I am reading so much about Japan and from that I am feeling like every second person on this planet is going for a holiday to Japan. Trust me if you see the Insta stories, it is overwhelming. If so many people are going, then, it means the currency is easily available. 2 days back I went to one of the money exchange offices in my area. Normally I visit here to get currency during all my travels. Their conversion rate it always very good. There are around 5 exchanges in my area and this one always has the best rate.
The current Omani Rial to Japanese Yen rate is 1 OMR = 408 JPY. The conversion rate this exchange gave me is 357 yen to 1 omr. I was quite shocked because this is like 13% deduction. I was expecting somewhere between 5% to 8%, because I know in Oman not many people are travelling to Japan and nor do we get many Japanese tourists here so the inflow and outflow both are less. I thought of just going and checking with other places also. The other exchange offered me a further ridiculous rate, giving me a quote of 325 yen to 1 omr, which is like 20% deduction. I would be in a good loss with this kind of exchange rate. Finally, one exchange gave me a quote of 375, which is also 9% deduction, but then I have no choice. I have to take some cash with me.
Most of the payment I would prefer to do by credit card because that's 4% interest rate for me, so it's much better then 9% deduction. Also, I have read that 7/11 ATMs are best for cash withdrawals; they have around 4% interest as well. But going to a new country, I would need some cash in hand to start with, then later I can figure out these things. So as of now, I got some exchange, that too they gave me big denomination, now that's another headache to change into smaller currency. Normally I prefer to carry cash rather than spending card, but not with this much loss. Let's see how it goes there.
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