Friday, July 25, 2008

Paying the rent

I had to get a local bank account here on Post (it's VERY hard for an Air Force guy not to say BASE) so I could pay the rent. Here's the deal with rent payments. We have to pay the rent in cash here and the biggest denomination is equal to ten bucks. Apparently it's to fight corruption, because you can't slip someone 2 million Won without the whole world noticing. We have to pay in Won, so we transfer the first month's rent and security deposit into the local bank and get it in US currency - it's going to be about $7,000. So we take that to a 'money changer' because banks charge to change money, then you take that suitcase of money to the landlord. Luckily you're in Asia where personal crimes are very, very rare. So we can walk around 7 million Won and be OK. I'll have to take a picture of that much money because that's an insane amount of money. Ironic that the most internet connected country in the world doesn't do electronic transfer for rent. Most companies in the US don't do business with people unless it's electronic funds transfer.
The next project is I have to show the car we have. It's a $600 Daewoo Prince. It should be a Daewoo Pauper because it's so hammered up.

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