Well Ritsuko and I went out to Rokko Island (about an hour and twenty minutes by train from here) to pick up the last 11 remaining boxes from the port.
So arriving at Rokko Island the first thing I noticed is how un-Japanese the place looks, there's no sign of traditional houses, shrines, temples our anything else Japanese. The roads are wide and tree lined and the apartment buildings are tall and colourful (instead of low rise and drab colours). Also I saw more gaijin (non Japanese people) walking the streets than anywhere else in Japan. Unlike the gaijin I meet in Nagaokakyo they didn't look like English Teachers, no these people seemed like well paid ex-pat types or their families. It was almost like we were somewhere like Singapore's Holland Village except that the weather was cooler than it ever gets in Singapore.
Now being the kind of guy who likes to save a bit of money for decided to send most our stuff by sea and being even more thrifty I decided to use a freight forwarder rather than an international removal company. So we first had to go the customs office and we spend three hours there filling out forms. Then we have to go with a customs officer from the customs office to the shipping company to clear the boxes. We were told by the guy from the freight forwarder we could organise transport of our boxes to our house with the shipping company, but they didn't want to help and scolded us for not using a international removal company for such a small amount of freight. In hindsight we should have rented a small van in Nagaokakyo and drove it there, because there were no rental places around the port. In the end we phoned our friend Mr Sakamoto who lives about 15minutes away from Rokko Island. He was between meetings for a few hours (he's the boss of his own company) so he was able come and bring the boxes to his house and then bring them to our house on the following Sunday since we live near his church. So we got the boxes and nothing was broken or missing, but maybe I should have paid 10x more and used an International Removal Agency for less hassle. Note if you don't have someone who speaks Japanese with you, it would be next to impossible dealing with the customs and the shipping agency.
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