Christmas is just around the corner, and if you’re currently in Japan with your family remaining abroad, you might wonder what’s the best way to get a few little Christmas presents over the big pond in time.
Once you have found your local post office, Yūbinkyo in Japanese (郵便局), there are a variety of shipping methods you can choose from to send your package overseas. In the following, we will guide you through the pros and cons of each method.
The first one is shipment by plane. Here you can choose between three different services.
– EMS (Express Mail Service)
– Airmail
– SAL (economy Air)
EMS is a priority mail service with delivery ranging between two and four days worldwide. However, this comes with a hefty price tag of up to ¥4 000 or ¥5 000 for a standard size kilogram of up to 1 kilogram.
Airmail usually takes three to six days, though the price remains relatively high with about ¥3 500.
SAL is the most economical airmail service. It’s available for the US and most European countries. Local air mail delivery takes between six to 13 days with prices around ¥2 000 for a standard size package of 1 kilogram weight.
The alternative to airmail is the transportation by boat. It has the advantage of being much cheaper – about ¥700 for the same example package used previously. The biggest disadvantage however is the shipping time, ranging from two to three months – a lot longer than even the slowest airmail service.
The choice is yours – just get all of your Christmas wishes and presents out in time!
(In the author’s experience, SAL was the way to go. Shipping a five-kilogram package reliably from Japan to Germany took a little under two weeks)
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