Shipping my things from Japan to Sweden

I lived in Japan for 3 years, and during 2 of those years I had quite a big apartment for one person (compared to most of my friends) with lots of space for all my stuff. And even if you live in a much smaller apartment of course you are going to accumulate a certain amount of things over the years.
So when it was time for me to finally leave Japan after these 3 years I knew that I would have to get all my favorite things back to Sweden, my Casio keyboard, all my manga, favorite blanket (yes, I want it with me!), and other random stuff that would mean nothing to anyone but me.

Since I could not possibly bring these things back with me on the plane ride to Sweden I searched the internet for "International Shipping companies in Japan" and found the one that seemed to be the cheapest for me to my country.
It's called "Japan Luggage Express" and they are not a shipping company, but they middle hand between you and the shipping company. So if you already know a lot about shipping and all that you probably wont need a middle hand, but I certainly did. There were loads of things, especially in Sweden that I did not understand that they helped me with.

In Japan I packed up all the things I wanted to ship in boxes and a guy came and picked them up, put labels on them. I had to write a packing list of all my stuff and what each thing was worth, and the total cost of all of it as well as filling in some other documents.
It's not that difficult, you just need to make sure you contact the company on time (I contacted this company I think 1.5 months ahead) before you leave Japan. If you leave Japan before you have made the payment to the company you might have to pay a lot of extra money paying from another country. If you cannot pay they will keep your stuff (obviously).

I think I payed "Japan Luggage Express" around 87.000 yen for their services and I thought that would be about it as far as my shipping payments would go. Of course I knew that I would probably have to pay something to customs in Sweden, but from reading other peoples stories about customs it seemed like that sum wouldn't be too much.

Needless to say I was wrong!

Turns out customs aren't very cheap in Sweden. Or maybe it wasn't the customs after all. I got a document with a bunch of different fees for different things that I had no idea would even occur. Among them were: Terminal fee, Service fee, Inland Haulage, Customs declaration (Not the same as customs fee), and other fees! These are direct translations from Swedish and I don't know how correct they are.

So when I got back to Sweden I ended up having to pay more than 5000 kronor (around 64.000 yen) just to get my stuff out of customs and w.e and shipped to my adress.
It was a lot more than expected, so feel lucky if you do not have these fees in your country!

Now my savings for university are gone, haha. I was very pissed about it, but I have gotten over it now, and hopefully my things will arrive at my door tomorrow and no more fees will occur.
Maybe tomorrow I will finally have everything from Japan with me (I have no idea where I will put everything though!).

If you are going to ship things from Japan to your country, beware of high fees! Always have some extra money saved up in case you need it, or your stuff will be forever lost in transit, something I feared would happen!

Well, atleast my things didn't get destroyed by an "act of god" while on the boat! Had that happened I would not have gotten my money back for lost stuff o.o!

Seriously this is from my insurance contract, how are they even allowed to have "act of god" on there, lol. They can literally call anything an "act of god" and then refuse to pay back anyones money if something were to happen xD was pretty funny to read tho

Finding a summer-job, and writing novels

Hello there, blog!

I've been in Sweden for over a month now and time has been moving so fast, it's quite hard to understand.
During this time I have been applying to a lot of summer-jobs (which are easy jobs aimed at people, mostly students, who haven't finished their education and who want to work for a few months during the summer when all the adults have their vacation time). I even began to apply while I was in Japan and I thought that as soon as I came back to Sweden I would get calls to come to interviews (because you don't really need any credentials for most summer-jobs). But now I've applied to over 20 jobs and they've all said no.
I still remember the e-mail I got basically telling me I wasn't qualified enough to work as a dishwasher...

Thing is, I thought I would be fine not having a job this summer, as long as I could get one the next. But recently I found out that I have to dash out almost 50.000 yen to get my shipment from Japan! The shipment that I already paid almost 90.000 yen to ship!! Everyone just wants their piece of my money and now that I got no income again, it really stings.

So if I do not get a job this summer I am actually pretty screwed. It will work out some how, but hopefully I can find a job and wont have to worry about this any longer.

Well, that's enough about my money problems. Most things are good here. I got to go scootering and slaloming in the middle of April (didn't know that was possible, but in some places it is). And I have been quite diligently writing books again.

I have been writing books for a long time. In my early teens I wrote a rip-off of Harry Potter as well as Avatar The Last Airbender - all mixed up in one novel of about 120.000 words! WTF!
If you didn't know (I didn't), 120k words is considered to be too long and you probably wont get your first book published if it is that long. So this is just a huge load of bull that I wrote. It was so long ago that I don't even remember what happens in the book, and what kinda plot it had that took that long to resolve.

The reason why it got that long though is because I didn't count words, but pages. I figured half an A4 page is about the size of a page in a book. And a fantasy novel is usually around 350 book-sized pages. So if I write 180 pages I have myself a novel! Wrong! Counting words is what you should be doing, and is what I am finally doing now. Cheers!

So now I am once again on the task of rewriting a book I wrote in upper secondary high school. It was hard to start writing again, because my confidence was really, super low. I felt like I would never become a good writer, and that there is no reason in trying. So for the longest time, over three years(!), I didn't try. I tried writing some in Japan but the feeling of hopelessness just kept coming over me, the feeling that I will never get good at this and never become a real writer.

It's hard to push past a feeling like that, but one of my friends reminded me of the fact that I have to work for what I want, and that I shouldn't give up. Maybe she's the reason I am finally writing again. Thank you for that! ;)

So after coming back to Sweden I did start writing, seriously this time, not just a mere 300-500 words a day, but around 2000 words a day. And it only took writing a couple of chapters and comparing them with my old work, for me to realize that I have improved and will keep on improving. So far I haven't gotten stuck once, and every time I sit down to write I feel excited.
I know I can write a novel, because I've done it before, three times. Maybe these previous novels were shit, and maybe the one I am writing now will also be shit, but at least I know I can make it happen.

Still, when I look up publishers and such or read about the grim reality of getting published, I still feel like it will never happen for me. And I guess that's a feeling that stops a lot of people from achieving their dream. Trying is as good as anything, and fear shouldn't stop you. I hope it doesn't stop me.

Oh, yea. What a super long post about something I may be the only person interested in! But I had to get it off my chest, and now I can move on, because I have to leave my laptop and move to the kitchen go do the dishes!

I will see you around!