Money Exchange and meeting cancellation

Hello again, I wanted to take this opportunity to talk about money exchange as many of you have been asking about this recently. I have spoken to a number of money exchange outlets and, to date, the best has been Cash EX (Bureau de Change) in the city centre. they are located at 63 Abbott Street (directly opposite DFS, on the same street as Woolworths in the city). Their telephone number is 0740515158.

Unfortunately, I have not been able to secure a fixed exchange rate, largely due to the instability of the hare market in China recently. Exchanges are still quite good (much higher than any time recently) but we did drop about 2-3 yen to the dollar last week. When I spoke to the manager there, she agreed to a substantially better price than their usual rate (on the day i was there, their rate was 84yen to the dollar, she was willing to give me 88.5) however, this was still less than the advertised price at suncorp and other institutions. My advice to parents - do your homework; go to several of the exchange places in the near vicinity (Suncorp, DFS etc.) and see what their price for selling notes is. then got to Cash Ex, tell them you are with Gordonvale SHS and ask what the rate of exchange for our group that day is. When she tells you, compare that to other exchanges and ask if they will match it for you. They should be willing to do this. the reason their exchange may be lower is that they do not charge a fee/commission whereas most of the major exchange places do. The other thing to remember is that you may be able to negotiate a slightly better rate if you exchange a larger amount rather than doing it over time. Of course, you will have to work out what is going to be the best for yourself and your child, so please feel free to use another service (such as your local bank).

The second part of this post is to remind all students that Tuesday's meeting is cancelled and that next Tuesday's meeting (20/3/07) will be for parents as well as students - this is our final itinerary meeting and is when you will receive your documentation for the trip!

If you still have forms outstanding, please ensure that we receive them ASAP and we (meaning you) cannot leave the country without them being in and processed!

Regards, Corey Edwards

(11/3/07)I have been thinking about money exchange some more - I recommend asking for the total amount in either 1000yen notes or 5000 yen notes (don't mix them where possible - get one or the other). All Japanese money looks quite similar and it may be easier to just have 1000yen notes bundled into lots of 5 (I will be taking my money this way, with each lot of 5 notes rubber banded together). If you are planing on making big ticket purchases (i.e. Camera, electronic goods, grad dresses etc.) then 10, 000 yen notes are quite acceptable, just keep them separate from your 1000 yen notes. possibly put them in a separate envelope or something.