Who wants to be a Millionaire?

One of the fun things about living in and visiting foreign countries is the currency. Sad to say, U.S. money is rather boring even though we all would like to have more of it.


While Ken was getting ready for a few recent trips, we had to get some new types of currency for his travels. Boy were we thrilled to walk out of the TraveleX with one million. Of course these were rupia which is the currency of Indonesia and worth about US$120. It still looked great sitting on our table.

While we were photographing it we decided to show some more of the "fun" money we get to use. There is the Malaysian ringget.

The Indian rupee.

The Singapore dollar (also the closest in value to U.S. money).

We even found a few Euros left over from earlier travels. We hope to be using them in June when Ken has a trip to France planned and I am tagging along.

And there is our local currency, the Hong Kong dollar. Each note is a different size and color and there are three versions of each note because each bank licensed to produce notes has its own design.

The most common paper notes are the $10, $20, $50, $100, $500 and $1000. The coins include $.10, $.20, $.50, $1.00, $2.00, $5.00 and $10.00. Since there is no sales tax there is no need for pennies (love it) and except for a few items most prices end in even dollar amounts. The $2.00 and $.20 coins have curly edges so they will not be confused with the $1.00 and $.10 coins which are similar in size. The $.50 coin is darker in color, the $5.00 coin is double thick and the $10.00 coin has a dark center with a silver rim. 


At times can feel like you are using play money. But the real challenge is figuring out what it is all worth in US terms to you know what you are really spending. So when kids balk at learning to multiply and divide in their heads, tell them it is a skill well worth learning.