Wanted to get $1000 U.S. changed into yen for my trip to Japan this weekend.
The bank was closed for whatever reason last Saturday. OK. My father suggests writing him a check and he'll go down to the bank and do this for me, since the bank closes before I get home from work.
Today I get a text from him asking me to go to the local branch right near my workplace. He's even called them and they confirmed that they had the the money available.
I go up to a teller and ask about a foreign currency exchange. "Oh did you call before?" My father did, yeah. "Well, we only have one note available." What do you mean? "We have a note worth $1000 U.S. You can just get change at the airport later on." Uh...OK? "OK you go over to Kim over there she'll help you out."
I proceed to stand in another line behind some guy taking the longest amount of time possible to finish whatever he's doing. I use the time to google that amount of money and it looks like they may have this kind of bill? Don't ever remember seeing that from my time over there but whatever, sure.
Kim says "You wanted 1000, right?" Kim then shows me a 1000 yen note. That's like
ten bucks.
I tell her I wanted $1000
U.S. in yen. She goes "Oh yeah, we have that" and pulls out....one 10,000 yen note. That's about $100.
So finally I get her to show me all the yen they have. It's 25,000 yen total which works out to be about $212 U.S. Not exactly close to what I wanted, but I take it.
I ask if I can order the rest and am taken over to another banker.
This was the hottest banker I have ever seen. Seriously-- she was a stunningly-hot blasian. Could easily pass for a model.
Standing next to her is a pretty built male banker who also might be able to be a model. I started wondering if I was being punked when he pointed at the design on my shirt and told me he wanted to get it tattooed onto his bicep.
That's great and all, but whatever, time is running out on my lunch break. We go into an office and she calls a currency exchange place. Turns out I could have called this place on my own. After waiting and waiting to get through, I tell her I have to go or I'm going to be late. Just then someone answers. The guy will only send the money to certain local bank locations near my house or will send it to my house via fedex....and it has to be signed for. Nobody is gonna be home.
So fuck it; I'll either have to pay ridiculous airport currency exchange prices or hope that my ATM card still works at Japanese post office ATMs. Looks like it still should but I can't remember if they have ATMs open on weekends.
