Won and Me

I have a problem with won. I've lived in Korea for nearly 9 months now and the problem has only gotten worse, not better. Won looks like Monopoly money to me and therefore has absolutely no connection to real money to me. I think the reason it seems so unreal and unmoneylike to me is that the currency is so inflated. One thousand won is less than a dollar. (The current exchange rate puts W1,000 as equal to $0.85.) Ten thousand won is less than ten dollars. Normally, I'd hear a number like 10,000 and freak out, but here, it's nothing. And so it doesn't faze me to spend 60,000 won because it has no connection to the real American money behind it. I don't think, "I just spent $53" (which in reality, I did), but "60,000 won? That's it? I've still got 40,000 won left in my wallet. Maybe I can buy Park Place."

The other funny thing about won (as depicted above) is that despite their high currency, most Koreans don't use bills bigger than the 10,000 won. They finally just introduced a 50,000 won note but most of the banks still tend to only give out 10,000 notes. (Which gets a little ridiculous when your rent is over 3 million won a month. Luckily, we pay our rent in dollars and our real estate agent exchanges it for us but seriously? Can you imagine paying your $3,000 a month rent in 300 $10 bills?)

It's funny because some things in Korea are insanely expensive. I'll look at a price tag and my head wants to implode trying to compute how much 2,450,000 won would translate into American dollars. But there are other things in Korea that are insanely cheap but because the price tag still says "2,000 won," it still takes me a good little while to process that that's only $1.70.

Right now, it's strawberry season in Korea. The markets and produce trucks are lined with packages and package of strawberries--some small and overcrowded and others big and delicately packaged--and one of the markets near our house has been practically giving them away for free.

So Thursday night David and I bought 3 packages loaded full of fresh and juicy strawberries for 5,000 won. Yes, we spent $4.50 on the number of strawberries that would have cost us well over $12 in the States. So this weekend, we've enjoyed strawberry and nutella crepes, a strawberry and cream cheese tart, strawberry and blueberry smoothies, and pancakes with fresh strawberries. I think I need to go buy 12 more cases before the prices go back up.

Because right now, I'm really loving the won. And the strawberry induced heaven I'm currently inhabiting.