Originally Posted by
msb0b
Yes, that's what I would do. When I visited Japan from Hong Kong, I bought yen beforehand and brought them with me. I had my ATM card as a back up in case I need more money. With ATM fee charged by my HK bank account, I got worse exchange rate with ATM card than buying yen at the bank counter in HK.
The funny thing about this is that all the no-foreign-ATM-fee UnionPay cards I have are from HK-based banks. Dah Sing charges me nothing to make foreign withdrawals from my account opened at their Shanghai branch. Same with Wing Hang (except that their Shanghai branch is in a location that's inconvenient at best). BEA gives me two free overseas withdrawals a month (but have more than one branch in Shanghai). And all of them have been within .05yen/RMB of the mid-market rate (cash incurs a 2yen/RMB spread- ouch).