Either my previous sore throat virus came back with a vengeance this morning or I got a second, overlapping bug. Either way, I slept badly and woke up with sore lungs and a hacking cough. I can’t wait for us to all be healthy again.

Millie FaceTimed with some friends and it ended in big tears because she was jealous of their new shoes and birthday parties. She has been struggling a lot recently with jealous feelings, and I know she’s homesick too. She cried it out and I felt guilty about taking her away from everyone. Here is her excitement before the first FaceTime and the snuggles after the tears.

Needless to say it took us a while to get moving this morning.

We called an Uber and took a long drive up to the North of Osaka to visit the Expo ‘70 park, which was built for the worlds fair in, yes, 1970. We spent a couple of hours walking around the National Museum of Ethnology. We all loved it. It was like traveling the whole world in an afternoon, with deep dives into history and culture of every region. I joked to Nick that we could probably spend a couple of days here instead of traveling around the world for a year.

After this we stopped for a very good pizza in the cafe for lunch. This is the only meal Millie will wolf down, so we have it at least every week. The weather was great, and even too hot in the sun. After lunch we walked over to the rose garden where we played my favorite game of “who can find the best smelling rose?”

Nick and I tried to break off to attend the ramen festival that was happening in the park. But the tickets were too complicated so instead we just bought a highball from a truck and sat on a curb having a “date” while Millie played. We split off tomorrow so this is likely the last alone time we’ll have for the next ~5 months. We sat in front of the Tower of the Sun monument and admired it while chatting about the trip.

Meanwhile my parents took Millie to the playground, on a swan boat tour, and on a little train where she got to drive and play as the conductor.

We met up and took a long train back down to central Osaka. Millie passed asleep on me on the way, which was kind of nice. I know that at some point in the next few years she will do this for the last time ever.

We walked over to our final meal of the trip: sushi. I had hoped for conveyor belt sushi, but we found a fun middle ground of order-on-an-iPad-and-sushi-appears sushi. It was excellent and we all left feeling very full.

My dad taught Millie the ancient art of “Tongue Fu”.

We took a short Uber back to our Airbnb and put on laundry before packing up our bags for tomorrow. We will be splitting off in different directions and all have lots of feelings about it.