On a bright autumn afternoon, I’m nursing a warm cappuccino at a café in Old Leipzig’s pedestrian-friendly heart. Hard to believe just across the plaza, in St. Nicholas Church a movement began that would bring German communism to its knees.
Monday “peace prayer” groups had long been meeting in the pretty, while-columned church. Just a dozen-odd people at first-- no big deal-- but word spread, and crowds grew until, overflowing the church, they spilled out onto the streets. By October 9, 1989 they numbered 70...
Experience the refined simplicity of the Japanese aesthetic where you would least expect it: in the bustle of Tokyo’s shopping districts.
“The whole ideal of Teaism is a result of this Zen conception of greatness in the smallest incidents of life.” –From The Book of Tea by Kakuzo Okakura
In a Japanese tea ceremony, the walk to the tearoom is the first step in the ritual. In this short stroll through a garden, forest or bamboo grove, guests...
It was the smaller, follow-up earthquake that did it for Christchurch and its eponymous primary landmark. The first – a 7.1-magnitude rattler that struck New Zealand’s third-largest city on September 4, 2010 – had injured locals, shaken buildings and raked downtown’s beloved cathedral with cracks and broken windows.
But the 1881-built Christ Church Cathedral – a hulking Gothic Revival icon that loomed over the city centre and dominated South Island postcards – remained standing, comforting Kiwis as a symbol of...
Published in Bombardier Experience Magazine, December 2012
The most beautiful and pure blue in the world is here.
Cevat Sakir Kabaagacli, Turkish novelist Hassan is a man of few words. So when he begins shouting in Turkish early one morning and pointing to a spot off the stern, I spring to my feet and crowd the rail. The bonito are jumping: Dozens of rainbow bodies shimmer in the sun, then plunge back into the chalky blue water off Turkey’s Aegean coast. Hassan, a deckhand who moonlights as the ship’s cook, reaches for a fishing rod, while the captain veers...
To most Canadians, Ufa is best-known for Team Canada’s fourth-place finish at this year’s International Ice Hockey Federation World Junior Hockey Championship. I was there as a journalist to cover the tournament, and I discovered many quirky dimensions to this Russian city of more than one million inhabitants, both inside and outside the rinks.
The 439-year-old capital of the Republic of Bashkortostan lies 14 time zones away from Vancouver and almost 1,200 kilometres east of Moscow, in the Ural Mountains. It’s an oil...