flight advice

[JasonRW]

I am moving to Japan soon for at least one year. I am having a hard time figuring out how I am going to get my bass there. I am hesitant to buy a trunk, because I will have a small apartment, and I don't know where I am going to stick a huge case for a year. Do I have any other options.
Any advice would be extremely helpful.
Does anyone know any bass players in Japan - particularly southwest Honshu (Hiroshima area)?

-Jason Rosenholtz-Witt

[JimmyM]

Well, there's no cheap way to do it. You can buy a seat for your bass on the plane, you can send it to yourself (provided you have an address in Japan already) through an overseas freight company. That's about it. If you ship it, you can probably get a cardboard box built for shipping uprights through one of these upright companies that ships a lot of basses. They aren't cheap, but they're very sturdy and much better than trying to ship it in a fridge box.

[arnoldschnitzer]

Perhaps you could have a crate made that screws together. On arrival in Japan, disassemble it and store it under your bed for the trip home. Or, better yet, build it in such a way that it turns into a bed, and sleep on it for a year...