Now that we are unpacked and living in our new abode in Canada, we are finding that there are many things we wished we hadn't left behind. I'm not talking about all the souvenirs and clothes that we sold, gave away, or threw out, but the day-to-day items that we thought wouldn't be necessary for us to bring here. Turns out, everything we used in Japan, we need here and since we had shipped a container (based on volume, not weight), we would have saved ourselves money if we had brought it all.
Some of this regret is our own mistake. Little fiddly things like lamps, cleaning supplies, kitchen gadgets, etc. were felt to be 'clutter' and and since we wanted to de-clutter our lives anyway, decided to leave them behind. However, a lot of bigger or bulkier stuff was left because our shipper said it wouldn't fit in our container, which was absolutely their miscalculation--we had about 10 cubic meters of free space in our container when it arrived at our door in Canada!
My advice (and I know you're wondering!), is to make sure your shipper is loading the actual container at your door in Japan, or that you see the container before it is sealed at least. Our mover couldn't bring the actual container to the door since our neighbourhood streets were too narrow and, instead, did two separate pick ups on two different days with a total of three trucks! I don't think there was good communication between the office staff (with whom we did most of our communication) and their warehouse so the woman I spoke with told me our container would only have 1 or 2 cubic meters free and that we should leave this for packing material.
If you're organizing a move from Japan, I hope this helps you avoid some of things we regret. :)
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