From Shanghai, China to Osaka, Japan - May, 2005

(Their website ain't much use for English speakers, but hopefully this is most of what you need)

The ferry leaves Shanghai (31*15.1790N 121*30.4840E) every Saturday at 1pm and takes just under 48 hours to Osaka (Kobe every alternate week, but they're pretty close together).

I paid at the office (31*15.1690N 121*30.0150E) only the day before, and the boat was not full, so I don't think this would usually be a problem. You can only buy the passenger ticket beforehand. The bike gets paid for after going through customs when you hand it over for them to winch up the side.

Although they have a pricing structure for bikes, even my 250cc was in the large(st?) category, hence 1000 yuan. Smaller is cheaper of course, but it seemed pretty unheard of that they actually ship bikes.

They said they had heard Japanese customs was picky, but I had no issues - they knew I needed my carnet, but weren't exactly sure what their book was telling them. In the end I didn't even need to go down to JAF to buy insurance! No other charges on the Japanese side, either. Except you need 200 yen right away if you want to go through a tunnel to the useful part of town (where you can get on the expressway, if you're over 125cc - apparently the rule banning 2-up on the expressways has gone - get a local to confirm before you rely on this). I had no money, and the lovely customs dude gave me 200 yen out of his pocket.

To get money in Japan, try the ATM's at the post office if you have a VISA - pretty much everywhere else that says they accept VISA only accept "Japanese VISA" whatever that is. Haven't seen any "Plus" support either.

The ferry company seemed reasonably professional and did what they promised. The only real (huge) problems were with their Japanese office not responding to my _repeated_ emails over the course of months. So I've not bothered including that email address, and unfortunately I don't have a China one.

I was allowed to see my bike, all nicely tied up, before sailing, and once we were out to sea I was allowed to visit it to get things I'd need on the voyage. So nicely accomodating, really.

Only other small thing is they bent my luggage rack a bit when they were winching my bike. But not through a lack of professionalism on their part - I was watching the offloading and it seemed quite sensibly done at the time. My rack just wasn't quite strong enough.

Any more queries, please contact me: antonp at gmaildotcom.