There are a lot of moving companies in Tokyo and most are professional enough for Japanese.

I’ve moved many, many times in Japan. I guess I just like to move around a lot. I’ve lived in Tachikawa, Fussa, Sangenjaya, Hiroshima, Kure, Osaka and a few other places.

The thing to realize about moving in Japan is that the Japanese are for the most part not accustomed to large furniture. Some moving companies will specifically refuse to move larger Western style beds (king or queen size), pianos, large copy machines, etc. Seems odd, doesn’t it?

“You are a moving company aren’t you?”

“Yes, but there are other specialists to move those things.”

“Okay….”

The other thing you need to be ready for is baby-sitter duty. One moving company I used told me that it was “impossible” to get my $6,000 Italian leather sofa into my 5th floor flat. They instead offered to dispose of it for me. I went irate, told them to bring me some padding and rope, and showed them that it could easily be hoisted up by hand onto the deck and inside from there.

When it came to my $4,000 Stearns & Foster bed set, they again insisted it was “impossible”. I showed them how the American movers had moved it out of my place in Seattle (folding it in half) and ended up doing all the work myself.

The total cost of that move was 320,000 yen. Disappointing, to say the least.

Also, watch the movers as they do their job. When I moved from Kure to Sangenjaya, I was horrified to find the movers carry my 50-inch plasma screen flat (horizontally). A plasma screen should always be carried straight up and down, and I had told them this. Later in the day, I found the plasma screen flat on the ground with boxes piled on top of it.

Moral of the story? Don’t trust them to do a good job. Keep your eyes on the movers and be assertive.

Moving Companies in Tokyo, Reviewed

V7 Hikkoshi Center - The absolute best moving company at the best price. Super cautious and highly professional. Move within Tokyo: 70,000 yen.

Art Moving - Highly professional, highly expensive. Move within Tokyo: 210,000 yen.

Arisan no Mark - Absolutely horrific. If you’re looking get your belongings destroyed, dropped, thrown around and generally abused, click on that link.

Kirin Hikkoshi Center - Hiroshima area only. No complaints here.

Fare: 17,000 yen per car.

Accommodates: Up to seven passengers.

Telephone:

From within Japan: 090-1024-7337 (English speaking operator)

From overseas: (country code 81)+ 90-1024-7337

Website: http://www.naritalimousine.com/

Travel Time: One hour, thirty minutes by expressway.

Two limousine services in Tokyo, Narita Limousine and Narita Airport Service are now providing great quality limousine service from Narita Airport in to hotels in Tokyo.

The both use LandCruiser / Lexus LX 570 cars, which are very roomy and comfortable.

Most Iranian and Iraqis that used to live in Japan - in the public parks, mostly - no longer live here. They’ve been deported. Some remain, though, mostly those who married Japanese nations and had children.

Still, there is a lot of not-so-subtle anti-Middle Eastern sentiment in Japan. Many people would justify it by pointing out the high crime amongst Middle Easterners who lived in Japan.

That is, still, the essence of racism. To stereotype a group by according to the actions of a number of its members is the epitome of ignorance.

With that in mind, I present you with this opinion on religious atrocities.

Hat tip.

Most Japanese people would self identify as either agnostic or Buddhist. Now, of course the majority of those who would self identify as Buddhist simply mean, “my family is Buddhist so I am Buddhist”, not like they really gave it thought or adhere to the tenets of Buddhism.

The agnostics, however, are in for a shock. Most Japanese, when asked if they believe in God, will say “Wakaranai” (I don’t know). It’s the agnostic position, they don’t know and don’t believe it ca be known.

Recent events change that, however. You are now no longer agnostic, but atheist.

The gods of atheism have decided that, since you are not theist, are are atheist.

Yeah, I know, it sucks, but you’ll get used to it.

Since Japanese animation and movies have become so popular, it seems like the Japanese language has been one of the most popular languages to learn in other countries in recent years. In Japanese, we have three different kinds of alphabets. They are called kanji, hiragana, and katakana. Even though this may sound complicated, it is actually very simple and once you’ve learned it, it’s not hard at all.

Kanji are characters borrowed from China a long time ago. Each of them has its own meaning and many of them are based on the shapes of the meanings. Also, they are read in two ways: on-yomi and kun-yomi. On-yomi is based on how they were pronounced in Chinese and kun-yomi is based on the meanings of the Japanese language. We start practicing how to write the basic kanji at elementary school when we are about 7 years old. It’s been said that we have about 50,000 kanji but we only use 1,945 of them in our daily lives which we learn by the time we graduate from junior high. (No one actually cares…)

So, could we write everything in kanji?? If so, it takes a lot of time, doesn’t it? Good question! The answer is “No.” That’s why we have hiragana and katakana also. (Personally, I have no idea how Chinese language works by writting everything in kanji.)

Both hiragana and katakana were originally created in Japan after kanji were brought to Japan from China. Hiragana are formed by simplifying the shapes of kanji and katakana are formed from one part of a kanji. Now, let me explain how they are used:

- Any essential parts in the sentences such as nouns, verbs, adjective, adverb etc

- Japanese names

- Ancillary words (particles, auxiliary verbs, prefixes, suffixes etc.)
- Endings of verbs and adjectives (that we call "okurigana")
- Japanese words that have no kanji and whose kanji are hard to write/read

- Japanese words that the readers are unlikely to know them

- Foreign words and names (mostly)
- Echo-words
- Imitative words
- Commonly used animals, plants and objects

The formation of kanji:

The kanji is formed by combining two or three simple kanji:

Amazing, aren’t they? This shows how ancient people had a lot of imagination to create a langauge as beautiful and interesting as the Japanese language.