DanFromCali
18th September 2008, 10:10 AM
finally got my shipping container from Los Angeles -> Auckland -> Scotts Landing (Rodney) ... it took about 2.5 months, but its finally here. I ended up using a shipping guy that does a bit of work with some business associates here, and it was a bit guerilla style - not a true moving company - but i hired movers along the way. The final tally was just over 8K US$ to get the 40 foot extra tall container door to door.
One thing of note is that all the details i put into my container list brought MAF out to the storage depot in Warkworth about 15 min from my house to take poke around. The funny thing is that they asked we pull out a couple of items of interest b4 hand so they wouldn't have to dig. Not really sure what this policy achieves as i was given total access to my container and could have taken anything i wanted. If there had been bugs brought in from the US, they would have been all over the site anyways. Luckily i knew where the items they wanted to see were and it wasn't too much of a hassle - tho at one point i did consider just going to the Warehouse to buy a spice rack they listed that was buried in the container and just showing it to them. :laugh The actual one wasnt too hard to find tho.
Reading stuff on this site really freaked me out about how strict MAF was, and maybe i got lucky, and i definitely documented everything in the container, but the guy who came out looked a 19 year old kid and i didnt ever feel like they were all that thorough.
FYI - the things on the list were a kids trike, some wood decor, prams, a spice rack, and my wife's arts and crafts.
Anyways, in the end its finally here and my wife was almost in tears to see all our stuff after sleeping on a mattress on the floor in an empty house for 3 months.
My North American VIZIO HDTV works great here using HDMI with mySkyHD so the Pal/NTSC issue never came up at all. Glad i bought one at Costco b4 i left LA bc a comparable tv here would have been double the price. :clap
One thing of note is that all the details i put into my container list brought MAF out to the storage depot in Warkworth about 15 min from my house to take poke around. The funny thing is that they asked we pull out a couple of items of interest b4 hand so they wouldn't have to dig. Not really sure what this policy achieves as i was given total access to my container and could have taken anything i wanted. If there had been bugs brought in from the US, they would have been all over the site anyways. Luckily i knew where the items they wanted to see were and it wasn't too much of a hassle - tho at one point i did consider just going to the Warehouse to buy a spice rack they listed that was buried in the container and just showing it to them. :laugh The actual one wasnt too hard to find tho.
Reading stuff on this site really freaked me out about how strict MAF was, and maybe i got lucky, and i definitely documented everything in the container, but the guy who came out looked a 19 year old kid and i didnt ever feel like they were all that thorough.
FYI - the things on the list were a kids trike, some wood decor, prams, a spice rack, and my wife's arts and crafts.
Anyways, in the end its finally here and my wife was almost in tears to see all our stuff after sleeping on a mattress on the floor in an empty house for 3 months.
My North American VIZIO HDTV works great here using HDMI with mySkyHD so the Pal/NTSC issue never came up at all. Glad i bought one at Costco b4 i left LA bc a comparable tv here would have been double the price. :clap