it was very exciting to hear the most recent planet money podcast because it was all about the island of yap, aka "the land of stone money".
i've had a minor obsession with yap ever since law school when my legal history professor randomly chose the island of yap to use in a hypothetical. i had never heard of the island and couldn't believe it was a real place. then i looked into it and confirmed the island's existence and learned about its giant rock system of currency. a few years ago, i talked mrs. noz into considering going to yap for our summer vacation. she got a few guide books out of the library . but she ultimately decided to go to israel instead. the big strike against yap is it's so friggin' hard to get to. there are only a few flights a week and they are not very dependable.
anyway, yap doesn't come up much. even here, despite my obsession a search reveals that i've never brought it up before on this blog. (even suriname, another country that is a minor obsession of mine, has only been mentioned once on this blog... err, twice, counting this). yap is really the only pacific island that i find strongly appealing, because it's so cool! they use big rocks for money! and it's called "yap"! and, i really love this part, the residents are called "yapese"! is that super-cool or what?
