B Robson wrote:
> CL wrote:
>>declan_murphy@hotmail.com wrote:
>>>jwb@csse.monash.edu.au wrote:
>>>
>>>>Michael Cash <mikecash@buggerallspammers.com> dixit:
>>>
>>>Last time I visited Cambridge (the other one) I went to 4 or 5 banks
>>>trying to change yen (cash) into USD. Same "do you have an account with
>>>us" BS. I'd only been in Sepponia 6 hours or so. Everytime I gets the
>>>shits with the staff at UFJ I find the easiest way to relax is to
>>>remember that at least it isn't a sepponian bank.
>>
>>Many years ago, when I worked for a major motorcycle manufacturer, I
>>needed dollars and stopped off at the branch of Union Bank closest to
>>the US headquarters of my employer.  
> 
> While I sympathise, imagine trying to get rid of Austrian Schillings
> when they had just changed to plastic and word hadn't filtered out to
> remote areas like Tokyo.

Why didn't you just run over to the local branch of the Bank of Austria
(Osterreicherbank?) and cash them in there?  There used to be one around
... maybe in Hibiya or Nihonbashi.  If they couldn't do the exchange
they had a local bank they could instruct.  They helped me get the
schillings I needed to pay a very strange person in some remote mountain
village for parts for a Puch 250 "Twingle" I helped one of the locals
restore.

Usually if the local currency exchange desk ladies start looking at you
like you're naked, you're better off grabbing the cash and finding the
local office of a bank from the country where the money came from.  They
usually have a person there who knows how to fix those kinds of
problems.  I learned that 'way back when pictures of ER2 were still
considered exotic by Japanese banks and Barclays in the AIU Biru would
trade them for pictures of Shotoku-taishi without asking too many
questions.

CL