OKU FAMILY
June 1997 was graduation at MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY in Boston, MA. Graham Ingersoll Warden would be leaving and going across the ocean to the land of the rising sun....JAPAN....to do research with Aginomoto in Kawasaki while living in Yokohama...Graham got to experience the train, the food, sightseeing, and Japanese baseball while making lots of friends
October 1997 Graham was on the internet in Japan looking for Japanese pen pals. Graham studied two years of Japanese and needed to practice his Japanese so who should he meet online....no other than Sayaka Oku a college student studying to be a Japanese teacher at Toko Gakuen University...They strike up conversations daily and by New Years Eve 1997 they meet for their first date to see the World Premier of the TITANIC....other dates were movies, karaoke, and conversing in Japanese. Graham left Japan in June 1998 to go to USAF Officer's Candidate School in Birmingham, AL and August 1998 he was off across the country to Los Angeles where he would enter UCLA Medical School. Graham and Sayaka parted saying they would keep in touch but would date other people. We say "date others"....I think not...they found parting quite sad. Sayaka went to Vietnam to teach Japanese and Graham was in LA. That did not separate them...Graham made three trips to Vietnam. Vietnam was another great experience for Graham. 
To learn the culture of a country which America had been at war with. 
Graham made many friends there and Sayaka and Graham had one special friend, Minori Kogure, who especially bonded with them. Minori too was a Japanese teacher in Vietnam
Sayaka in Vietnam dress
April 2001 a meeting of Graham's and Sayaka's parents in Los Angeles
Cyrus and Janelle Walker Warden with Graham at our first meeting with the Oku family
Michio and Yoko Nakayama Oku with Sayaka in LAIn 1968, the James Bond movie, "You only die twice" was filmed in Japan. Michio Oku was a college student making his debut in the movie. He played the part of one of the groom's in the wedding party
Michio Oku and Yoko Nakayama were married on March 25, 1972 at Kobe/Osaka, Japan. Two daughters were born to this union
The family lived in New York City when the girls were quite young. The daughters attended school in America and when Sayaka was back home in Japan she said to her father, "Daddy, go back to New York, I am not Japanese, I am American"
Miyuki marries
Masahiko on 15 November 1999 at the Surf City Christian Church, Gold Coast Highway Surfers Paradise Queensland 4217 Australia
Miyuki and Masahiko Taniuchi relaxing at home in Japan
Sayaka marries Graham Ingersoll Warden on 7 October 2001 in Melbourne Beach, Florida Making the trip from Japan to Florida for the wedding
Yoko setting a Japanese Dinner Table with Sayaka and Michio giving encouragement
