one helluvah quest for SGD sellers

I've never walked for hours since me and my sister's trip to vigan. Today's a total walk-a-thon! Why? We never thought buying singaporean dollars would be such a pain in the ass.

endless...

We started off in the ortigas area since t'was the nearest and we live in shaw boulevard. We headed off first to robinsons galleria since as per our online research there's one called sanry's money changer that sells sgd. Unfortunately, they don't have dollar stocks so we headed then to sm megamall and yeah right they don't sell dollars, they only buy one.

In case you're looking to drop by in megamall to buy dollars (there's 2 money changers there both in mega B, one in the supermart and the other near the office supplies section) don't waste your time because THEY DONT SELL, THEY ONLY BUY FOREIGN CURRENCIES ok?

We grabbed lunch in jollibee mega b since we're both starving and boy walking relentlessly felt like we went boxing the entire day. T'was downright exhausting. Tired tired. And, when you're tired and starving your patience is really short..that's a fact and not getting what you ordered at the counter will make you really snap out easily.

I asked for N2 (spaghetti + yum burger) and melon sprite float as per my twinnie's recommendation just to find out that the lady at the counter punched in 2 spag and melon sprite float! Where's the yum burger?? I don't know maybe it's floating in cyberspace!? wrrar.

I kept my cool though i snapped a bit and the scowl in my face was really quite obvious i was ticked. So, my sister instead did the talking and added 2 burgers. The crew was really apologetic and it wasn't her fault neither so apology accepted and being an educated person i kept my calm and just moved on. Making a scene is not my thing anyways and being the type of person who respects dignity of human labor i don't like scolding fast food chain crews unless i sensed some 'attitude' or sarcastically blame me for their mistake. I understand the part that their job is stressful enough and i am lucky that i've never been subjected to such craze at the work place but i just wish that their quality of service won't screw up just because their work place is really crazy. I just don't think that's acceptable. I am not a perfectionist myself but hell yeah working face to face with customers is so much prone to scrutiny and arguments. I'm just lucky BPO companies don't deal with such stuff as all transactions are dealt with over the phone and their form of slavery is so much more sugar coated hehe. Capitalists as usual.

To make the long story short i wasn't pleased but i think these part of the work force that bust their asses off deserves a better wage in this country. Something that will commensurate their jobs. Tough jobs in this planet deserves so much better than 'minimum wage.'

Alright! change topic before i delve into something else and more blah blahs. We spent i think roughly an hour surfing the net through jollibee's wifi connection to see if we can find any money changers somewhere that sells sgds before we think of buying u.s dollars and change it to sgd once we're in singapore as a hopeless effort.

Upon googling like an o.c, i found that st. Francis square has quite a few money changer kiosk that sells sg dollars and i recalled one time i went bargain shopping there it's found near jollibee (yes, jollibee is everywhere) quite close to this atm machine where i withdrew money from few days back. One forum suggested that there's one in araneta center called EMERALD MONEY CHANGERS and that they selld sgds at a fair cost. I had this intuition that cubao has a lot to offer since back when we were in college we pass by cubao every single day because we go to school in QC and i remembered black market is widespread there. I googled again and typed on the search field...what are the known money changers in cubao? i found another suggested money changer kiosk called BAMBOO MONEY CHANGERS.

We scoured the outskirts of st. Francis square (since it's also within the area and you only need to take the mega A exit to get there) but we're still unlucky. We checked out BIG C MONEY CHANGERS and this other one near jollibee at the upper level but they don't have sgd on stock. Phew..t'was already 2:30pm and we're beginning to feel hopeless about the whole dollar buying situation. Damn. We both endured the scorching heat of the sun. Arrgh. I felt like turning into ashes anytime. The vampire in me manifesting hehe.

CUBAO.

We started scouring the outskirts of farmer's wet market. We found couple of money changers but they don't sell sg dollars neither.

Tired and weary..

we headed off to araneta center and while walking around and passing by tons of coffee shops and restos surrounding the now different face of cubao, i saw from afar this sign that reads BAMBOO restaurant so i had this strong feeling that it might house BAMBOO MONEY CHANGERS and my oh my i was right (like a light bulb flicked in my head).You may use national bookstore, the biggest in cubao as your landmark. It's just few walks away as well. Once you see national bookstore from afar just pan your head to your left and there you'll find BAMBOO MONEY CHANGERS that is if you're across national bookstore.

We were both desperate this time and if BAMBOO money changers will say they sell sg dollars we will take it even if they sell quite high than the rest although P32.00 is the usual rate. Desperate, we asked the man in the counter (anticipating another bad news) if they sell sgds and alas they do! BUT they sell it for P36 = 1sgd..very high. geesh :'(

In buying dollars or any foreign currency, low is good. That means the lower the rate the more money your PHP will go. More money you can bring along with you overseas although exchange rate for peso is better abroad as many people say. BUT, if you're selling any foreign currency, high is better because you get more PHP to spend and shop around while you're here in the country. By the way, just a li'l reminder, you can only bring 10,000 cash if you're travelling overseas (all currencies applies e.g. PHP10,000, $10,000 etc) as anything in excess will cause you trouble at the airport.

If you're restless and started the day walking for hours nothing else matters, we just want to get this whole search over and done with! Finally, our quest for sg dollars did not go to the recycle bin hehe. We also learned that money changer rates in cubao only varies by cents so just go for the nearest one instead right?

bamboo money changers is located few walks away from national bookstore and it's housed right beside bamboo restaurant. Few steps away you'll find another money changer kiosk that sells sgd which is only few cents higher. Whilst waiting for the transaction to finish because my sister decided to exchange some more of her pesos to sgd, i talked instead to this little bird residing in this cage on one corner of the money changer kiosk which breed i couldn't figure. The little fella seemed to be bragging and teaching me how to peel off a bird seed eh? Why, i won't even eat one hehe (although curious that i am, i think i have tasted one when i was still a kiddo and i think it tasted sweet :D). Maybe that's why birdies love 'em and so as albino rats we used to pet when we were still kids. Call me nostalgic.

Going back, i thought emerald money changers is hard to find but later on realized in was just about 30-40meters away from bamboo money changers. Take this, you'll pass by two ukay-ukay shops and there it is-- the little signage that reads 'emerald' is very visible from afar.

There... I just wanna share our ordeal today because this is where we failed short-- researching further where to find money changers around selling sg dollars. It was abso-f!@%*$-lutely one helluvah difficult. BUT at least we learned something and that's the perk of wandering around cubao.

We ended up eating this macaroon looking donuts instead. Gadh.

I hope this little info i shared will help those peeps looking to travel to singapore this month, there's a shortage with sg dollars! Not unless you're willing to travel to cubao ;p

We had fun IF the word fun is defined in so many ways and perceived differently by people :p

At the end of the day, looking at SG dollars is like discovering something new and different, their paper bills are pretty smaller compared to PHP yet each cost a fortune?

Goodluck!