<Begin Segment 24>

BY: So you told me that at some point, you and George traveled all around. Can you tell me about that? Your work took you overseas or something?

MK: Well, he had a friend, a couple, had me learn how to golf. And he's from Hawaii, so my first trip to... no, it wasn't my first trip to Hawaii, but it was my first golf trip. And then we joined a (couples') group, so we played golf and we traveled to Florida and California with them, but we did most of our big traveling when we went to Korea to work for five years.

BY: So this is a government job again from both of you?

MK: Yeah. We were, I had... I think I had (twenty-five years) with the government, and the kids were grown and married, and we thought going overseas might be fun, because we traveled quite a bit in the United States with our golf friends. And George's office, the Corps of Engineers, had offices all over the world. And so I said it'd be fun to go to Japan.

BY: Were your sisters still there, then?

MK: Oh, no. They were in Germany (after working in Japan.) He said there's no openings in Japan ever. Because once they get there, they don't want to quit. But he said there's Korea, and I said, "Where is that?" And so I looked on the map and I thought, "Oh."

BY: Right next to Japan.

MK: I said, "That's not so bad." I was getting stressed with my job because I had five more years to work in the job. I was a contracting person and my coworkers and I who did the same job, were complaining (that) we should be a better grade, higher grade. And nothing happened. And so I said, "Oh, I don't mind leaving it," and (George) says, "Well, you don't have to worry about a job." The kids are on their own. And so I said, "Oh, okay." And we did start to have a grandchild, but I figure I'm not a grandmother type anyway. But anyway, so we went in 1983 (to Korea).

BY: And was it great?

MK: Yeah. We loved it because, for one thing, he works for the military, so we could ride on a space available basis, the military planes, wherever they fly, for twenty dollars. And you know, I said, "Wow, that's nice." After we got there, I found that out. And so Korea was popular for shopping then. So we had a lot of visitors from the U.S. because I could ship things with...

BY: Again, the military post office, right?

MK: Yeah, post office. But then we traveled to the Philippines, Okinawa, and Thailand, I think, for twenty dollars.

BY: And Japan, you must have gone to Japan?

MK: Oh, yeah, we went to Japan for every... we could travel twice a year for twenty dollars. And we had, George's close friend who became a widower, came back (to work in Japan). (...). And so he was there, too. We used to go at least twice a year to Japan for twenty dollars.

BY: So did you ever go back to Okayama and meet your relatives, your mother and father's family, did you ever do that? I was just wondering since they were...

MK: No, we never did. Because for one thing, my Japanese is poor. George's is worse. And you know, we did other things instead. And then we were so close to China, we went to -- and our daughters came, one came a couple times and wanted to go to Hong Kong and everywhere. But we traveled to Okinawa and the Philippines and Thailand... no, not Thailand. But after we came back, we traveled more. We went to Australia and New Zealand and Europe.

BY: Wow, that's great that you were about to do that.

MK: Yeah, we really got a lot of travel in. And then we were there when Korea got the Olympics, but we didn't attend. We were on our way back and I didn't want to go.

<End Segment 24> - Copyright © 2022 Densho. All Rights Reserved.