It’s all about the money

It’s one of the first things you think about when you are going to a new country; what currency do they use and what the exchange rate is? So here is a breakdown of the Chinese currency, what it looks like and what it’s worth.

My wallet full of Chinese currency

The official currency of China is the Renminbi (RMB), while the unit of account is the yuán (Symbols: ¥ or 元  Code: CNY). One yuán is divided into 10 jiǎo while one  jiǎo is divided into 10 fēn. You don’t really have to worry about fēn though as you won’t ever see them. Sounds simple enough but when I first got to China I didn’t here the word yuán from the local store owner but rather kuài which is how the yuán is known colloquially, likewise the jiǎo is referred to colloquially as máo.

So with that all cleared up here are some photos of the various denominations notes and coins that make up the Chinese Renminbi. As well as pictures of each I have also included the equivalent value in US Dollars (US$) and South African Rand (ZAR).*

Read Full Post »

Day 1 – Getting to Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe

I say getting to because our route wasn’t very direct; and that was before the travel issues started. We arrived at Cape Town airport at the domestic terminal and searched the departures board to determine which counter 1time was operating at for us to check our luggage in. After locating our flight on the board I scanned across to reveal that the flight status was “delayed to 12:00″. A five-hour delay that meant that we would only be taking off 30 minutes after the scheduled takeoff of our connecting flight in Johannesburg. Could this really be happening?

We made our way to the counter with desperate looks on our faces and told the check-in staff that we had a connecting flight in Johannesburg at 11:30am. She said they were trying to accommodate those passengers on other airliners and that we must follow her to the Kulula counter where we would be on standby.

Read Full Post »