Falling Against The U.S. Dollar

October 4th, 2008

10,000 Wons is worth about $10 US Dollars

The South Korean Won (W) fell sharply against the U.S. dollar the last few weeks.  That’s bad news for Korea, but good news for us who live in the states that want to travel to Korea and spend our money.  A year ago, the currency was between W920 to W980 to the dollar.  Today it closed at W1,221 to the dollar!  Why the sharp decline?  Sad but true, it had to be the Lehman Brothers.

For those that aren’t familiar with the value of the Korean Won, W1,000 is usually equal to $1 US dollar.  That means W10,000 like the one pictured above equals to about $10 US dollars.  If we can buy W1,221 worth of stuff with only a dollar, that’s more than a 20% return on our money!  It’s a very good time to go to Korea.  October is usually the best time to go when it’s not too hot.  Temperatures are right around the mid-70’s.  Of course, in Korea, they use Celsius to measure their temperature.

Anyway, not to go off topic, but you get the idea.  If you ever wanted to take a trip to Seoul, now is the time to do it!  See article at KoreaTimes for more info.

-Kwang Lee

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