Takkyu-bin: Luggage forwarding in Japan
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My luggage showed up at my door the next morning.
Since I was flying fairly regularly, I did the same thing again when I landed at home. Sure enough, my luggage showed up at the door the next day. I wasn’t charged anything. It was magic.
I did this for years (about 6 times), until one day I caught the guy dropping it off. He apparently worked in lost luggage and my house was right down the street from his house, so he just brought it over each time to be nice.
I felt like an ass, but also, I thought there was some magic going on. We had a good laugh about it, but I waited for my luggage after that.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Tom_Hanks_performances
OK. That's the second time now. I feel like in the last 48 hours, "meet-cute" or "meetcute" has been introduced as a New Word and everyone got the memo but me.
Edit: Wikipedia cites a first usage in print of 1941, which implies it was already a common trope at the time: The earliest example given by the Oxford English Dictionary is from Anthony Boucher's mystery novel The Case of the Solid Key (1941), in which a character says "We met cute, as they say in story conferences."
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frequency_illusion
Never heard meetcute before, so, today I'm a lucky 10k as well!
The box, of course, is a laundry hamper.
The train ride was atypical the whole way, the train would've stopped randomly and carriages were very full. We even got to see some angry men loudly complaining and tapping the train driver's door; quite a rare sight in Japan. We later realised it was the small quakes that had struck before the big one.
We arrived in Tokyo delayed, we had some food around Ueno station, just when we were about to board the train the big earthquake struck. It was loud at first, then slow rolling. But it went on for too long. You know it's a big one when the local middle school students are cowering and some even started screaming. The station's lights shorted from swinging so much and some spark flew as well. Then news came, the bullet train would be cancelled, in fact all trains were cancelled. We walked around aimlessly trying to find accommodation for the night but couldn't, everyone was stuck in Tokyo. It was quite funny to see even when almost everything's sold out in convenience stores, same food/drink were left alone everywhere.
At the end we sat and slept in a lobby of a 5 star Hotel nearby Tokyo train station who were nice enough to invite all the people still out and about at 2am. The next morning the bullet train was declared fit to run again, phones started working too, and on our way to catch the train to Osaka, we received a call from our accommodation in Osaka, the staff simply said your luggages arrived yesterday and are here waiting for you.
That doesn't seem too bad now that Adam Curtis ruined it for me. [0]
Takkyūbin (宅急便), "home speedy service" is a trademark of Kuroneko Yamato. The middle kanji on the logo looks like it has running legs. (Look it up!)
The generic term is takuhaibin (宅配便, "home delivery service").
Meanwhile, I'm off to write a book about people who google xeroxing kleenex.
And got free advertising / product placement in the process!
In Yamato's case, they make paying cashless a tiny bit cheaper because handling cash is a time sink for their couriers
- if you're sending your luggage to the airport, check the deadline for sending, depending where you are sending from it could be 2-3 days before your flight
- hotels I paid at were cash only for this service (one of the few things I paid in cash, but likely depends on the hotel)
- some hotels did not take payments for sending, only supporting cash on delivery, so if you're sending to another hotel you should check if they will accept it
Sending from a convenience store is another option if those two last points are problems.
Another thing I thought of, the two times I needed it, the hotels sold cardboard boxes (a few hundred yen) and provided packing tape for free.
I managed to work around this by taking a round-trip Shinkansen trip[1] back to Tokyo to ship my bags from there, at the cost[2] of losing a day in Fukuoka, a Kirby Cafe reservation, and several hits to my pride. I did wind up going to a Japanese arcade for like the first time in my life and acquiring a crippling addiction to rhythm games, but that's a story for another time.
I've never sent baggage from a hotel though - I always just drag my baggage over to the nearest Yamato desk.
[0] And would only explain this to me in rather impenetrable manual keigo that resulted in them pulling out the Translator App of Shame.
[1] I had three bags plus backpack. The Shinkansen baggage limit is two bags per passenger, so I needed to get rid of at least one bag and ideally two.
[2] The monetary cost was zero - the JR Pass is like the god of train tickets and it's a shame they spiked the price.
The next time I take a trip to Japan I'll probably just ship bags to the airport a week in advance and have them held there.
[0] Hoenn
You can go to some of the most remote places and they'll accept paypay lol
The pricing in the article is a bit off. It was about twice what he suggested, but it might have been because our luggage was heavy.
As an experiment, we took a cab from Tokyo to Narita and avoided shipping the luggage. This was expensive (~$200 USD+) and in retrospect, I think I'd rather ship the luggages and take the metro + backpacks.
Don't use roads in Japan!
Allowing two bags per person, it was cheaper for us and didn't need to send it two days in advance.
Though... we did randomly come upon the Panawave Laboratory, and the sight of a gaijin driving around seemed to shock some people our in the middle of the more rural neighborhoods.
Similar to the railway companies. It's interesting how these things just work out either way in Japan.
Another note: If you forget something from a hotel in 1 place, you can always have them send it to where you are going too (着払い; payment-at-arrival).
Sometimes, it's hard to find legitimate complaints when living in Japan.
The route is from Onomichi in Hiroshima prefecture to Imabari in Ehime prefecture. It consists of 6 islands and 7 bridges, but I took a ferry for one of those bridges.
The weather was chilly but I didn’t want to bring my jacket since I expected to sweat from the ~70km ride. The luggage delivery cost was 2,200yen per item regardless of size. The drop-off time is 8am-10am and pickup time is 6pm-10pm. The ride should only take 4 hours but I took my time, started at noon, took many sightseeing/refreshments, and did 90km in total with detours knowing there’s no point in arriving early. You can elect your drop off location so I picked the onsen hot spring. Arrived at 7pm, confirmed my luggage was there and used the hot spring to recover from the bike ride.
They stopped doing it probably because of covid transfer fears, but probably more largely because attendance was down, so it probably wasn't cost effective. They've kept the chartered bus service, but removed the "magical" parts of it, so now you have to get your own bags again.
The Disney travel agent told me to print these labels out in Australia and just attach them to the luggage. Then we just had to hop on a bus when we landed in Florida.
Shame they don't do this anymore by the sounds of it. I was completely sceptical of the whole Disney experience but it all went so smoothly.
e.g. you check out at 11am, but you need to get on your flight at 8pm. you either leave it at the hotel, they might hold on to it, but you still need to go back for the bag. or you lug it around for a day. or you stay in the airport way too long.
also it sounds like you can do it a few days in advance, in which case your bag just goes without you on your travel, before you show up.
Sure, if your only travel in Japan is a single trip from the airport to the hotel, you won't need this.
So there wasn’t a lot of taxi usage but a lot of (busy) street walking and (busy) public transit use. Plenty of people did successfully haul their stuff themselves, but luggage forwarding saved us a lot of headache. Felt very worth the price.
e: There wasn’t a lot of waiting either. We shipped our stuff 1 full day ahead of time (so if we were checking into our next hotel Wednesday we sent our bags Monday afternoon-ish). Maybe it can seem annoying to keep a day or two of clothes with you in a backpack, but cramming into a packed bus in Kyoto with two roller bags seemed like a far worse bargain to us.
I just got back from Japan ~48hrs ago, and I would’ve agreed with you before the trip - we did take a taxi to the hotel from the airport with our luggage. It seemed easier.
In Japan, taxis and road travel are VERY expensive (2x big American cities?), and they have amazing transit infrastructure. We took trains from city to city, exploring and staying at different hotels. In America, this would have required driving. japan has amazing transit, so we wanted to avoid getting extra taxis when the trains go exactly where we need. BUT lugging big bags on trains is a massive PITA for everyone, especially when it’s crowded. The trains are great, and they’re desirable if you didn’t have luggage.
Yes, it seems inconvenient, except the framing is bad. We didn’t wait for the bags. We just went about our day, and they showed up in our hotel room when we got back. We took a backpack with one change of clothes, laptop, etc, and the rest of the luggage just showed up later. When it’s time to go to the next hotel, you just pack tomorrow’s clothes, give the concierge your suitcase and start walking. Sure enough, your bag will be there tomorrow when you get back from being a tourist. Until reading this article, I didn’t know they’d hold your bags too, which seems great if you wanna see the city for a few days on a ski trip or something similar where you know you don’t need all your luggage at once.
Isn’t this normal around the world? I left 2 large suitcases at my hotel in Dubai for a month before returning.
Even if you don't buy stuff when traveling, if you would want certain gear for some legs but not others, you can use it as a locker, i.e. moving the hiking boots into your carry-on before the Mt. Fuji leg, putting the heavy winter clothing in after you leave Hokkaido, etc.
And in contrast to luggage handling in the U.S., Japan's luggage handling is quite cheap, usually on-time, and always handled delicately with very little risk of loss or theft.
Subway? I'll agree with your there.
A group of Vietnamese joined my train last week having just got off a flight from Da Nang to Osaka. They didn't have a luggage reservation, they couldn't fit their medium size cases overhead. They had to store it in their legroom for three hours. It looked pretty uncomfortable even for a 5ft3 Viet woman. I have long legs, I ain't doing that.
Our definition of medium size may differ :)
Yeah, you've also not ridden a fully booked Shinkasen wit a non-reserved ticket...
Taxis are slow, expensive, and worse ride quality than a train, and you'd still have to carry your luggage.
> Waiting hours for luggage to show up seems pretty inconvenient?
You don't wait for it though - it's usually there in your room when you check in, or at worst you have to collect it from the front desk. It's similar to the best part of being on a cruise - you can just go around whichever city you're visiting today, and at the end of the day all your stuff is in your room without you having to worry about it.
If you're going by train, the train from the airport to the hotel may be cramped and standing the whole way and involve going up and down stairs or pulling the luggage along streets. If it's $13 to ship it to the hotel, that's a pretty good deal.
Note that Haneda and Narita are both ~1 hour away from Tokyo so a taxi can be pretty expensive especially if you're alone.
Low Cost Carriers (LCC) sometimes weigh your carry-on bags, and I was so proud of the day that happened to me. My suitcase + laptop bag weighed in at exactly 7.0 KG, and the check-in agent kinda looked at it in shock.
While American Immigration & Customs is a breeze thanks to Global Entry, other countries can have long immigration lines (and elite status may not help you there), which is when I see people carrying their backpack for an hour or having to slide it across the immigration hall for an hour. The wheeled suitcase carry on saves your back while still being able to store plenty. Don't get a hardshell, get a fabric based suitcase as that will be lighter. I also often travel with airlines that I have elite status with, which affords me either less scrutiny or extra carry-on weight allowance.
Just need to plan when to book a suite that has a laundry machine, a hotel that has self-serve laundry, or a long stay where you can send your clothes to be cleaned overnight.
Pretty much every hotel in Japan has a laundry machine, although I don't know of any suites that include one, unless you're going for a managed apartment.
Which is insanely expensive compared to just going down the street to a normal coin laundromat. They are pretty much anywhere (at least in most big cities) and very quick and cheap. You can pay 500 yen at a laundromat, or 5000 yen at your hotel laundry room.
The main issue is those small dryers take an hour to do what a proper coin laundry dryer can do in 20 minutes.
The Holiday Inn Shin Osaka has a washing machine in the suites. Not sure why, but that was just my experience. You’re right that hostels and ”budget” chains like Dormy Inn will also have them.
I’ve also stayed at a resort on Sentosa Island that only had 1 self service washer/dryer machine, and I had to set a 2AM alarm clock to put our clothes in because it was busy otherwise. Usually hotels with self service laundry machines have a whole row of them. Probably by design so I’d give up and pay $10 per shirt washed.
It's mostly an effect of not having the backpack adjusted properly (using only arm straps and having those too loose.)
If on a small route in a small plane then it usually isn’t full.
The only time I had to gate check my bag was when I flew on a 9 seater Cessna which required all carry ons to be loaded into the nose. There was trouble confirming the landing gear was down so I was worried my laptops were going to serve as the crumple zone.
I had to do the latter once in Germany; there was plenty of time to alight, but everyone had piled up their luggage and were picking it out via an O(n^2) algorithm :(
I always wince slightly when I see one of these pronunciation guides for words that I actually know how to pronounce, because for some reason they're never quite right. (I don't know how I'd do better, mind you, and this pronunciation would get the job done.)
But IPA is too hard for Americans.
Which nationality finds the IPA simple?
Found an American?
It's not what IPA is simple (it's not hard for sure), it's what 99% of Americans never even had a chance to at least learn what it is.
Most of the time when you learn some other language the pronunciation is given in IPA. Guess who almost never learn any other language?
I've never even set foot in the Western Hemisphere, try again.
> It's not what IPA is simple (it's not hard for sure), it's what 99% of Americans never even had a chance to at least learn what it is.
How does that compare to say China, Brazil or India?
> Most of the time when you learn some other language the pronunciation is given in IPA.
I have native-level proficiency in 3 languages, all of which use entirely different writing systems. I also studied French in highschool. Guess what I was never taught?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pronunciation_of_English_%E2...
After I moved back to the states I talked informally with some VCs about the idea of doing something similar. "Americans don't trust people to handle their bags" was the refrain. I think it's cause I wasn't pitching a slick web app.
Also... it seems Yamato Transport (the company that handled my bags) actually cared about not losing bags.
We are barbarians. We can't have nice things.
Last time I used takkyu-bin at Haneda airport there was a massive line at the Yamato transport desk. I think we spent 20+ minutes waiting. We had to use it because we had way too much luggage to schlep on a shinkansen, but if I only had a single suitcase - even a large one - I would probably just bring it with me.
The direction, or sending between hotels, has always been fine though.
The design for one of the companies that provide this service is one of my all-time favorite brands.
The folks I was travelling with referred to them as, "Neko-chan" or, "Kitten."
The logo for Yamato is a mother cat carrying her kitten in her mouth.
That’s sort of shocking to me. I’ve only spent a few months in Japan but it was well known among people I knew offering advice leading up to each trip and mentioned on every single travel guide. On top of that there are always lines at every counter and you see them often enough picking up and dropping off in hotels.
There's been a dozen times where I only started finding a hotel while Ubering to the international airport. One time I had to change out of my seat for landing because my seatbelt wasn't working, so I sat next to a stranger and started talking. She offered to split a cab with me and asked where I was staying, but I told her I didn't book a place yet (she was shocked). I found a nice hotel chain, booked it and on the way downtown told the driver.
I like to visit and explore a city, and then I'll know where I want to stay the next time I go back. I've certainly screwed myself a few times (I didn't know Seoul was so big so every day started & ended with a 1 hour Uber) but I have the entire rest of my life to learn and experience, so why try to do it "perfect" the first time? I've been to Singapore a few times but haven't seen those Lion fountains yet. I don't know where they are, but it'll be cool when I run into them by accident sometime in the future.
On a side note you might be like me as well in another sense and be an introvert too. This is kind of how I got to grips with it and accepted it wholeheartedly https://medium.com/@ivankerin/am-i-an-explorer-76219a8f4199
I’m fond of my Peak Design Field Pouch[0] for this because I find it the perfect size and it matches the laptop bag I’ve been using for ages but naturally there’s a ton of options.
[0]: https://www.peakdesign.com/collections/all-bags/products/fie...
Also in Japan, if you're a foreigner (this includes non-citizens on long-term visas or even with permanent residence status), you must carry identification at all times. Usually, this means your "residence card", since it's dumb to carry your passport unless you're traveling internationally. Citizens, however, are not required to carry ID. This can cause problems when police assume you're a foreigner and don't believe you're naturalized.
Why would it be "dumb"? But regardless, AIUI you're legally required to carry your residence card specifically (or, if you're a temporary visitor, specifically the passport you entered on with its entry stamp, although they relaxed that part for covid), not just identification.
US law requires aliens to carry their 'certificate of alien registration' or 'alien registration receipt card' 8 U.S. Code § 1304 (e) [1]
US citizens have no such requirement. And, afaik, have no requirement to have ID at all. Professional medical providers participating in a birth have an obligation to register the child under state laws, but not all births are connected to professional medical providers. It's really convenient to have a birth certificate, so most citizens have their births registered, but it's not required.
Similar services apparently also exist in Europe, but are much more expensive than the 15€ mentioned in the post:
It was a little stressful worrying about whether our bags would actually be there on the ship, but it was well worth not hauling everything around.
Just another example of how in some ways (not all, i will admit) the past was a better place.
Moving some of the luggage made their life easier at the cost of a final delivery.