GMT+9

Above in the picture is from left Mr Kuni the customs broker, then Shin my friend i met in Russia, Shin fell off his friends motorbike at the weekend and is now on crouches again, and Mr Kohta Takemoto the shipping agent in Japan who is working under instruction of the german shipping agent Transglobal Solutions.

I couldn’t sleep last night, it was the same when i left Russia by ship, with all the work involved to get myself and the car onboard i kept thinking about all the possible scenarios that could happen also i had received an email from the ships owner to say that i didn’t need to pay the agent Nippon express for immigration and embarkation and this was chargeable to themselves so the Japanese company should not be charging me for anything, i am only liable for my own transportation between offices and the ship but it was best to cooperate with them as the Japanese like to perform everything to the letter.

I left the Yokohama youth hostel at 8 am and made my way by foot to Ishikawacho station about 10 minutes walk and took the 20 minute ride to Yokohama central station where i changed for the Keikyu Line to Namamugi where i met up with my friend Shin who i first met in Russia and Kohta Takemoto the agent for the shipping in Japan DGX Tokyo.

It is very cheap to travel on any of the public transport system except for taxi’s they are very expensive and are only necessary when the the trains stop running at around midnight, i couldn’t understand that in Tokyo the biggest city in the world that the underground or buses don’t run around the clock.

So at Namamugi station Shin and myself and Kohta walked to the offices of Tsuda Unyu Handling which is a customs Broker company that is handling the export paperwork for the car, we met Mr Kuni there and took his car to Central Yokohama to customs house 1 to get two stamps on his and the ships export papers then we walked to immigration and they completed my departure from japan by closing my entry visa and stamping my passport with a departure stamp, it is all going really smoothly much more easily than i thought, i was happy to have two agents with me that could speak english too, so on paper i myself had left Japan and we all got into Mr Kuni’s car and drove to customs house 2, this customs need to finish the Carne de passage which it started last week but wouldn’t stamp and sign till the saw the customs house 1’s stamp telling them that the consignment was now on board the Mv Hanjin Madrid, they checked my documents my passport and then completed the papers, Kohta gave me a copy of the Bill of Lading and we went downstairs where we took some coffee and relaxed as all the work is now over i just needed to collect my bag that i had left at the container loading company and board the ship. It was now 11.30 and we drove to KUK’s warehouse to collect my bag, i thanked them and we left for the ship.

It is so much easier to board a commercial ship than say an airplane, we drove up too a security barrier and the agent’s car was let into the ships berthing area where many ships are loading thousands of contains stacked around like a steel city stacked high like blocks of flats in a Giants lego set,

as we approached the Mv Hanjin Madrid which i had only seen on the internet i asked Mr Kuni to stop the car as i wanted to take some pictures of the ship before i boarded, it is gigantic maybe five or six times bigger than a ferry i will have to find out exactly from the Captain, we pulled up next to a metal personnel ladder which was taller than any ship i have ever been on before, i got out of the car and we took some photo’s before i thanked them for all the work they had done for me over the last few week’s and Shin hoped to maybe see me in South America when he ships his motorbike over to travel their next year. Shin took some pictures of me at the bottom of the ladder and i walked up towards the deck, at the top i stopped and waved them off.

I would like to thank everyone in Japan that has befriended and helped me, i have had a great time and have learnt a lot about your culture that i never really understood when i first arrived. Thank you Sayonara Tim san