Moving overseas again

When I made the move to the United States in 1990, it was only going to be for a couple of years max. My initial stay was planned for 3-6 months...well 15 years later, I'm about to move to China. As you can imagine, with only a 3-6 month initial stay planned, I didn't exactly bring a lot of luggage. I think maybe one large suitcase and a laptop bag was the sum total.

Well here I am, about to make the move once more... and boy can someone accumulate a lot of stuff (could also described as JUNK) in 15 years. As well as the props, costumes etc that I had gathered for my theatre business, there's all the clothes, furniture and personal property I have.

I have decided after hours of pouring over this stuff I have decided to go the minimalism route, at least in the short term. After extensive sorting, resorting and discarding, I'm finally down to 2 large suitcases, and a roll on laptop case.

At the time of writing this post, United/China airlines has an economy ticket limit of 2 checked bags (23Kg limit per bag). If I am within these limits it will most likely be because at the moment of checking my baggage, all the planets have aligned and hell has frozen over. So with this in mind I called my friendly skies airline to enquire about the penalties I will most certainly face.

Well there appear to be a couple of options open to me, which are not so bad. If I exceed the 23Kg bag limit but do not exceed 45Kg on a single bag, I will be required to pay $100 additionally for that bag. Another option is to add a 3rd bag for a total weight limit of 32Kg for an additional $110 excess charge. Anyway, its not such a bad deal, $100 approximately to take a few more precious items with me. Oh did I say I was going the minimalism route...well even minimalists have precious possesions they can't live without ;-)