Posted on 08/24/2009 9:12:01 PM PDT by Jo Nuvark
My son is returning from Japan and needs info regarding international shipping. Any help would be appreciated. He has about three cubic meters of "stuff".
Is it heavy or is it fragile?
I’d suggest he search around and find a super reputable company and pay for it in a container type shipment. Pay the movers to come and box it up in a wood frame crate and cart it away.
Not exactly cheap but was reliable for me. Insurance is vital.
Alternately, he could ship things by post or by air. Air is certainly going to be more expensive but he might have half a cubic meter or some such of stuff he’d need rather soon that should go by air.
Evergreen conglomerate may have a shipping company. They seem to be reasonably reliable as an airline but I wouldn’t know about their shipping. They sure have a LOT of container ships. Given the slow down in international trade, I’d think that competition would have driven prices down. Just a guess.
He could save a small amount by boxing most stuff up himself an letting them crate it all together. But they won’t insure stuff they don’t box, usually.
Personally, he may well be better off in Asia. But really, as you know, wherever God has him is best.
I just think that parts of Asia will be more habitable longer than much of the USA in coming ‘festivities.’
Of course, I’ve been wrong before . . . but it’s been a persistent impression for the last 15 or more years.
Container shipping is probably as cheap as its ever going to get. He wouldn’t need a whole container either. How does someone find a container-share program?
Thanks Quix... He’s Gijin (sp) and his wife is Haifu.
Not good to raise kids there.
It’s mostly books, CD’s and some cookware
that can’t be duped in the U.S.
Any ideas?
He’s trying to find a container shipper that’s reputable or recommended. Not that easy as they must originate from Kyoto.
OK... He says is gaijin and haafu. Sheesh!
Ahhhhh . . .
Taiwan is much better on such scores . . . Taipei American School is tops in a list of ways and the international community is quite accepting as are many of the locals . . . though I don’t know that any place is 100% ideal in all contexts on such scores.
Anyone out there in international exports? (Think
James Bond.) My son needs some help with a container
shipping service from Kyoto to Olympia, Washington.
That isn’t enough for a whole container. That sounds like 1/10th of a container. For items like that which can be easily split up, it may be better to ship in small boxes. Some friends who were shipping books TO Japan have gotten a “library or book rate” from the post office. They got large mail bags and then packed the books into boxes that could fit in the bag. It took a few weeks to get the shipment, but it was cheap for something as heavy as books. Whether or not that is available in Japan, I can’t say. Keep in mind that containers will have extra freight and port fees.
Taipei... Yes. We have family living there
and going to school. He’s a missionary. Right
now he’s in China, but returning to after summer.
Great suggestion. He’s reading the thread.
Here is general info, but it is from US and not to US. But still useful I think.
http://www.shippinginternational.com/faqs.htm
The port fees coming into the US are higher than you might think. I had some stuff shipped from Italy and it was twice what I expected to pay. Plus they only would accept a cashier’s check from a US bank and no other form of payment.
Could he ship UPS or Fedex from Kyoto?
This webpage mentions individual mailbag deliveries of books by sea from Japan. It includes a phone number at the homepage for questions. Delivery time 1 to 3 months.
http://search.post.japanpost.jp/cgi-charge/index.php?lang=_en
“Could he ship UPS or Fedex from Kyoto?”
Sure. If he can afford it. I’ve shipped items in boxes 1m cubed weighing about 60 lbs from europe with express carriers and it cost several hundred dollars, not including the additional fees. Books will cost a small fortune by express carriers. Better to use regular mail I think since you don’t need the stuff that soon. The cookware, is something else entirely and if it something special and fragile, I would get it insured separately and ship it separately. However, I have known someone who also shipped cookware back to Japan by the mailbag system.
best of luck, bring souvenirs .... did I spell that right?
Chopstix or fans?
Sometimes it is worth spending the money hiring a company to pack and ship for you and handle the port and customs paperwork, and this may be one of those times, particularly if he is pressed for time. I don’t know anyone in Kyoto (lovely city, by the way), but I know people in Osaka, Nagoya, and Tokyo and maybe one of them can recommend what to do.
lol. aren’t they all made in China these days? I wouldn’t mind a Godzilla fan lol.
Could you send me your contacts in Freepmail?
I’m a fan of Godzilla!
Looks like it will be around $2/lb by Japan Post surface ship. Express mail will be more like $10/lb.
Maybe he should have a book sale.
I can contact them for you and maybe hear something back by tomorow. Because of their profession, I can’t give you direct contact to them. If you have a specific question please ask me now, otherwise I will just ask how they would ship a buttload of books to the US and if they know a reliable shipping company.
Booksale? I wish. He’s a teacher. What can I say?
Perhaps gaijin could help.
Hanjin shipped my stuff to and from Korea.
No problems.
My son says Osaka makes sense.
He needs a recommended shipping company
and he thanks you for the great suggestions.
Look forward to hearing from you tomorrow.
Hanjin? I’ll pass that along. Thanks!
Gaijin? Good catch!
I have a co-worker who may just done this - ship personal goods from Japan back to the States.
I’ll ask him in the morning, if that’s soon enough...?
Thanks HiJinx. I’ll look forward to hearing from you in the morning.
Hang on. I may hear back before I head to bed.
I like the old Godzilla movies. I always his facial features a bit cat-like
YOU R A W K !
Godzilla NEVER scared me, but I got upset when
he and Mathra fought.
Naoyuki says that surface mail is cheapest, but it is VERY VERY slow. More like 3+ months slow, so not practical for clothes and household items you need as soon as you arrive. But OK for books. You will think the boat sank the wait is so long.
He says Yamato Transportation may be a good choice. I checked and here is their webpage:
http://www.kuronekoyamato.co.jp/english/services/worldwide.html#size
So it gives info on delivery times, the charge for box sizes up to 25kg, etc. Rates look competitive with Japan Post express.
Hope that helps. It is at least another option to consider. I am off to bed now!
I would think he could. Both operated in Taipei.
I think I’d certainly ship the CD’s by post or FED EX OR some such.
I had bulky things like a loom etc. that had to be crated up and made part of a container with multiple shipments in it. God graciously provided the means when I didn’t have it myself.
Fragile dishes etc. can be packed pretty safely . . . not 100% but near it. And the Japanese are experts at great little boxes and all kinds of varioius sized boxes to package things in—and that’s out of wood. I’d then repackage or have them or UPS or some such repackage their great wooden boxes in a couple layers of heavy duty cardboard boxes. Such would likely stand up to all but the most extreme shipping accident.
Bubble wrap is great stuff with such items. I used liberal amounts wraping precious things in several layers. But one needs to insure against different items shifting and clanging against each other, too.
On the other hand, with different fingers . . . all the stuff, no matter how sentimentally precious or beautiful or handy . . . all of it is chaff. All of it is at best, high class junk.
We are rapidly reaching the time when we must be ready, eager, even, to walk out on every last item without the slightest tweak to take it with us or turn around and look back at it. Lot’s wife was a lesson for us.
One precious older Bro at my church had a dream recently. The angel came for him and all was well and he was proceeding to get himself together and go with the angel. But there was someone the man wanted to say goodbye to and as he turned to do so, the angel vanished. And the man was suddenly on a road running from disaster aware that he didn’t have what it took to escape the looming disaster and get to safety on his own . . . and that the angel was now gone who’d been sent to take him to safety.
All things are only chaff.
I used to have many hundreds of books in my library. I’ve probably given away thousands of books. Certainly many hundreds in Asia.
Time is racing away when we CAN give a book that can change a life, a family, an extended family. I think doing so is exceedingly preferable to books collecting dust on shelves. I still go through what books I have left and acquire and give away to students and waiters at restaurants etc.
I’m a prof, too.
The Lord has shown me that hoarding books was a false sense of security; a false sense of importance etc. I may have 150-300 books at this time. I’m still trying to go through them and reduce them to less than 75-100. Actually, I’d hate for the angel to come and I’d still have even 75 books left to collect dust.
I’d rather have them out in lives changing lives toward Christ’s Kingdom as soon as workable.
But then a lot of my teaching is with handouts keyed to text chapters etc. from the net and elsewhere these days. Most of the books I have are for spiritual growth. And except for maybe a few dozen treasured references, I’d certainly rather have the spiritual growth books out doing good for The Kingdom instead of collecting dust.
Certainly all the international moving missionaries and business people I talked to advocated shipping books by postal services. The few most precious ones can go by air or UPS or some such.
The glossy paged books with clay in the paper are the heaviest. I shredded lots of magazines. I think my weaving magazine HANDWOVEN was the only one I brought back in toto. A good part of me regrets not leaving that with some missionaries working with tribal weavers in Thailand.
I think my container shipment arrived in less than a month. I shipped it a week or two before leaving. I took about 3 weeks to visit loved ones on the way home in the US. And my shipment was here before I got here.
It was about 8-10 cubic meters, IIRC—lots of sizeable boxes anyway! LOL. A lot of it was fairly lightweight treasured weaving yarn. LOL. Would probably have been more sensible to give that to the missionaries, too.
Though at the rate we are going, even when transportation breaks down, I could sit and weave! LOL.
If you don’t have the ability to park a container to fill and unfill it, then it is better to just get a moving company to handle the move or ship everything separately in easy to handle boxes.
I used to have a library with many hundreds of books that were all destroyed. I miss a couple of the rare ones, but most were just a pain in the neck to move around from place to place.
We use MTI Worldwide for all our international shipping.
http://www.mti-worldwide.com/
INIDEED.
THX.
"When I came back, I shipped everything through sea mail, using the post office. It’s extremely slow, but as long as things are packed well, it’ll make it within 1-3 months. He’d have to be really careful when packing the books, however. I wasn’t—my box arrived in pieces inside another box.
Here’s a link to the Japan Post International Mail webpage in English."
"If he does use sea mail and not EMS, he should insure everything. It’s dirt cheap to do so, and the guys on the ships treat things more carefully when they see the red stickers. The packages I insured arrived in perfect condition. The ones I didn’t looked as though they were attacked by bears."
Great suggestion.
Interesting... my son has been arguing with me
about using the post office, but it sounds like
a slow but reasonable choice.
Well done Kirwood. You’ve given my son some
great leads! Thank you again for taking the
time to help. Let me know if I can ever be
of service to you.
His always... Jo
Thank you. We’ll look into MTI Worldwide.
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