Money Envelopes

I guess a lot of Japanese tourists go to Korea. I know Japanese love Korean food, and there is a boom now of Korean pop culture and movies, but I expect any current boom is in no small part thanks to the Korean drama, known as 冬のソナタ in Japan, which became a huge hit on Japanese television. I even found brochures in my hotel for the “Winter Sonata” TV drama tour for 73,000 won which takes you to the various locations that appear in the series (02-774-3345 if you in Seoul and interested).

One clue to the huge number of incoming Japanese tourists was the fact that at the airport, exchanging yen for won is an exceptionally simplified process. They have envelops with pre-exchanged amounts of yen, in my case 30,000 yen (of which I ultimately only used half of during my stay).

WOW – a moderately strong earthquake just hit me here in Tokyo as I am writing this…lots of horizontal swaying, stopped after about ten seconds.

It first caught me off guard when I handed the exchange clerk my yen, only to be immediately handed an envelop in exchange. He saw my puzzled look and just said, “Count it…”