I arrived in Melbourne on January 6, 2007 to start my life as an expat. My husband arrived three days earlier. I needed to stay behind in Cebu for a few more days to take care of some important matters and to say goodbye to my family. After a somewhat emotional time in the airport, I took an 8-hour plane ride from Manila to Melbourne and arrived there early in the morning.
The good thing about the company that hired us was that they've already organized a house for us to stay in and if we would have wanted, we could have had it fully-furnished with rental items. We just chose to rent a bed and a fridge until we can buy our own. So essentially, we started with an empty house.