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International Auto Shipping To Hawaii From Asia
By: Nir Dotan
My kids call us rolling stones. I've been called worse and this brings a smile to my face, simply because of the source. Sure, we like to roll around, seeing various spots and places and experiencing new cultures.
Why not? We're retired, in our 60's, experiencing reasonably good health, and have set aside enough to allow us the freedom to travel and live all over the world.
I call us movers and shakers.
We've been quartered in Japan for the last few years, specifically in Nagoya.
I love this town; it's quiet and conservative, but large and varied at the same time. But my husband, an ex-computer programmer who is still recovering from a life in the same office chair, recently mentioned to me that he thought it might be time to move on, did he say to Hawaii? Shipping ourselves to Hawaii from Asia? My eyes glazed over at the thought.
Here we go again, I thought. I wasn't averse to it, but guess who takes care of all the nit-picky details of one of our moves? Who finds the international auto shippers, the movers, help to pack it all, not to mention the fact that shipping to Hawaii from Asia may seem like a small step, geographically, but is actually a paperwork nightmare.
In fact it should be called that - Shipping to Hawaii from Asia: Your Bureaucratic Nightmare.
Japan is good at the paperwork steamroll and, knowing that we would want our car there in Hawaii, I called on an international auto shipper first, to get the process going. Here is takes longer than in most places; as is true for anything.
We had to get umpteen-million forms signed, witnessed, and filed. We had to stand in more lines than I've been in to see movies. And the international auto shipping company was the one highlight of reason in it all, as we had used this company before.
At least our car would get shipped to Hawaii from Asia in one piece even if we didn't.
International auto shippers are an interesting breed. They thrive on the details, checking them over and over, but they do a risky thing as they can't watch everyone all the time. So an international auto shipper is only as good as their reputation. That can always be believed.
Our rep was a gem and genuinely liked us. So being shipped to Hawaii from Asia was, in this case, not a worry for us at all. Thank goodness for small favors.
The rest was the usual.
We don't keep much stuff that we can't pack in a bag overnight and take off with. It's interesting how things have changed for us. Fifteen years ago we were suburbanites working in our garden and gathering offspring. And here we were years later, about to roll from one continent to another, really.
Maybe the kids were right.
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