Beth and I lived in Japan for 3 years from 1994 to 1997. We decided to take "the long way home" from Japan by travelling west through Southeast Asia for 6 months. I remember the moment we left Tokyo as if it happened yesterday - June 29th, 1997.
It was a very strange day. The country had been reeling from a case of 2 children being murdered in Kobe in late May - very gruesome details - and in a country that had very few incidents of murder (or violent crime for that matter), it was a shocking story.
The day we left, they had discovered that the brutal crimes were actually perpetrated by a 14 year-old boy. I remember seeing the newspaper on the train platform and being in a complete state of shock. You can read about it
here.
The other thing of note that was kind of a big deal was the handover of
Hong Kong back to China. We weren't able to travel there and we were kind of disappointed as we'd always wanted to visit Hong Kong. You can read about that trip
here.
By mid October, we'd made it to Nepal and were preparing for our next and final destination: India. Before we took on trekking and rafting in Nepal, we wanted to take care of visa requirements for India. Knowing that wading through the bureaucracy of Indian government processes often took way longer than it should, we set out to the local embassy in the morning.
Apparently, we weren't the only ones who had the same idea that day - we found ourselves in a lineup thirty people deep that was just NOT moving. By that point in the trip, we'd learned to "enjoy" the delays and I immediately struck up a conversation with the family that was behind us in line.
The couple had two daughters, 11 and 13, and they were in the middle of a year-long backpacking adventure around the world. Those girls were unbelievable - they could more than hold a conversation, were mature beyond their years and were extremely engaging - Beth and I couldn't believe it.
We talked in line for what seemed like hours and when the process finally ended, said our goodbyes. That night, Beth and I agreed that if we had kids we would make every effort to take them on an adventure of their own. And there you go!