desk to get another boarding pass" So much for a well working cooperation.
But otherwise I made the flight without problems and then the week of stress and almost no sleep began. See the next entry.
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