5 sleeps left...

With five sleeps left we are cruising, getting a few small important jobs done - like collecting the bond on the house we've lived in this year, sorting out our medical insurance and doing our tax return. But generally taking things fairly easy, thankfully!

We found out this morning that we'll be moving into our Tokyo house next Wednesday - that's only two sleeps after we arrive in the country, truly amazing! And the removalists (movers) will even pick up our Clavinova (electric piano) from the friend who's been looking after it. The cool thing about that is that it is a potentially back-breaking operation as it is heavy and is up a set of very steep and narrow Tokyo-style stairs. We're very thankful not to have to organise that ourselves.

Now the main thing that remains is to fit everything into our suitcases and under the 100kg limit. Excess to that needs to be packed up separately and posted. You may ask, "Why posting? Surely there is a cheaper way?" You wouldn't be the only one. When we took 6 10-12kg boxes to the post office last Friday the guy there nearly had a heart attack and we had to reassure him several times that this was what we wanted to do, that we'd thought about this long and hard.

This is the third time we've moved to Japan from Australia and we've found that posting stuff, while it seems expensive, is the easiest way. It is not the most expensive, either. If we send stuff by boat or unaccompanied baggage, we incur customs costs as well as the expense and inconvenience of going back to the airport (2-4 hours from our house) to collect it all. Posting not only has the advantage of all the expense being up front, but the stuff gets delivered to our door at the other end too.

What are we taking back? Not furniture, that's for sure. Hardly any electrical stuff (different voltage). Very little food stuffs. Mostly our wardrobe plus some resource books, Occupational Therapy resources, medical records (that go everywhere with us), a small number of extra special toys, some medicine and other things that are harder to get (or impossible, like soap-free cleanser) in Japan. Some DVDs, especially ones that have been gifts to the boys in recent months. We've been very selective. Very few toys actually made the cut - mostly what fits in backpacks plus two boxes of Z*O*O*B. Oh, my contour pillow is coming...now I need to stop writing about it and find a place it will fit into my bulging suitcase.