On the weekend I got a one off day of work at a beach wedding.
It paid 12,000yen all up and was a lot of fun.
The groom, Justin, was in charge of everything and every time I saw him he’d risen to a slightly higher level of panic. I really don’t know why people would want to organise something like that themselves, but he was still a really cool guy to work for despite the panic.
Actually the first thing that happened when we got there was that he told us to chill out and go swimming for a couple of hours, then fed us with Japanese bento (packed lunches).
It was a stone beach rather than sand. Just a million tiny little pebbles, on the side of Lake Biwa, the largest freshwater lake in Japan. It was sooo nice to go swimming in. Like a massive freshwater swimming pool, except it could have been an ocean because you can’t see the other side.
Then we cut up vegetables for 3 or 4 hours. I was put in charge of making the salad. Mmm… salad.
I spent most of the actual reception collecting empties and rubbish, then joined Raja on the bar later in the night, supplying already ridiculously drunk people with more free wine and champagne.
We ate the same food that the guests did for dinner, got to have some of the 60,000yen cake (like wtf? I mean it was nice cake, but there’s no way it was worth 60,000yen!), and from around 10pm Justin started coming round to make sure we were all drinking and taking it easy.
We kept serving drinks though, and Raja and I started drinking with the guests, it was really nice (and no doubt hideously expensive) wine, and Raja had stashed the last bottle of champagne away for the staff which we opened about then too.
Most of the English speaking staff were from the Philippines, and they decided to sleep on the beach rather than take the train home. We suggested the pebbles might not be so comfy (although one random person had already passed out there) and in the end they agreed and slept/hungout in one of the pagodas, surfing the internet on their laptop all night, thanks to somebody’s unprotected wireless. They’re all software programmers working for the same agency. Albin is a Java programmer and all the others work in C++. They said they came mainly for the fun and adventure rather than the money though, so hopefully they’re not too underpaid. eep.
Another of the specially hired staff, Kevin, tried to pick up the lady in charge of the bar, a Japanese woman who later turned out to be 10 years older than him.
Kevin, Raja, Albin and I started hanging out with the remaining conscious guests, who all had amazingly drunk and entertaining stories to tell us, and although Albin went to sleep at some point, I’m not even sure if Kevin or Raja crashed in the morning.
I slept roughly an hour to pass the time, back in the house, then caught the train home with Joe, the Korean guy who’d had to deal with the guests thinking he was Japanese all night, as soon as we found out who to get our pay off (we hadn’t forgotten the previous night, but just didn’t get around to organising it until the morning).
Then I went directly to the manga museum, although I realised I was still ever so slightly drunk. I was clean, following the right dress code and didn’t smell, so it didn’t create problems, but it was funny (in fact, they had no idea so no worries.)