Moving country can be complicated with a lot of moving parts. Most of which don't justify posts of their own, so here is a little running blog of how the move is going. I'm updating it each month so please check back every now and then!
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| Rangitoto viewed from North Head, Auckland |
January
1st January
It's happening! I can finally say we are 'moving to Japan this year' which means all the waiting and just carrying on with life as normal ends, and we can start planning and actively working on the move. Exciting but also daunting. There's a lot to do and a lot of it has to be done at certain times - I'm a man of action and just want to get things done RIGHT NOW, but alas that is not possible.
12th January
We started the COE application documents so that everything would be ready for my mother-in-law to take back to Japan when she visits next month.
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| A picture of Chelsea to pay my overdue Cat Tax |
February
15th February
Panic stations a little bit as I read somewhere that a COE application can sometimes take many months, whereas we were planning around it taking one month - apply in March, receive April and move May/June was the plan. We hurriedly completed all the COE application documents so that my mother-in-law, who was visiting us in NZ for a week, could take back to Japan where she then submitted my application at the Kumamoto immigration office.
28th February
I also did my own Real Estate photos for our house. Instead of having photos of an empty house (or worse, AI staging) I made sure we had photos whilst it was still furnished and before we started selling off furniture. I bought the excellent (and cheap) Viltrox 14mm f/4 just for this. The photos were all single exposures with bounced Flash on my Nikon Z5II and they came out OK. Even with tight spaces and limited natural light I never felt the need to do multiple exposures and HDR merging - so many Real estate photos look overdone and fake. Modern cameras have plenty of dynamic range. I ended up shooting everything at 14mm and it was the perfect focal length.
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| I took our own Real Estate photos |
March
9th March
Everything is up in the air until the COE is approved. What if it takes too long, what if it is somehow rejected? Nothing we can do but wait, which is one of my least favourite things to do but I know when something is well and truly out of my hands - never stress about things you cannot control!
We didn't wait idly though. We started in earnest clearing out belongings and furniture that we didn't need, selling them online or giving them away to friends. We committed though - we sold things like our Couch (replaced with some cheap Ikea chairs), our Bed base (mattress is now on the floor), Dressers (clothes that don't fit in wardrobes are in boxes and suitcases) and cupboards (our living room now doesn't have any safe places to put things out of a toddlers reach which is fun). I'm not yet ready to let go of the TV yet, otherwise what would we point our new Ikea chairs at?
Compared to what we had, our house is now minimalist, but in a state whereby we could live fine for a few months comfortably - let's hope it's not much more than 2 months.
16th March
The exchange rate peaked at 93/94 JPY to NZD so we exchanged some more money. We keep an eye on the rate and make the most of it when we can - however we still need to keep some savings in New Zealand so we can only move so much at the moment.
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| Auckland Harbour viewed from the Sky Tower |
April
2nd April
Oh wonderful, another global crisis. The timing isn't great for us at all, but at least we are far away from getting bombed and shot at so there is that. I'm having a little panic again due to the fuel crisis and wether we will even be able to travel to Japan - will there be flights available still? Flight prices have skyrocketed and travel insurance doesn't cover circumstances that are due to war, and as evident from the COVID era when Air NZ cancelled lots of flights, they were neither helpful or efficient in giving money back to customers. How we navigate that I am not sure.
Then there's our Cats - their travel is going to cost a considerable amount, probably a lot more than that the $10k I was quoted late last year, and what happens if their flight is cancelled? I don't dare ask the Pet transport company in case the answer is something I don't want to hear. Best to stick my head in the sand and hope this all blows over soon...
So even If I get my COE, as of right now, if the fuel doesn't start flowing again very soon, not only might we be stuck in New Zealand potentially months longer, but that means my 3 month validity period for the COE might lapse and we start the whole process again, and stuck in NZ for even longer. Sigh.
8th April
And to top it off, instead of interest rates coming down they'll go back up, and the economy is slowing down even more thanks to the war and associated inflation, which means we will have a much harder time getting a decent amount when selling our House. We have decided to not list it until we have vacated and we will just have to be patient. We moved the mortgage to interest-only to reduce the cost and are budgeting to cover those costs for up to 6 months, in the hope the house can sell for at least the lowest of our expectations.
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