Hiroshima Lantern Festival

Every year the Toronto's Hiroshima Day Coalition  presents an event on August 6th. This year it was the Commemoration of the 66th anniversary of the 1945 Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombings. The event had a particular resonance this year because of the Fukushima Nuclear disaster.


RK performed at the beginning of the event at the Holy Trinity Church. At the end of the night he played the Japanese ryuteki and walked the crowd Pied Piper style over to the reflecting pool at Nathan Phillips. There the participants set adrift their paper lanterns as a symbol of peace.

"Gambaro Japan"

RK performed at the Tsunami Relief benefit concert called "Gambaro Japan" at the Japanese Canadian Culture Centre last Saturday night. There was a wide array of talent raising money for the Japan relief effort. The devestation in Japan has been very deep. Areas near the nuclear plant will be uninhabitable for many decades.  RK played some selections from his Japanese Mysteries CD. Photo by Sachi Kikuchi.

Munching in Munchen

After Vienna we made our way to Munich for our flight back to Toronto. What trip to Munich (let alone Germany) would be complete without a visit to the world famous Hofbrauhaus. Jumbo pretzels, Wiener sausages, Bavarian salt pork knuckles, apple strudel and ... oh and yes, the beer! We met our German friend and aerospace engineering student Tobias Hauk at the train station and took a quick taxi through the pouring rain to the cavernous beer hall. As far as popular touristy activities it is actually pretty enjoyable.

Vienna - Beethoven's Apartment

Vienna is a gorgeous city and a good blend of modern and traditional culture. The Emperor's palaces are indeed impressive but it seems unfair that most of the people in the history books are either aristocrats or military conquerers. A notable exception is Beethoven. Clearly one of the greatest musical geniuses of all time and one of the most famous people in history. What you probably don't know is that Beethoven moved 60 times while living in Vienna. Roughly once every six months. One such place is the Pasqualatihaus. Beethoven's apartment where he wrote the 4th, 5th, 7th and 8th symphonies. I read on a blog that this place is hard to find. That certainly is true as I walked up and down the street several times and couldn't figure out the street number. Locals I asked had no idea either. Finally, I realized it was up the hill behind a grove of trees.  The blog mentioned he had to bang on the door for about ten minutes before anyone answered. When we went that wasn't true but there were no other vistors while we were there.

Prague Digs

We stayed in the top floor of a heritage building behind the main town square across from Franz Kafka's house. I hit my head on the ceiling of this staircase several times. 4th floor makes you realize how much extra exercise the people got back then.