Getting it All Home
Suitcase | Post
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Suitcase
You can fill your suitcases, but mind the weights. Doujinshi are very heavy in quantity so you may wish to pack mostly manga and goods, leaving doujinshi and art books for the post. However, it’s a balance because you’ll pay more for shipping doujinshi too. Your call, really.
Post
Posting your purchases is always a good idea (for what you can’t fit in your suitcase). Ship Surface Sea Mail. There are three main sizes of boxes:
Small (23 x 18 x 14): Good for gifts and smaller items.
Medium (31 x 25 x 17): Fits three stacks of manga, about 11 books high for each stack. There will be room to spare, so it’s not very efficient for manga. You might want to use these for doujinshi and art books, which are heavier any way and fit perfectly. Approximate cost to send to Canada was ¥5,600.
Large (40 x 32 x 22): Fits five stacks of manga, about 15 books high for each stack. No room to spare. This is your baby for manga. Approximate cost to send to Canada was ¥8,500.
The average cost for sending a manga or doujinshi by post is about $1.20. But when you pay about $3 (or even $4) for a manga and $2 for a doujinshi (yes, many are that cheap), it’s still cheaper than ordering over the ‘net AND you get a trip to Japan out of the deal. Yes, I can convince myself of anything. 
I strongly suggest you visit the nearest post office and obtain a stack of address labels and one of each box to start with. Go back as needed and make sure you fill out the address labels completely before you go to the post office.
Some tips that may help you out with filling in the packing slip:
- For the return address, use the hotel’s address and your travelling companion’s name. This will make it look like a gift from Japan.
- For the to address, use yourself or your parter or room-mate. If you use yourself, you may get hit with duty, depending on the country you live in.
- For the description, use “personal use, used books, gifts”, to cover all bases. Again, duty can be a bitch.
- Lowball the number of items.
- Lowball the value. Anywhere from $1 to $2 per book is not unreasonable for “used books”.
- If you have another address you can use for the redirect address, that’s great. Do so. Just in case it gets lost.
- Choose Surface, and they’ll likely stamp it SEA MAIL.
See your babies in one to three months, depending on where you live.
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