Monday, 6/19
It’s back to work with me! Nearby SOLTILO there is a grocery store called “AEON STYLE Makuhari Bay Park”. AEON is a large chain of malls, while it is not a mall this grocery store is owned by AEON. I’ve google map-ed it and there are other AEON Styles in other places, their names are essentially ‘AEON Style X-place’. Anyways, I stopped by AEON style and bought a soda to cool down. I’ve decided that I’m allowed to get little snacks/treats before or after work to be able to explore new foods and drinks. My drink today was ‘C.C. Lemon’ and it advertised itself as providing 70 lemons worth of vitamin C. I’m not sure why anyone would need 70 lemons of vitamin C, but it was tasty!
Work was par for the course. Today one of the kids was especially cranky and kept trying to run away when we were outside. I definitely got my steps in chasing after her! I have also discovered that lunch time is the worst! There are obviously some foods that are tastier than others. We are supposed to encourage the kids to eat everything because leaving food on the plate is wasteful. However, while we obviously don’t force children to eat when they are refusing to, the kids aren’t allowed to leave their seats and go play without trying a bite or two of whatever they don’t want to eat. This leads to a lot of time every day spent convincing or coercing 3 and 4 year olds to take 2 tiny bites of food. I don’t mind it, but it is a little hard sometimes figuring out the right thing to say and tires me out more quickly than chasing after runaways!
Tuesday, 6/20
I went by AEON Style again, this time after work, and found a sitting area. I bought a 100 (less than a buck) coffee and was able to sit down and enjoy the air conditioning.
Later in the evening, the phone I ordered from Amazon.jp arrived. I was able to get the SIM card in it, and have the phone up and running in only a few short hours! My guess is that the phone’s very old OS is what was causing me issues and forcing me to start over again and again. 
Wednesday, 6/21
On my first day of work I was given a test to take so that they could check my intestines for diseases or parasites. I was officially cleared today and now I can help serve food to the kids at snack time and lunchtime. The results of the test coming in today was good timing, Ms. K (the teacher of the K3 class) was out sick today after feeling a bit under the weather yesterday. So I was able to work with Ms. Y (K3’s support teacher) and help with everything.
Thursday, 6/22
Today, we sent 2 kids them home early because they had fevers. Ms. K was out sick again too, I think she must have caught it from the kids! After work I tried Calpis soda, I hadn’t heard of it before so I was a bit surprised by the yoghurty flavor. It was alright, but definitely not my favorite. 
Friday, 6/23
I woke up today with a massive headache and a sore throat. I didn’t have a fever, so after breakfast I walked to SOLTILO and asked if it was ok for me to be working. My boss was a bit concerned that I showed up lol, but he said I was alright to work if I wanted because I was wearing mask and didn’t have a fever. Unfortunately, even after taking medicine all day my headache just got worse, and I eventually left early just after lunch. When I got home I took my temperature again and I had developed a fever! I spent the rest of my evening asleep haha.
Yoko was very thoughtful and had cooked a birthday dinner for me! I enjoyed it a lot, and after opening some surprise presents from the family and next-door neighbors I went to back to bed. 
Saturday, 6/24
After the loads of sleep I got on the 23rd I was feeling very refreshed in the morning. I lost my fever sometime in the night, and was back to a normal temperature.
My host family and I enjoyed a nice cold soba lunch and then biked to the Mi-Hamaen Japanese Garden.
The garden was beautiful and I really enjoyed the koi’s cute ginormous mouths, which I had never seen before!
Afterwards we cooled down with some ice coffee and visited a nearby 100Y store. Dinner was delicious! We went to an okonomiyaki / monja restaurant.
Sunday, 6/25
Today was primarily a trip to Yoyogi Park with Natalie, Joelle, & Farah. Most of the afternoon was at Yoyogi, followed by some shopping (mostly window shopping haha). I left early in the evening as I was feeling a bit tired and had work the next day.
I took lots of photos, here is a link!