Yay Boxes?

So all of our 15 FedEx boxes arrived, many of them having been re-opened by Customs. Here they all are, piled up in our living room/dining room area. Not terribly banged up, we were quite ecstatic that the boxes were here so quickly. Customs had just released them Friday, and they arrived Saturday afternoon. The local shipping guys were also really helpful, carrying all 15 boxes up the stairs to our second floor apartment, and handing them to us at the door. The Japanese do NOT enter a house with shoes on. They all have little entryways where you stop and take off your shoes, then step up to the actual floor, and shoe cupboards in the entryway to keep your shoes in. Having all the boxes here safe and sound was quite a relief, even more so as all of my button-down shirts were in the boxes and I started work last Wednesday.

We had quite a few issues with FedEx and our boxes - mid-August, we learned that 14 of the 15 customs declaration papers (with weights and costs) were missing. We figure it was Chris the ever-so-helpful FedEx guy in Bedford - this is meant very sarcastically. We told him the shipment was worth $9000, he logged it in as $2400. We took 9 hours to fill out the 15 sheets, and we're pretty sure it was him who lost them, since he told us we only needed one and they proved that the shipment was worth well over $2400. So we're going back and forth with FedEx, and they're telling us to falsify the information, and we really don't want to since we couldn't remember everything that went. The number of kitchen implements alone was quite large, and pricing it all? Not going to happen. They said they'd just let it all sit and it would be allowed in when we got here. So the boxes finally arrived. About four of them came bearing this:

A lot of our dishes were broken. Six out of eight bowls (three of Lee's beloved blue bowls and three of the brand new ones from Target), all heavy ceramic and packed fairly well. Two out of four Ben and Jerry's holiday bowls bought with Debit from the RIT on-campus Ben and Jerry's the year they sold them (Freshman year, I think). These were all different colors and had sayings on the outside - we still have Peace and Harmony, but Love and Joy are gone. Two out of four champagne flutes, both of the Reidel glasses from the EPCOT Food and Wine Festival last year, three of Lee's four Old Fashioned Double glasses (whiskey glasses) and two of our five beer-style glasses, including an RIT Alumni glass and my EPCOT Mission Space one. Luckily, neither of my mugs broke and none of our four actual dishes. The largest Pyrex measuring cup of a set of three, never opened still in original packaging broke as well. Both of our metal strainers were bent amazingly, though later fixed by Lee. Well, un-bent - one of the handles broke off in the un-bending process which involved quite a bit of kicking. We figure that might be why they wanted the costs so badly earlier. We had no shipping costs, so we get no reimbursement for all that was broken.

Only seven ceramic items survived - the four bowls and two mugs, and the brand new Polish plate from my mother that was a wedding gift. I wish the Ben and Jerry's bowls had come out okay, but I'm very glad that the plate and mugs survived. We may try to glue a couple of the ceramic bowls back together since they're in huge shards, but we might just go buy more. Gluing them together might be the easiest method, since garbage regulations here are crazy.

Final tally (Not Broken/Broken/% Broken):
Stemware - 2/4/67%
Ceramics - 7/8/53%
Glasses - 2/3/60%
Pyrex - 1/20/5%
Glass shards in my foot - 2 so far

Moral of the story: Pack your box so full with bubble wrap that nothing can move, then write "FRAGILE" over everything. But probably just bring everything that could be broken with you on the plane.