Need to Know – #1 Currency Exchange
September 9, 2011 2 Comments
Because I couldn’t come up with a song title to match this concept (though I’m sure there’s one out there), and it’s always good to pay homage to PBS, Need to Know seemed to be an apt name for what will be an ongoing series of short posts.
Since I’ve been here, I’ve been struck by all the things I needed to know before I ever hit the ground. There are many questions that you don’t even think to ask, so you can’t possibly get answers. I’m only one person, in one city at one school, so this isn’t going to be a brush with which you can paint all ESL teaching in all of Korea, but it’ll at least be true to my experience. This first installment is about currency exchange.
This is not a major issue, but it turned out to be a bit of a pain in my ass. The director of the recruiting firm that I used assured me that I’d be able to get money changed with no problem when I got here and not to do so at the airport because the rates would be high. At first I decided to be all proactive, so before I left Toronto I tried to change $1000 Canadian for Korean won. Not as easy as it sounds. My bank (Royal Bank) doesn’t keep anything but Canadian and US dollars at the branch I used. It would have taken three business days to get that much won but I was in visa limbo so I had no idea if I had three business days to wait (in the end, I didn’t). I went to a small currency exchange in my neighbourhood and they only had $200 worth of won. Some of the bigger currency exchange firms may have more won on hand, but call and confirm before you spend your time trekking to them. I ended up coming to Korea with only $200 worth of won, but I’m glad I had at least that much without being charged airport rates.
I was lucky in that my neighbour took me to a local bank on my second day here and I was able to change my money. You just have to bring your passport with you and they’ll hook you up. You don’t have to have an account or anything. However, he did the entire transaction in Korean for me. I probably could have muddled through with a Korean phrase book, but it certainly made things go more smoothly to have someone with me because I would not have known to take a number or which wicket to go to otherwise. So yeah, if you want to avoid the hassle, change your money at home. Well in advance.
North America is very bad about having other currencies in banks. In Kansas, you would have to special order ANY other currency. When I lived in Bundang outside of Seoul, even these suburban banks had Yen, Yuan, Canadian dollars, US dollars, and occasionally Euros or British Pounds. Canadian banks are particularly antiquated. I’m now getting my master’s in Canada and had to laugh laugh laugh when the big four bank cartel here bragged about having “free” accounts for students IF you have just one transaction a day. Americans have never had to pay for their accounts – what impertinence to take people’s money and invest it in shady study and then charge them!
I haven’t tried changing won for anything else since I’ve arrived (no need yet) but that’s good to know. I wasn’t sure what banks here would have on hand. Thanks for the tip!