Getting my stuff home

[foodtarget]

I briefly searched for posts on this topic, but I wasn't quite sure what to search for and I didn't get many helpful results. Anyway, I'm about to finish up a year of study here in China (leaving in a month), and now I have to deal with the problem of getting all my crap back to America. I already had over 30kg of luggage when I came over (which I now regret), and during my time in China I have amassed a heavy heap of books and souveniers. The worst part is, before I go home, I have to take a domestic flight to Beijing, and the free checked luggage limit is 20kg. So my question is, what's the most convenient/cheapest way to get my stuff home? I've been considering these three options:

1) Take all my stuff on all my flights, which will of course carry some hefty overage fees

2) Posting a big box of stuff (mostly books) home. A potentially expensive option, but I could avoid lugging extra luggage around Beijing and through airports. On this note, could anyone give any advice on the best way to ship back to the States? I know I could use UPS/FedEx to send a large package (for 1000RMB or more), but it seems like their specialty is getting it from door to door in a matter of days. I don't need it to get home fast, just to get there...

3) Posting stuff to a friend in Beijing and then taking it home with me on the international flight.

I'm sure a number of people have encountered this problem before, so I would greatly appreciate any advice/personal experiences. 谢谢

[Shadowdh]

DO NOT send it via ups or another courier co, and certainly not via excess baggage... I have just returned home and had to send back heaps and heaps of books... among other things... and after ALOT of searching I finally had to send it back via china post and it actually turned out cheaper than anyone else... so Post away I say... I sent all mine air mail and it was still cheaper and it got here quick too...

[foodtarget]

Really, China Post? I never would have guessed that they're so.... reliable. But if it worked for you and it's cheaper than UPS then I guess it sounds like a good plan. Thanks for the input!

[DrWatson]

I've found that paying the airline the extra money is usually worth it. Last time I moved, I believe the rate for sending 5 kg of books only was around US $50. My airline charges US $50 for each leg of your return trip home if your baggage is overweight. My luggage was quite over the limit, but it only cost me US $100 when I would have spent much more on the post office.

If you do use the post office, make sure you try to separate things. There are usually lower rates for printed materials (books). If you mix them together though then you have to pay standard rate.

[Lu]

I sent it all by surface mail (水陸), through the post office. Make sure you pack well so that nothing breaks, I don't know what Chinese postpeople do with packages but they might well be playing soccer with it. Boxes are for sale at the post office. Gets there in 2-3 months, so most useful for things like winterclothes and heavy books. The post might not be 100% reliable, but overall I've sent three boxes and each arrived just fine.

[heifeng]

Similar situation as you, but have 3 years worth of stuff, mostly books too. So, I just shipped 16kg worth of books doing what LU up above suggested for a grand total of 411 yuan.

I've shipped big boxes via China post to the US before, but using the air/sea option which got the parcel there quite quickly..between 2-3 weeks. I've never lost a package from China to the US, but have had a package never show up from the US before.

Also, 'in general' airlines don't weigh your carry-on, so I have about 20 books in my carry on too.

Lastly if they still say you're beyond the limit, just open up your suitcase and wear all the clothing at once:mrgreen:

[Lu]

Yeah, that too. Put the heaviest books (dictionaries) in your carry-on, and if possible in your laptop bag.

On a related note, since I'm going home by train this time around and don't want to drag my laptop all through Russia, any thoughts or tips on shipping my laptop? Am planning to wrap it in at least one blanket and then in a suitcase in another suitcase, write FRAGILE on it and send it like that. Provided that the Taiwanese post office lets me mail a suitcase.

[anonymoose]

I also used China post to send about 20kg of books home from Dalian, plus a guitar! All arrived in reasonable condition (the guitar arrived perfectly, but some of the books got a bit of a bashing). I don't remember exactly how much I paid, but it wasn't an awful lot, at least compared with other options. This was about 3 years ago. I'm not sure what the procedure is now, but then the postal workers wanted to inspect everything that was going in the package, so my advice is, don't waste your time packing everything neatly and sealing it before you go to the postoffice because you'll probably have to undo it all again anyway.

[heifeng]

I'm not sure what the procedure is now, but then the postal workers wanted to inspect everything that was going in the package, so my advice is, don't waste your time packing everything neatly and sealing it before you go to the postoffice because you'll probably have to undo it all again anyway

Yeah, same here. They totally loaded each book one by one into the box for me this time and wouldn't let me mail some seasoning packets...however in the past when I went to a larger, much busier post office (N 3rd ring near BNU) they just asked what I was going to ship and didn't even look at it....but then again that was over a year ago before this Olympic madness...

Lu, sounds like it should get their in one piece. throw some foam peanuts in there too in case they descide to drop-kick it during loading, keep your fingers crossed and you should be all set...

[imron]

Lastly if they still say you're beyond the limit, just open up your suitcase and wear all the clothing at once

Been there, done that It was the middle of summer too. I sure got some strange looks from the immigration guys

[foodtarget]

the postal workers wanted to inspect everything that was going in the package, so my advice is, don't waste your time packing everything neatly and sealing it before you go to the postoffice because you'll probably have to undo it all again anyway

Yea I've been through that nightmare. I spent a lot of time packing a box of wrapped Christmas presents to send home, only to have the postal worker (who made American postal workers seem pleasant) take everything out to investigate it. Luckily he didn't want to unwrap everything, but I had made the mistake of using Chinese newspapers to wrap some of my presents. The postal worker claimed that it is against the law to send Chinese newspaper out of the country (don't know why, since I doubt anything in it is very reliable). So I had to take some of the presents home and re-wrap them.

Thanks for all the advice everyone has been giving! I guess I will try posting a bunch of books back home in the next couple days. I'll probably still have overweight luggage, but maybe I can reduce it by 10 or 20kg... Maybe I'll be wearing all my clothes home

[Shadowdh]

Yep really, taking it via excess baggage on the plane would have cost me 400 kuai odd per kilo!!! sending it via China Post (and yes they packed it all checking things, although they were not anal about checking the books I had in plastic bags but did query the bronze/copper/brass dragons I had and had to call a higher authority to make sure it was ok...) was much cheaper all in all it was about 2100 kuai for 30 odd kilos (probably a bit more as I added a whole lot of stuff in my last 3 days... I also had my carry on daypack and my laptop bag filled with books, so full the seams literally started to unravel... thank god they did not weigh them...!!!

[Luobot]

On a related note, since I'm going home by train this time around and don't want to drag my laptop all through Russia, any thoughts or tips on shipping my laptop?

I don’t know much about shipping, but I’ve noticed that when companies like Dell ship notebooks (or computers in general), they essentially suspend it in thick Styrofoam, which protects it, while adding very little shipping weight. The Styrofoam fits snugly into the shipping carton so that there is no movement of the contents. Also, bubble wrap doesn’t add much weight and it’s useful for covering exposed parts and for filling up empty space within the carton (suitcase) that may allow the contents to shift around. I would try to simulate that effect, if possible.

You may want to consider backing up your critical data to an external storage device of some sort, and carrying that, or uploading anything really important to a server that provides this service. If you just have a bunch of study notes that you wouldn’t want to lose, then you can email them to yourself.

Hope your notebook (and you) have a nice, safe trip back home!

[cStyle]

Just a warning about shipping your laptop back home. Last week I tried to ship some electronics I bought in my home country home (Hard drive, headphones, and a microphone) via China Post and was told I was not allowed to ship them until after the Olympics.

[Lu]

Fortunately there are no Olympics in Taiwan.

Thanks for all the tips, will ship it soon. Now first to the post office for another box.

[foodtarget]

Just wanted to update on my situation, getting books back home and all. So yesterday, I shipped a 20kg box of books back to America by slow boat for a grand total of 478元。 The price wasn't as bad as I expected. I seem to remember it costing a lot more to ship a lot less home from Japan. The only problem is that I still have 48kg of books to get home. Yea, I wasn't kidding when I said I had a book-buying addiction (I just bought more books yesterday!). So I'm thinking of shipping another 10 or 15kg home, devoting one 23kg checked bag to books, and hoping I can fit the rest in my carry-on :-/ The good news is that some of the books can be sold in America for a lot more than what I paid for them here in China (I bought one book on Taobao for $40, and back home on Amazon the asking price is $116 since it is out of print). So hopefully I can recoup some of my shipping expenses by unloading a few books when I get home...

[[欧阳江]]

If you send books by China Post the fee is: 20RMB / KG for SURFACE, 30 RMB / KG for SAL, and above 100 RMB / KG for AIR.

[tommyk]

I've sent things by China Post numerous times and its a pretty good option. I sent a few boxes from Beijing to Australia and it cost about $50AUD per 15kg box (that was by sea mail and took about 6weeks. By sea is the cheapest of course. You can get insurance (but its only for while the box is in china i think).

Overall its pretty reliable, i have sent a total of 9 or 10 boxes over a few years and all of them came untouched and no breakages.

But spending your time in China Post can be awfully unfun sometimes, especially when they ask you to unpack every single little sock. Well Beijing Olympics security has certainly stepped up.

Tommyk

[chinagirl14]

Don't customs of your local country (the place where you are sending your stuff to) charge duties or taxes? Just wondering because I've heard that some countries do that...

[Shadowdh]

None of my packages were charged with duty... mostly books and gifts though, no personal or electronic things... And even when I came back carrying two carry on bags full with books and a shed load of cds I still went through customs with narry a problem...