Hong Kong
Arbitrary Exchange Rates
Markets and exchange rates may be bouncing around these days, but while changing planes today in Heathrow’s shiny new Terminal 5, I came across a rare example of exchange rate stability.
You can surf the Internet for 1 pounds or 2 euros, a bargain for Euro-holding customers. At the current exchange rate (Nov 9, 2008) 1 pounds = 1.22 euros. That means that someone using a pound saves 78 euro cents every 20 minutes.
Even at the exchange rates offered by currency counters in the airport it would be worth your while to change euros into pounds before surfing the Internet in Heathrow. I also was surprised that a UK-based vending machine is allowed to accept a foreign currency.
In other exchange rate news, the Salmon Crumble photographed here in a Hong Kong supermarket suggests the price of transportation to Hong Kong is 4.60 pounds per fish.
The price marked on the box, 1.09 pounds, is equivalent to 13.21 Hong Kong dollars. The price in Hong Kong, however, is 69 Hong Kong dollars, or 5.69 pounds, more than 5 times the cost in British supermarkets.
It is rare to have such an readily available price comparison. Next time I’ll have to go to Britain to shop. With return flights to London going for as little as 435 pounds, you only need to bring 100 boxes of fish to justify the trip.
Discussion
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I am definitely not the smartest guy in the room, and at the moment the room only includes me and my dog. That being said, maybe I am missing something but it looks to me as if the sign at the internet counter actually reads 1 pound or 2 Euros. Is that the new math I keep hearing about?
No, not new math, old-style jet lag. Wrote the posting while being driven from the airport to Stockholm. Clearly over-excited at using Wifi while speeding down highway. Thanks for the correction. (I have revised the posting). Now, I’m going to sleep.
Speaking of Stockholm, airports and Internet access the biggest ripoff/ scam I ever encountered for Internet access was at the airport north of Stockholm that Ryanair fly out of. I can’t remember the actual price (something like 1-2 pounds for 10 min) but it was a ripoff and to add insult to injury the keyboard had a ball, rather than a mouse, that was nearly impossible to use and it only allowed one window to be opened at a time. The result was that 10 min was spent opening and replying to one email.