A cashless society...

...this place is not!

It's amazing the things you take for granted at home. Plastic is one of them. Every overseas trip I'm reminded of the convenience we have in NZ of buying everything on plastic, having tax included and not having a silly tipping system (which requires cash most of the time)! Even on the bus in major NZ cities, just tag on, tag off!

Here, however, cash is a constant enemy. Trying to figure out how much cash to withdraw is a pain in the butt. Each time it costs 6 bucks (and that's on a travel card that has no ATM fees, and it doesn't include the conversion rate!). Which means withdrawing large sums each time.

Unless you're buying a slightly more expensive item (like a budget cell phone...), pretty much every transaction is in cash. Taxi's, food, drink, anything bought at a market, in some cases even big stores like Tesco's won't take plastic. Cash, cash, cash, wods of it and plenty of coins too.

Yah for NZ, plastic payments all the way!