11th Wedding Anniversary

We celebrated our 11th wedding anniversary on June 11 over sushi at Sushi Yoshi, one of our favorite restaurants in town, which I have written about here.

In the past 11 years…

We moved 6 times together (5 international moves & 1 domestic) and we’re about to make the 7th move.

We made two kids and had no pet.

We have owned 4 cars and no house.

Top 11 Memories in 11 Years in a Chronological Order

1. The wheels we owned right after we got married were two mamachari bicycles and we rode them everywhere in Kumamoto City, where we spent the first year of our marriage.

2. We lived in a 3 bedroom old Japanese style apartment in Kumamoto City during the first year. It had huge windows which kept our rooms bright and warm during the day, but cold at night in winter. There was no central heating, so we used to sit in our living room watching Japanese TV shows at the kotatsu table with a heater inside, wearing our outside jackets and were able to see our breath as we spoke.

3. I sometimes delivered milk shake, dinner, snack, etc. to my hubby when he studied at the school library during his graduate school years in Austin, Texas.

4. I panicked for the first time in my life when I thought I was drowning in the ocean of Senegal (West Africa) because of its strong undertow and my hubby helped me get back to the shore. The ocean has never looked the same as before after this incident.

5. The most beautiful place we’ve visited together is Table Mountain in Cape Town, South Africa.

6. I got mugged on the street of Dakar, Senegal (West Africa) at night when we lived there. I was 7 months pregnant with our first daughter. I was fine. My friend’s husband (we were with our friends) got my purse back and I am embarrassed to admit that I was more concerned about the purse than anything else.

7. I got stuck in the middle of a university riot in Dakar when I was driving by it with my Japanese friend in a passenger seat and my new-born in the back. One rock hit the front bumper of my Toyota 4Runner, but that was it. Lucky.

8. We went to Paris after our tour in Senegal and visited my friend and her husband. It was almost a culture shock to visit a gorgeous European city after having lived in Africa for 2 years. It became one of the most memorable trips my husband and I made with our daughter.

9. My husband, our 2-year-old daughter at the time and I traveled to Taiwan with our friends and experienced Chinese New Year with our friend’s family. It was the best foreign cultural experience ever.

10. I tried snorkeling for the first time in my life at one of the Kerama Islands in Okinawa, Japan, one of the most beautiful places to snorkel in Okinawa.

11. Our second daughter got a staff infection under her arm in the first month of her life. She was put under anesthesia at 6 weeks. My husband and I were scared, but never felt more united to go through such experience.

There are more unforgettable events in our marriage such as giving birth to our girls, but I wanted to list up 11 for the 11th year anniversary and come up with something unique. Thus, here is the result.

What are yours?