No Special Delivery

All my stuff was finally delivered from New York today and has overtaken my limited living space. It only took 40 days in a shipping container. The choice to use a Japanese company (Nippon Express USA) has proven to be a good one. Three guys showed up today with all 14 boxes, and counted each one as they gingerly placed them on a pad in our living room. They then opened each one to ask us if everything was there. They will even come back after we have unpacked to collect the boxes and packing wrap! Not a single box was crushed, or even dented as far as I can tell.

This is in stark contrast to when I moved to New York from Japan three years ago. I used normal sea mail and the boxes were delivered to us by the US Postal Service. One box was ours, that is, it had our hand writing on it, but inside there was a can of tuna fish with Koran writing, a fake Diesel bag and some books in Korean and Chinese. Some rather important things that started out in that box were nowhere to be found. Calls and a visit to the Post Office in Harlem (not surprisingly) had no effect. Probably the most disturbing thing was when the postal clerk looked at the return address written in Japanese on the box and asked if it was German.

Some Koran guy out there is wondering who those people are on the beach in Hawaii, when all he really wants to do is have a tuna sandwich.