Shipping Books

[tabletopphantom]

I'm doing my spring cleaning and future packing and shipping assessment. I have a lot of books I want shipped by sea mail. I thought I read somewhere that you can get a special price for shipping only books. I think I read that you take the open box of books to the post office so they can check and see that you do in fact have only books inside,

Comments

[averagesmartguy]

Check the JET Diary and/or the General Information Handbook (which is available online at the JET Programme's homepage).

[gabeysf]

Your kencho should have all this information for you, including the Japanese name. There is a cheaper option. In Japanese it's funabin (sea mail), in special bags. What you do is pack up the books in boxes, then put the boxes in these large green bags with red lettering. It's very, very cheap, but kind of a hassle if you get a postal worker who has no idea the service exists. But don't give up! It does exist, even if they try to deny it!

[averagesmartguy]

Regarding the books thing and postal workers not knowing the service exists, it's true that only certain post offices can do it. My PA let me know for example there're only something like a certain three in our prefecture that actually do it - so check with your PA regarding where it can be done.

[tabletopphantom]

And BTW this kind of information (that is not located in the JET diary or handbook) is a lot more helpful.

[averagesmartguy]

Regarding your specific questions, mail rates, types, and the names in Japanese are already in your JET Diary. Starts on page 198 of the 2008-2009 version.

[jen_kat]

I guess I got lucky with my post office. I originally took the books as a package to the post office and when they asked what was in it, I told them "books," and they advised me to write "Printed Matter" or "Printed Material" on the package. They should have an ink stamp behind the desk, along with the other stamps that they use to mark packages.

... Or maybe that's just my particular post office (a really small one at that).

[red_rapture]

I did this last month when I was leaving Japan to come home. I shipped probably over 60 manga volumes and books in this giant box for about Y8,000. The best part is that it arrived two days ago! I wasn't expecting them till like August or so from the stories you hear.

You're looking for them to ship it by either:

荷物 (nimotsu) - parcel/package
印刷物 (insatsubutsu) - printed matter (books/magazine)

I tried to do the latter option but I think they couldn't do it from there, and it was still about the same to ship it as a parcel so I did that. My Japanese is still only at an intermediate level, so I'm not sure exactly what happened, but it all worked out in the end.

You can estimate how much it will cost you here:

http://www.post.japanpost.jp/cgi-charge/index.php?lang=_en

Best of luck!

[web_kitten]

It's called M-mail (I think- it's in the JET diary). M- something. Only larger post offices do it, so you may have to drag it there. I talked to a local post office and they had no damn clue what I was talking about. Finally someone looked it up and was like, "oh! there it is!" well I'm glad I know more than the post office...
I couldn't get to a large post office with all these books and sent them EMS which was like a man for each big box. ugh.