Ari's Planet

I needed to get some extra items that weren't ready when I left the US, including Rx sunglasses and a flight ticket to Mongolia. Japan seemed like the best place to have things sent to. Following all the rules, my mom put together a package addresses to: Ari Halberstadt / Poste Restante / Central Tokyo Post Office / Tokyo, Japan.

The US Postal Service (USPS) contracts with Fedex for the fastest delivery. Turns out Fedex doesn't understand Poste Restante, or for some reason cannot deliver to it. So the package sat waiting for Customs clearance, which required a regular street address. Being a tourist, this is not something I maintained. Fortunately, I booked that last couple of nights, which came in handy when the mess was finally explained, including a diverting side-trip to the Tokyo Customs office.

I will be adding an entry to all the tour and guidebooks recommending a diverting trip to the wonderful Tokyo Customs office. The drab grey interior, sedate clerks, and exciting seaport atmosphere are sure to liven any trip. As much as I talked to the customs clerk, it was hard to communicate Fedex, package sent from us, Poste Restante, customs hold, where is package and what do I need to do? The magic moment came when I said it was from my mom, then the sun shone in upon the drab grey world. Moms are a universal currency. I imagined trying to communicate mother in abstract symbols, but English was understood. By the way, there is no Shinsuna Customs Office, or at least none that the clerk I spoke with had heard of. We walked over to the other office, where there were three (sedate) fedex dudes hanging out. One of them called their main office. Turns out all they wanted was a physical address to which to deliver, an email from fedex says that customs won't release without an address. That whole trip was a complete waste of time, and I'm talking like four and a half wasted hours--I could had been sightseeing. Blah.

Lessons learned:

1. Do not try to express mail something to Poste Restante.

2. Learn some Japanese before trying to explain "Expecting Fedex package from US". I wonder if the SVO order causes confusion? Japanese is subject object verb http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subject_Object_Verb, English is subject verb object http://www.sjsu.edu/faculty/watkins/langtyp.htm

3. Customs offices are as exciting as they sound.