WITH 26 years of globetrotting behind him, Carsten Lima has amassed crate-loads of souvenirs, curios and artworks from the many cities that he has lived in or visited such as London, Cairo and Istanbul. But even the knowledge of this does not quite prepare one for the strange timber cabinet on wheels that sits in his dining room.

Filled with memorabilia such as the tiny shoes once worn by upper class Chinese women that he bought while working as a tour guide in Malaysia in the 1990s or the hat that he was made to wear to a Culture Club concert in his teens, the timber cabinet on wheels is actually a street vendor's trolley he picked up on a trip to Thailand. That he was not put off by the logistics of shipping something as cumbersome as a trolley can probably be explained by the fact that Mr Lima is a bit of an expert when it comes to moving. "I have lived in 10 different countries. Singapore is the 11th," he reveals, adding: "You just need a good shipping company."

Thanks to good shipping companies then, Mr Lima has been able to travel with all of his precious belongings including the vintage armchairs from Portobello Market in London and his collection of hand-woven rugs and kilims including one that was a present from a village chief in Turkey. There are also many smaller objects such as hand blown glass, Japanese ceramic bowls and miniatures of Egyptian icons that fill the shelves and weigh down the coffee tables - and Mr Lima says that he has a personal attachment to each and every item. "Everything here has a story to it," he says.