I woke up in the morning 9,000 km away from where I slept the day before, my brain still 14 hours ahead of local time. My plan for the day was to buy a bed, a computer, and unpack my apartment as much as possible.
After my experiences rebuilding a used computer in Japan, I decided to spend some of my teaching money on a brand new computer that I could plug in and use. I picked one up at Future Shop. The ease of our purchase prompted my mom to buy a new computer to replace her old, problematic one. Our commissioned salesman was a happy guy.
Our next stop was Best Sleep Center, where I picked out an incredibly comfortable queen sized mattress and box spring. We managed to arrange delivery for the next day. This was my first time ever picking out a mattress that someone else would be using – it was a bit stressful! I hope The Penpal likes what I chose.
When I was giving the address for bed delivery I suddenly realized that I had made a huge mistake: my street address is 395, but when I had mailed 5 boxes of stuff from Japan to Canada I had given my address as 359.
The 5 boxes represented the stuff I wanted to keep after 3 years of living in Japan. I had paid over $400 to ship it to the wrong address!! NOOOOOOOO!!
As soon as I got home I called Canada Post to explain my situation. Because of the delivery method I had chosen, I couldn’t officially change the delivery address. Canada Post said they would contact both the Winnipeg distribution and the local post office to let them know of the change, and hopefully someone would notice before attempting delivery. This was not at all reassuring.
Remember friends: when mailing all of your stuff back home, MAKE SURE YOU ARE MAILING IT TO THE CORRECT ADDRESS!!
(2018 Update 1) A few weeks later I received all of my boxes at the correct address. Thank you Canada Post!!
(2018 Update 2) After 10 years of use, a few adventures, and several unfortunate encounters with a barfy kid, we are finally going to replace the mattress. Otsukaresama mattress-san!
Drinking in Japan 