My contract with the school ends todays. In anticipation of that, my director brought my pay to the apartment before work. I got my January salary, my bonus for completing the contract (a month’s pay) and money for the plane ticket home. All told, it’s over 5M.

That’s a lot of cookies – all in 10,000won notes. One day, sometime next year, they are supposed to introduce a larger denomination here in Korea. Perhaps a 50K or 100k note. That would make this stash look substantially less. For now, I’ll have to carry this lump around until I can get to the exchange bank and turn it into US dollars. Currently, those are going for around 945 won to the dollar, making my 5M in won turn into about $5300 which should nicely in a secure pocket. A shame the exchange rate didn’t stay as low as it was in October when it was 903 to the dollar. That would have given me an extra $235 dollars.

I’m bringing nearly the whole deal to America this week. Before anyone gets any ideas, most of it is earmarked already for taxes, TWU, etc.