A trip to Morioka

"Tadaima!" (I'm home!)

We are back from our three day visit up north to Morioka.  This is the city where Tetsu grew up and where we met, married and lived for two or three years.  It is a beautiful part of the country...  but cold.  Well, not this weekend.  It wasn't particularly cold but we did get some rain.  It was a 6 hour drive to Morioka, a first stop at our family grave site to do some weeding and then we spent the rest of the afternoon with two of Tetsu's jr. high and high school friends and their wives.

 Mt. Iwate is the northeastern "Mt. Fuji".  It is always a thrill to catch the first glimpse of Mt. Iwate when we travel north.  We were still on the highway when I took this photo.

"Oh well, we'll have lots of time to stop and photograph Mt. Iwate later this weekend."

Not so!  The next day it rained and the clouds and greyness completely hid Mt. Iwate.  This was our first and last chance to photograph this pretty mountain!

Okay...  So this is what we do every time we visit Morioka.  Buy flowers, lug water up to the grave (it is at the top of a hill) do a bit of weeding and take a photo... proof that we've been there.  The Christian cemetery used to look out over the city, sort of in a lonely forest.  In the 33 years since we put up the grave, the area has been developed and a new crematorium has been built (there used to be an small one that was pushed to serve the whole city). 

Now our view is not so great...  but we can look out OVER the crematorium to the city in the distance.

The menfolk had some hilarious stories of when they were teenagers and doing crazy things.  Nowadays everyone's children are grown up and the one couple has a grandchild.

Tetsu and I stayed at a hotel that night in the center of Morioka and awoke to rain the next morning.  Still, we wanted to walk over to the castle ruins where we used to wander on our youthful dates.

Morioka has a wide river running through the center of it.  That must be the national broadcasting tower there on the right...  We could see the same tower from the grave site overlooking the city.

The mossy walls of the castle grounds are still protecting the city though there is no castle building itself.

 I suppose this used to be a moat.

On warm days when I live in Morioka I would come to this park/castle grounds and lean up against the stone walls and read a book.

After our rainy walk and breakfast Tetsu and I drove the back streets of Morioka pointing out places we remembered and finally arriving at our former church which was celebrating its 100th birthday on this Easter Sunday.  Since we attended this church, our family moved around quite a bit and we realized that we've attended 8 churches in the previous 38 years.  The Tatesakabashi church building has been rebuilt...  new members of course, but still a few familiar faces.  To one young man who was introduced to me by his grandmother I could say,

"Your grandmother here made a great impression in my life.  Come to think of it, your GREAT-grandmother (whom he'd never met of course) made a great impression in my life too!"

We had a wonderful, though too short or a time reminiscing with the older church members.

Okay...  Tomorrow I have scenic photos to show...