Best way to change yen to US$?

What is the best way to change a large quantity of yen into US$? I'd like to change roughly $3000 worth of yen, so would like to get the best rate. I am in Japan now.

I say it time and time again, the current exchange booth at the airport. They would exchange up to 10,000(unless it's changed), a mount you're allow to bring to Japan from USA. You need to show your passport.

3,000Yen is currently around 26USD I believe.

If you can find any exchange rate that is around 116 yen to the Dollar, then that is very close to the current mid-market rate, according to my newspaper this morning ^_^

Oops, I got my amounts mixed up! Sorry! So you want to change it into nearly 350,000yen!

Well, my paper has the exchange rates down as 1USD=115.912 JPY, and 1JPY= 0.00862725 USD

Even if you can't change it all at once, then you can change a little at a time in several places. As long as it is close to the above rates, you are getting a good deal.

If you are looking for the best rate then I would avoid the airport exchange booths. They are usually a few percent higher than the even exchange rate, which makes sense considering that this is how they make their money.

The best way I have found is a little bit complicated, but it gets you almost an even exchange.

Go to a Japanese post office with your money and fill out a form to make an international postal money orders. The fee is about 1500 yen for an unlimited exchange. Note: on the form you will be making them out to yourself. When you put the reason write "loan repayment."

You will be issued international postal money orders in $700 units just like in the US. Now you can go home and change them to cash.

The tricky way is how to cash them though. You can do it at your bank but they will charge you around $30 per money order depending on the bank. The easiest way is to cash them at an American post office. They should be able to cash them directly.

This only works though if the post office actually has that kind of cash on hand which they probably won't unless its a large branch. To get around this you can use your international money orders to purchase domestic money orders which you can deposit into a US bank account with no fees.

One more catch. The post office needs at least the amount you want to exchange in the register at the time you will buy the money order. So what I did was bring $700 in cash with me to buy my first money order so that the register would have $700 in it. Then I alternately cashed an international money order and bought a US money order. In the end you end up with an equal amount of US money orders as you had international money orders.

Sounds complicated doesn't it. It's quite a hassle and requires you to go to the US, but costs less than $20 to change $3000.

Since I live in Japan but regularly want to send money to the US I use golloyds.com
Its a lot easier, but costs $30 to send any amount ($20 golloyds fee plus $10 bank fee). You also don't get as good an exchange rate. The advantage is in time however, 5 min at the atm vs. 1-2hrs at the post offices. Another problem may be that you need a Japanese bank account to do golloyds.

just checked the rates. Actual is 115.9, golloyds has 117.27, and the post office rate isn't listed.

For my time and money I'd just send it golloyds

-------What is the best way to change a large quantity of yen into US$? I'd like to change roughly $3000 worth of yen, in Japan now...----------

Gomenne...I misled your statement, I took it as though you wanted to exchange into yen from US dollars. I see you are looking to take back yen at best rate to US?
Don't know how much in Japan postal services charge for international money order but in the US, it's only about 4 dollars per money order and there is no service/ exchange charges when it's cashed at the post office in Japan. So it may be the same way coming from Japan.

...what do you want to do with the $$$??? Are you planning to go to the States and take them with you? If so, I'd say it is better to change the yen to $ over there. The exchange rate will be at least a little better. If you want to change the money in Japan (cash for cash), most Japanese post offices (at least the bigger ones) can do this, too. They got the $$$. Besides their exchange rate is much better than the one you get from banks!!