Expensive Week

I have two work parties coming up in the next seven days. Despite the mysterious food, awkward communication and often pure confusion of attending a party with my co-workers, they usually turn out to be enjoyable. The first upcoming party is a wedding reception for my ICT advisor. W is marrying an OL from another department in the company and they are having a party, which they are calling a wedding reception, for coworkers. They wont actually be getting married until the following day which makes the title of the party is a bit strange. Guests pay the equivalent of $60USD for women and $65 for men to attend the reception with gifts being extra on top of that. A, who is a friend of the bride invited me to go in with her and 3 others on an electronic photo frame to which she will upload photos from the party. So I am expecting my total cost for attending this event to be around $80. I initially tried to sneak out of going but W caught me off guard when he approached me to ensure I had RSVPd since the invitation was e-mailed in Japanese.

The second party is a going away and Thank You party for Y-san who was in charge at the company in America before returning to Japan last Summer. Y-san will be moving to a different company in the group. Of course I would like to thank him, but the cost of the party in his honor is $70USD and the menu is Shabu Shabu which doesn't have a place in my diet. I felt obligated to attend and T convinced me when he was able to contact the restaurant about preparing me a veggie meal. It is usually against my principle to have food adjusted to fit my dietary preferences, but this adjustment supposedly also comes with a price adjustment.

I can tell myself that life is about experiences, but that is hard when I think about how I was holding off on buying a new bathing suit yesterday that I could have bought in multiple colors for less than the total of these two parties.