My aunt wrote this about my posts about Yushinkan:

Are they used to having foreign exchange students working there? Or is this a new thing for them? What a fantastic experience you are having...to be able to try all the crafts and work along side them. Hard work, but actually sounds fun...although walking around all day in socks sounds quite painful! Do you feet hurt at the end of the day? Mine sure would.
Love, Aunt Jody

I don't think so. I think my work at Yushinkan and Hourakukan was a first time thing for everyone. They often weren't sure what to have me do. It was hard, but not nearly as hard as part time jobs I've had in the US. It was definitely fun. The culmination of the hard + fun combo was getting to translate the website into English. I think I managed it in less than 10 hours (two work days), and I'm pretty happy with what I came up with.
Walking in socks all day wasn't as painful as I thought it would be, though my legs were kinda sore at the end of the day.

What's hurting is getting back to Tokyo and realizing I'm not used to walking and standing all the time. My shoulders hurt from a combination of carrying my luggage and the way that life in Tokyo constricts your body into small spaces, and I think I might have done something to my hip muscle from lugging the big back of souvenirs I wanted to mail 20 minutes to the post office and then back when I found out that post office wasn't open on Saturday.

Tokyo is very different from Minakami, and my host family in Saitama is very different than my host family in Minakami, and I would be lying if I said I wasn't having a hard time with the adjustments. I'm happy that I have the freedom to just get out of the house and go somewhere by train or whatever, but I'm sad that I already feel the need to do that. I'm sure things will get better once I start school up again, and I'm going to Osaka for a few days starting Tuesday, so that will save me from trying to figure out what to do with all my free time too. My host sister in Minakami and I really hit it off, so I actually feel like we're friends, while I still feel like I'm just a thing taking up space in the house with my host family in Saitama. Everyone is busy with their own things, so even if I'm home, it's not like it's converse-with-Shaun time. I still haven't explained what all I did on the practicum in Minakami, even though I'd like to, because I haven't found a moment.