Some Like it Haute

i am pooped from work.

-pause

wait, you got a job?

well YES! haha.. more specifically, a job at a sushi restaurant.. nothing glamorous.. in fact i am just a kitchen help since i dont speak danish (thus i cant waitress).. haha..

i got the job because i have too much time on my hands and though i still have exams but they don't take up too much time.. beside, i am going out of my mind sitting in front of the laptop all the time..

how did i get the job? i simply walked into the sushi restaurant on monday and asked if the owner needed part time help.. i was given 'an audition' on thurs and sunday on the apot.. sounds dodgy acutally because he didn't even ask for any identification.. then again, i don't exactly look like i should belong to the FBI most wanted list.. -i hope- haha.. the owner is thai (though he has lived here since he was two) and there are two sushi chefs- one from ecuador and the other from cambodia.. the unauthenticness is rather amusing..

you know what is even funnier? apart from the danish waitresses, the kitchen staff is primarily made up of full time asian students.. yea... you see what happens is that though the reataurant specialises in sushi, we get the occasional garlic fried rice and yakisoba orders and they are prepared by chinese students! when you think of what a rip off jap food is in denmark and you think of who actually is preparing them.. it is such dark irony. my "mentor" is a 22 yr old chinese student from beijing called xin, who is doing full time studies here in copenhagen. in fact, she pretty much runs the kitchen..

techinically, my hours are from 5-10pm.. but i stayed till 11.30pm on my first day because it was quite a bit of fun as the atmosphere is rather laid-back..though i get minimum hourly rates but that is probably twice of what you would get in singapore and besides my salary is tax-free.. well i did my sums and figured i can afford a new pair of shows for every two days of work.. yea baby.

thats not really the best part.. *hides face in shame* the workers' rights are rather strong in denmark, working such hours requires them to feed me.... YES! they HAVE TO feed me SUSHI!!!! haha.. usually a kitchen staff prepares dinner for the staff but yesterday, it was a busy night so the sushi chefs prepared a maki and nigiri platter.. good stuff made up of uber-fresh sashimi..i am absolutely flabbergasted by the benefits we get.. haha.. i hope to be so sick of sushi when i get back to spore.. hoho..



today i did not expect to work but i received a call at one from junior (the ecuadorian chef) asking me if i could work today.. HELL YEAH! there was a pot of japanese curry awaiting my tastebuds when i arrived at work.. though i am not too big a fan of japanese curry, i had a small bowl anyway as i thought that was dinner. then when a customer ordered some green tea ice cream, xin passed me a bowl.. absolute delice.

as it was surprisingly not too busy tonight, xin grabbed a few slices of sashimi from the sushi counter and she made some nigiri sushi for me.. see how much entitlement we get here in europe..



at nine thirty, the japanese kitchen chef made me a huge bowl of tempura udon.. supper?! it was delicious but i could break into a sweat it at such an unearthly time.. but i had to finish it since he kept asking if i liked it..



i actually met with a minor accident tonight.. yes on my second day at work!! i was carrying a tray of thankfully-empty wine glsses, on my way back to the kitchen when the toilet door sudenly slammed into my tray, causing the wine glasses to shatter.. my first thought was, "i am so fired". anna (one of the waitresses) led me back into the kitchen and started fussing about me, for what i thought was no reason as i was just shocked by the shattering of glass.. then i realised i was bleeding profusely on right hand and lip.. thing was they were just little cuts but apparently rather deep ones as i could not get to them to stop bleeding whilst i was in the kitchen. i must have looked worse than i felt since there was little pain..

hmmm, but that's not going to stop me from returning tomorrow.. and i think junior was impressed with my lack of nampy-pamby reaction to the accident as he said that though they did not really need addtional help, he was going to offer me shifts on wednesday, friday and sunday because i am "such a nice girl", quote and unquote. this is perhaps the most over-used phrase for a job offer but i am buying it!