“Pack light and buy everything” is advice often given to travellers and I’ve always wondered for whom it is actually appropriate: Paris Hilton, perhaps, or an Onassis or someone for whom travelling or moving overseas is their first foray outside of the parental home so they have not yet spent money on household goods which would be left behind (thus wasting the cost of buying them in the first place and costing money sitting in some form of storage back in the country of origin.)

Yes, there is an IKEA in Tokyo, there are also Nitori (which is the Japanese equivalent and more plentiful) but moving overseas is stressful and most of us have budgets which need to be balanced and need to think a wee bit harder than “eh we’ll buy one there.” But then again I guess all that work preparing to move us over here, as well as carefully writing this article in hopes of helping someone else in the same situation was all just a waste of time.

I have Neosporin (for healing cuts) shipped over.

I’ve lived in Asia the past 8 years covering two countries and have always used Western shampoos.

Deodorant has gotten better, at least in Tokyo, in the past year. Now antiperspirant I hear is much harder to find. I’m not a big armpit sweater so not an issue for me, but just the other day a friend who went back to the U.S. and bought some said how much he realized he missed being dry.

If you are thinking of buying a new Mac, and you live in the U.S., most definitely buy it in the U.S. first, unless you want to drop an extra $200-300 or so for no reason. Same thing for a bicycle. If you can ship it cheaply, but it there.

When I first moved abroad in June 2000, I had a single suitcase and a computer bag. Now I have a 1k apartment FULL of stuff.

I really recommend bringing things that have sentimental value to you to put in your apartment. Every apartment I’ve lived in over the past 8 years I’ve put certain things that have a lot of meaning to me (but would appear as junk to others), and just having those things in whatever place I’m living at the time, helped to make it feel like home and made it instantly feel familiar.

I’m glad you have had easy experiences getting your stuff overseas, the advice we had was that others had not been so lucky and it might be more convenient to have enough of a supply to last you till you were settled and confident enough to handle a doctor’s visit. If you or one of your family members is on regular medication then even if your doctor doesn’t charge for the visit you will need to have a good translator with you which will cost money.

I would run a mile from any doctor who prescribed my medication from a translated piece of paper without the ability to communicate with me enough to have a proper consultation.

Most meds have different names in different countries. The meds I use in the US I have bought in Canada, Israel and India. In each country they have different names. Local MDs have books like the Merck manual that tells them equivalents. After one MD visit (which is often cheap or free, in my experience) my drug buying problems are solved. Buying in the new country also saves the hassle of customs inspections.

That does explain the cold meds complaints – ours are probably just as good (bad?) then, as Australia made what we called pseudoephedrine illegal recently. People (mostly bikie gangs according to the media lol) were using tablets which contained it to make speed in massive amounts. Talk about ruining it for the rest of us, lol, I really noticed the difference (though I was also rather annoyed to find out I was taking such a drug without really knowing it.)

For me, I knew I’d be in Japan for far too long to consider putting stuff in storage. I had a ‘fire sale’ and then asked my parents to look after the few things I couldn’t part with, but was hesitant to bring with me. And, even though I’ve been here for awhile and have no plans to return for good in the near future (just signed papers on a new apartment in Shibuya), I’m trying not to accumulate much. This keeps the stress level down not only with respect to personal property management, but also with not having to worry about what I’ll eventually have to get rid of and what I’ll have to pay to have shipped.

That said, I wonder if I’ll ever reach a point where I know that I’m going to put my bones down here in Japan.

The second in my series of moving tips aimed at anyone moving here but particularly Inter-Company Transferees and their wives… This article aims to help people with the stress of deciding what to bring and what to leave at home in storage……