Landing next month and country of origin has restriction on foreign currency

[emamabd]

Sounds good. Have a save journey.

Every "the world's local bank" are different I guess : Some doesn't allow you to open a Canadian a/c HSBC, some like you and some like mine.

[/quote] Hello All,
Just want to let you know that i have landed yesterday in Canada, believe it or not it took me 4 hours to get out of toronto pearson airport - there were really long queues at the immigration counters and also at the customs!!

Anyways i'm happily waiting now for the PR cards and discovering the city, as a first observation this country is really expensive....just a few items (burgers, chicken, eggs, cheese, some fruits, milk, juice, bread and coke) from a nearby store (metro) costed 99 CAD for a family of 4 - its hard to survive more than 2 days with that shopping!!!

Exchange rates as well are really bad for USD...only got 262 CAD for 300 USD - that was at the airport (had no options),

 

[steaky]

Hello All,
Just want to let you know that i have landed yesterday in Canada, believe it or not it took me 4 hours to get out of toronto pearson airport - there were really long queues at the immigration counters and also at the customs!!

Anyways i'm happily waiting now for the PR cards and discovering the city, as a first observation this country is really expensive....just a few items (burgers, chicken, eggs, cheese, some fruits, milk, juice, bread and coke) from a nearby store (metro) costed 99 CAD for a family of 4 - its hard to survive more than 2 days with that shopping!!!

Exchange rates as well are really bad for USD...only got 262 CAD for 300 USD - that was at the airport (had no options),

Welcome to Canada!

Yes, Toronto is more expensive than much of the world but is not the most expensive. According to the Economist magazine, Vancouver CA (rank world's 21)is the most expensive city in terms of living cost for North America. Yet, Tokyo, Osaka, Sydney, Singapore, Zurich, Geneva and Hong Kong are more expensive than Vancouver. I know the situation in Hong Kong (rank world's 14), and things in Vancouver is really a bit cheaper.