Way back in February when I took a trip back home to Texas, the Korean Won was running nice and high around 930 Won to the dollar.  I could treat every 1000 note (their smallest paper currency) like a virtual dollar. Indeed, I even called them dollars among my foreign friends. That 1000 won note brought me about $1.07 when I exchanged it. Bring enough and you can make a few bucks.

These days, however, the extremely volatile markets around the world have worsened the exchange rate. Today, it’s trading at 1408 Won to the dollar.  That doesn’t really mean a whole lot for the guy just living here as living expenses here haven’t risen. It does mean that sending money back to the US is a bad deal. For every 1000 won note I would now bring over, I could only get $0.71.  Bring enough and you could lose a few bucks.

I hope it gets better by the time I go back to Texas next year. My youngest daughter, Teri, will graduate from the university and my oldest, Jessica, will have given birth to twin girls: Two momentous events I would not miss for the world. A poor exchange rate is not enough to stop me from coming, but it might make the trip expensive as hell. Last time, I ate sushi and steak and big-ass hamburgers. This time, I might have to make do with cheese sandwiches.