I'm a winner with the Won!

The Korean currency is called the Won. Last year it took about 1000 Won to buy a U.S. Dollar. The Won had a bit of a crash last month and now the exchange rate is nearly 1500 Won to the U.S. Dollar. This 30% drop is not so good for Koreans who want to buy items from overseas. But, for those of us earning Dollars and spending Won, it is wonderful. Korea was already a fairly cheap country before. Now it is great.

The biggest bill they have here is 10,000 Won. That is about $7. I don't have any local debit cards yet, so we are paying for everything in cash. A few hundred Dollars comes out to many hundreds of thousands of Won. In Dollars, you can carry $200 in two bills. The equivalent amount of money in Korea takes about 30 bills. My wallet is straining.

A typical meal in the places we like to eat costs us about 10,000 Won for both of us. The nice foreign restaurants we have tried were in the 30,000-50,000 Won range. A ride on the subway costs under 1000 Won and a twenty minute taxi ride is usually under 10,000 Won. Actually, taxis are pretty cheap. They start at around 2000 Won and the numbers don't start going up for a mile or so. Even once they start changing quickly, it is only in increments of 100 - less than a dime.