« The Trouble with Jetlag | Main | Quick Book Review and Thoughts on a Culture of Life »

Current Currency

My mind has yet to get used to the Hong Kong dollar, and as a result is suffering perpetual sticker shock. There's a little less than eight Hong Kong dollars to one American dollar, and the smallest bill is a twenty. Having a ten dollar coin, or getting a $130 tab from a restaurant, still shakes me up a bit.

My rule in Japan was pretty simple: yen are pennies. Very light, aluminum pennies. Sure, I've lived there in periods when there were anywhere from ninety-some to one hundred twenty-some yen to the dollar, but to get a rough idea of price I could always just knock off two zeros and add/subtract "a bit."

I'm sure I'll get used to this too. About the same time I stop crashing into bed at ten o'clock and waking up at 4 AM.

Comments

Simple. Your Hong Kong dollars are French francs (pre Euro). Maybe not calling them dollars will unconfuse you.
Preferable, perhaps, to pounds, which are kind of like dollars, but only half as valuable. London is shockingly expensive (although I doubt HK is much more reasonable).

Post a comment

(If you haven't left a comment here before, you may need to be approved by the site owner before your comment will appear. Until then, it won't appear on the entry. Thanks for waiting.)

NOTICE TO SPAMMERS, COMMENT ROBOTS, TRACKBACK SPAMMERS AND OTHER NON-HUMAN VISITORS: No comment or trackback left via a robot is ever welcome at Three Years of Hell. Your interference imposes significant costs upon me and my legitimate users. The owner, user or affiliate who advertises using non-human visitors and leaves a comment or trackback on this site therefore agrees to the following: (a) they will pay fifty cents (US$0.50) to Anthony Rickey (hereinafter, the "Host") for every spam trackback or comment processed through any blogs hosted on threeyearsofhell.com, morgrave.com or housevirgo.com, irrespective of whether that comment or trackback is actually posted on the publicly-accessible site, such fees to cover Host's costs of hosting and bandwidth, time in tending to your comment or trackback and costs of enforcement; (b) if such comment or trackback is published on the publicly-accessible site, an additional fee of one dollar (US$1.00) per day per URL included in the comment or trackback for every day the comment or trackback remains publicly available, such fee to represent the value of publicity and search-engine placement advantages.

Giving The Devil His Due

And like that... he is gone (8)
Bateleur wrote: I tip my hat to you - not only for ... [more]

Law Firm Technology (5)
Len Cleavelin wrote: I find it extremely difficult to be... [more]

Post Exam Rant (9)
Tony the Pony wrote: Humbug. Allowing computers already... [more]

Symbols, Shame, and A Number of Reasons that Billy Idol is Wrong (11)
Adam wrote: Well, here's a spin on the theory o... [more]

I've Always Wanted to Say This: What Do You Want? (14)
gcr wrote: a nice cozy victorian in west phill... [more]

Choose Stylesheet

What I'm Reading

cover
D.C. Noir

My city. But darker.
cover
A Clockwork Orange

About time I read this...


Shopping

Projects I've Been Involved With

A Round-the-World Travel Blog: Devil May Care (A new round-the-world travel blog, co-written with my wife)
Parents for Inclusive Education (From my Clinic)

Syndicated from other sites

The Columbia Continuum
Other Blogs by CLS students