Movin' Out

It's finally time for the big move.

Our PCS or Permanent Change of Station move is divided into three shipments- air, sea and storage.

The  Air shipment is an advanced shipment which should be there in two to three weeks. It is for things that you will need immediately. Things like clothes, linens and dishware. This shipment is authorized 700 pounds and is flown to Japan. to get there fast. 700 pounds seems like a lot but it adds up quickly. If you go over they charge you for the excess and it can be very expensive. They brought a scale to weigh the packages. We were 12 pounds over. We picked a heavy box to get below weight with a buffer. There is a loan locker at Zama so we can get pots , pans and etc. on loan. Miki' coffee machine made the cut so she is happy. * UPDATE Official weight was 646 pounds.

The Sea shipment is for everything else and takes about one to two months by ship. Ours should be there by the end of October. We get loaner furniture until ours arrives. We are authorized 18,000 pounds, however we can only take 50% or 9,000 pounds to Japan. It used to be 25% up until a month ago, but they ran out of loaner furniture for the living room and dining room so they upped the limit.

They try to discourage you from bringing a lot to Japan so they place a weight limit. We were well below our allotted limit at around 3500 pounds.

The movers were quick an d efficient. They  packed and wrapped everything in about a day and then loaded the truck in an hour.

Each box was labeled and logged to accurately record what was in each box. We had five sheets for the sea shipment.

Today was the storage shipment and it was over in 45 minutes.  Overall very good moving experience. We'll see what happens on the other end.