Of course, my favorite card this time around is the one at top left, loaded down with dim sum. Arriving the day after I had been out for a huge dim sum feast…
…this made me smile even wider! It came to me from Fuzhou, China in a Postcrossing Forum tag trade, and the sender had seen the card in my favorites.
“This card shows some popular dishes. I like them too. 🙂 I’m glad to send this card to you. My summer holiday was finish. I began to work. The mid-autumn festival will be coming. We eat mooncakes on the day. I like mooncakes.”
I made mooncakes for the Mid-Autumn Festival this year:
The colorful card at top right, full of figs & stuff is a Postcrossing arrival from Sevastopol, Crimea, Ukraine. The sender tells me:
“This postcard depicts (Crimea’s) sights and culture…and FOOD. We have a lot of fruits, fish and vegetables and our cuisine is based on this ingredients. It’s very tasty as the Russian cuisine and I strongly recommend you to visit my country, my city, my region at least because of its food. If you’re interested, I’ll give you some recipes.”
The cartoon kid came to me from Mannheim, Germany, and the sender writes:
“I’m working as a librarian at the university. My 15 years old nephew is a fan of Naruto and he gave me this card for you. OK, it’s an ad card…but we thought you might like it. My hometown is Mannheim where Carl Benz invented the automobile in the years 1885/1886. The stamp is a fairy tale stamp of the story about Hansel and Gretel. Have a nice mail day!”
You can see Hansel & Gretel down at the bottom of this post.
The ship on a postcard is from a Postcrosser in St. Petersburg, Russia, who tells me:
“I love reading and my favorite book is ‘The Master and Margarita.’ And also for cuisine, I prefer Georgia’s. It’s really amazing! I like spicy meat and I’m fond of their sweets, too!”
Then we come to two fish postcards, joined into a single notecard with washi tape. The envelope crafted for this is remarkable–you can also see it down below (complete with the bite taken out of it somewhere along the snail mail pipeline). This came to me from Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada as the result of a result of a swap-bot swap: the swap I shared that was so special I felt the need to mail something off in return. This time, she writes (in part):
“Thanks very much for responding to the swap I had sent you. It was an even happier snail mail day because it involved a Smurfette envie, cool stamps, a retro postcard, and you left very little white space on the postcards–these are my favorite kinds to receive! 🙂
The sea creature rubber stamps you asked about–they are a set from a company called DJECO. My memory is kind of dismal these days, but I think I got them in the kids’ section at the Vancouver Art Gallery giftshop. I did check Amazon, but they didn’t have this particular set. I found them a few years ago, so don’t know how available they are.
You know of ROBOCON!!! It was not until I looked him up as an adult, that I realized he was an actual character! I though he was just/or could have been a figment of my childhood imagination. I can’t tell you why I so loved this robot when I was a kid. Still do, I guess!
I’m off to Befordshire and will start the new Springsteen book. Hope I don’t fall asleep b/c it’s heavy and it’ll hurt when it falls on my face. :I “
Boy, can I relate to that last bit, about falling asleep while reading in bed(‘fordshire’).
Finally, from a Postcrosser in Groningen, Netherlands, I received that postcard of tapas. The sender had put this in an envelope, and she wrote:
“If you ‘love’ food, I ‘have’ to send this card to you. Sorry for the envelope, the sorthing machines mark black stripes on the front of the card.”
I do need to say at this point that if someone were to invite me out for tapas, I would be hoping to go to the tapas place not far from my home.
Okay, this was a rather long meeting. Let’s end it all now, with a look at the stamps, postmarks, envelope & stuff.
The Snail Mail 