Catholic places we have visited in Japan

Because some of John's compatriots in the Catholic Men of the Chapel asked:
             (This is a work in progress. I will try to add links and photos and the real names of the churches as I find them.)

Our Lady of the Assumption, Misawa (Fr. Andre's church)
Sacred Heart Church, Towada
Seitai Hoshikai - Akita
Hakodate Catholic Churches
 -old church (and Lourdes grotto)
 - new church
Trappistine monastery in Hakodate
Furano church (Hokkaido)
Sendai cathedral
Tokyo cathedral (and Lourdes grotto)
Franciscan church in Roppongi
Narita catholic church
Kyoto cathedral
Niigata cathedral
Base churches:
Misawa AB
Iwakuni MCAS
Atsugi NAS
Nagasaki Urakami Cathedral
26 Martyrs Hill and Museum
Nyokodo--hut of Dr. Takashi Nagai
Seibu-no ______-- Franciscan monastery founded by St. Maximillian Kolbe
    (Kolbe museum, kindergarten, boys' school, Lourdes grotto, church with side chapel of St. Max)
Oura historic church and former Latin school - Nagasaki
Oura new church

Bonus! Korean churches
Osan shopping area church
Myeong-dong Cathedral (and crypt with relics of the Korean Martyrs)
Yongsan North chapel

Extra Bonus!!! Thailand!
Chiang Mai Cathedral

Double Extra Bonus!!! New Zealand!
Christchurch Cathedral [no longer in use due to 2011 earthquakes :-(]
            This is where Matthew threw up on John just as Midnight Mass was starting on Christmas Eve, so John and I went back to Mass in the wee hours of Christmas morning and found ourselves at a Traditional Latin Mass. Serendipity. :)

Wellington Church
Queenstown church

China - sort of
We did not have the freedom to leave our tour group in Beijing, but we did pass a large church while on the bus--we assume it is a government-approved church--and realized it was Catholic as we passed.

Counting down

This morning, I ground the last of our hard wheat and baked the last loaves of bread that I will bake in Misawa.

Every moment is bittersweet.

Unexpected

I didn't expect to find myself in tears after I wrote this letter. It's just a business letter.

John P. and Judith G. Riordon 

H223

June 28, 2012

Masaki Kojima

Northern Housing Office Co. Ltd.

Dear Masaki-san,

The purpose of this letter is to give 30 days written notice of our moving from H223. We do not yet have orders, but we learned today that we will most likely be leaving Misawa on 29 July 2012. For this reason, we wanted to inform you as soon as possible that we are moving.

Also, there is a family with 5 children arriving to work in John’s office in late July. They may be interested in renting H223. We understand that you cannot hold the house for a particular family, and we will do our best put them or their sponsor in direct contact with you as soon as possible.

Thank you for the past six years of rental in H223. We have been privileged to call this house our home.

Very truly yours,

John P. Riordon                        Judith Gibbons Riordon

April fool!

I wish. It has been snowing lightly since about 2:00 this afternoon. I'm not sure you can tell in the photo, but now the flakes are getting larger and it is falling faster and sticking to the trees and fence posts. Unbelievable.

In the yard, April 1, 2012 at 6:00 p.m.

One of these days, I'm going to stop blogging about our incredibly long winter. But this is not that day.

:-P

This weekend

 The Navy is predicting 18-24 inches of snow Friday night into Saturday.

ahhhh, springtime in Misawa...

:P

Happy first-day-of-spring!

We awoke to six inches of new snow this morning.  But, in all fairness, it has melted down quite a bit since last week's big snowstorm.

Cherry blossoms are predicted to peak April 29-May 7. We shall see.

Morning after

Sunshine. :D  

Note the near-disappearance of Meghan's slide.

It's up to the windowsill of the playhouse.

What we call the backyard, which is really our side yard, 

looking toward the parking area and neighboring American-style houses.

What?! It's March 12th

We woke up this morning to a snowstorm. I don't just mean a softly falling almost-spring snow, I mean a wind-whipping, covering the road again, thundering off the roof, 6 to 8 inches by 6 a.m., snowstorm. A true Misawa moment. Here's what our yard looks like at 9:30 a.m.

                     

At breakfast, Katie remarked sardonically, "My birthday [tomorrow] is supposed to be in spring, not winter." Ah, 14-year-olds.

Update:
When the snow did not let up and the piano teacher called to cancel our lesson today, we called a snow day. Joseph went out to clear the walk at about 10:30. At 10:32, he came back in for snow pants, goggles, and a neck gaiter. We must have gotten a foot of snow by then. The front yard was one big drift.

Boy Scouts was canceled at 1:30. By 2:30, soccer practice was also canceled. At 3:00, I gave in and canceled my women's Bible study for tonight. I didn't want others to drive, even though it was the last meeting of one of our most faithful members. :(

The snow continued to fall and the wind continued to blow. 

I started to make a pot of split pea soup with ham, set some rolls out to rise, and made Mexican hot chocolate for the kids, who had gone out to tunnel in the 4-foot pile of snow that had fallen from the roof. Goodness, the snow was up to Meghan's waist in places. It was blowing so hard, they came back in for ski goggles and neck gaiters, but they didn't give up on playing out there. It felt like we were back in January!

Snowy memories, lots of shoveling, and time for Mom to post something to the blog. All in all, a pretty good day.
:)

Sledding Day

Our parish organized a sledding day at the "ski lodge" on base. Joseph and John helped setup and the rest of the family came later. Great fun was had by all. About 15 families enjoyed a day of sledding, hot chocolate and lunch. Most of the dads were out on the hill with the kids and--I am not making this up--the moms were in the lodge chatting and ensuring the food was up to the usual high standards.

Here are some pictures...

Joseph

Meghan and her friend Lilly

Matthew

Katie

The Hill

The lake beyond the hill with ice fishermen on it

More Skiing at Hachimantai

We went back to Hachimantai Ski Resort (it's on the north slope of Mt. Iwate) today, so Patrick could have one more outing before heading back to school.  The snow conditions were much improved over last time and we had a blast!  Here's some pictures of everyone in action.  Meghan had her first lesson and Matthew his second and third.  In the afternoon, he was skiing the main slope the rest of us were on!

Patrick

Joseph

Meghan

Katie

John

Matthew - Before Lunch

Matthew - After Lunch

Matthew on Skis

Meghan's First Time Skiing

No words are necessary...

The off-season is all in our minds...

At least one of the kids really wanted to play baseball today, so they had a game of catch.  Why let a few snowflakes get in the way?

Garden Produce

Today's harvest from the backyard garden--spicy peppers, tomatoes and green beans.  I wish we knew what kind of peppers they are!

Family photos

Where does the time go?

No posts since April. I am so sorry. I guess I could come up with a lot of excuses for never posting anything, but mostly it has been hard to regain our equilibrium since Meghan got to be a toddler. And even worse since I got a Facebook page. I would love to blame the 3-11-2011 earthquake, and Tommy and Tara can attest to the fact that we are definitely out of balance since then, but I think the problem was brewing even before March and came to a head when the earth started shaking down south of here.

All that being said, I want to try to keep this blog going because it contains some lovely memories of our time in Japan, and I have lots to add from the past couple of months. With only about a year left, we are getting into "panic travel" mode, and we had visitors who inspired us to get out and about. So. I am going to try to write a little every week, and we will see how it goes.

Survivor Journal - Chapter 8

About to call an end to a gratifying weekend: Stations of the Cross and dinner with a couple other geographic bachelors; another tsunami cleanup trip and a soak in a hot bath afterward; and Sunday Mass, Adult RE and a quiet day at home.  Still feeling the effects of Saturday's exertion, but the aches are more than outweighed by the satisfaction of helping out some of those in need here.

Tsunami Cleanup - Trip #2
Well, here's the before and after.  Not quite as stark as last weekend...

Before

After

Here you can see how much sand we had to move to unbury the pile of ropes in the foreground.

And here's a glimpse at what a "little" tsunami can do...

Finally, here's a short video of some of the work we did.


Here's how the Misawa Helps crew recovers a fishing net from the sand piled on it by the 11 March 2011 tsunami. The location is Momoishi Beach just south of Misawa, Japan. The noise you hear is from the wind.

Sunday Brunch
The conversation still wasn't very lively, but I enjoyed the omelet a great deal more than the one I made two weeks ago.

Survivor Journal - Chapter 7

Yesterday
There was something especially interesting about the sky yesterday evening.  It must have been a precursor of the perfect, spring weather we had today.

Without too much planning, I found all the ingredients for spaghetti with meat sauce, green beans and garlic bread.

Signs of Spring
When I arrived home from work today, I found the changing of the seasons in our front garden.  The very last pile of snow is just a couple feet from the very first blossoms.  The late afternoon light shed an unusual perspective on the crocuses.

Dinner

It had to happen sooner or later...  I had ramen for dinner.  Of course, Wednesday is always a challenge, culinarily-speaking.  This time it was my own fault for not planning ahead.  I supplemented the shrimp ramen with salad and buttered bread.  My dear wife is shaking her head at the combination of noodles and bread.  She's right, of course, but it was the end of the loaf, it was getting stale, and it either needed to be eaten or thrown out.  I ate most of it...



What we were really doing that day...
Everyone else will remember 3/11 because of the earthquake and tsunami, but I'm choosing to remember it for what we were doing before the disaster struck.  We had the best day of skiing ever!  Maybe that's not saying much--it was only my fourth time.  Still, it was waaay better than the last time I really skied and ended up with a concussion!  Here we are at the top of a run at Hachimantai Ski Resort, which is at the base of Iwate-san (Mt Iwate).

I took this last picture of Matthew just a couple minutes before the ground started shaking...