SCUBA Chuck: Sent to Belgium, Canada, China, Finland, Germany, Hong Kong, Japan, Netherlands, Russia, Sweden, & Taiwan

TWENTY outgoing cards in this post! This all happened over the course of a few weeks.

Several more Postcrossing Forum tags heading out. Charlie Brown & Woodstock are heading for Shanghai, China. If you poke around the Santa Rosa area, you will find many Peanuts statues, decorated by local artists in many different styles. My favorite of the few I’ve spotted stands outside a seafood restaurant in a coastal area: it’s Charlie Brown in SCUBA gear.

The food package is going to Guangzhou, Guangdong, China. I don’t remember much about the cookies, but it says “crisp and buttery,” so therefore I know I loved them.

From Guangzhou, Guangdong, we go to Guiyang, GuiZhou, China— that’s where this big “Let’s Go with Lucy” card is headed. A card as large as this leaves a large canvas for stickers & washi tape, as well as plenty of room for a message. I’ve obscured the message, but you can see the stamps, stickers, & washi tape below.

Lucy pounding sand went off to Hirai, Wakayama, Japan; and Linus the door-to-door salesman to Tsushima, Aichi, Japan.

I chose Charlie Brown for a recipient in Tokyo, Japan. The evil queen went to Shanghai, China, and the beautiful sea otter was destined for Eutin, Germany.

“California is So Cool.” When I made a Disneyland trip not so long back, I tried to find postcards in the park, but failed. This I bought at a convenience store across the street, and now it goes out to Koriyama, Fukushima, Japan in a Disney cards tag.

“California Has Everything.” Now we are clearly bragging. This one is heading for Ashikaga, Tochigi, Japan, in a “what I’m reading now” tag. I’m reading The Underground Railroad, by Colson Whitehead.

Completing the California trilogy is the California Coast Highway 1 postcard, careening off to Hong Kong.

Another California card? Yes, this view of Point Lobos goes via a rare Postcrossing draw, to a recipient in Gnesta, Sweden, who expressed a preference for cards showing places–and Point Lobos is a great place!

A second Postcrossing draw; this one goes to Dirgenheim, Germany. Sad to say, this lovely series of national park postcards neglects to mention the state where each park is located. This despite a long passage of text on the back so expansive that it leaves room for only a single stamp! The designer really does not understand the postally-obsessed. Not to mention that the postmark will more that likely obscure all of that printed prose.

Another one of the national park cards: okay, this one does mention on the back that Acadia National Park is on the Maine coast. This one is a regular Postcrossing draw, and goes to Lahti, Finland. The recipient requested that people not use stickers or washi tape on her cards, so I won’t bother to flip this one over for you.

Scuttle and his dinglehopper are going to Kuwana, Mie, Japan, in a Disney cards tag. Ursula is on the back of the card (proof below).

Now several more regular Postcrossing draws: not something I do so often any more, but I am just in the mood to send out more cards (and by extension, receive more). The California Natural Wonders card was actually in the “favorites” of the person to receive it; she lives in Zoetermer, Netherlands.

The lemurs are going to a paleontologist in Omsk, Russia. She wanted illustrations of animals, so here she goes!

The map card goes to a map card lover in Taipei, Taiwan; and the bridge card goes to Dendermonde, Belgium, to a lover of touristy cards.

Lucy and Schroeder are going to a Peanuts lover in Espanola, Ontario, Canada. Unlike the recipient in Finland, this person loves a decorated card, so I did my best on the backside.

Time for stamps, stickers, & stuff. I love these brand-new Bioluminescent Life stamps from the USPS!

My Favorite is the Fruity Stamp from Malaysia: Received from China, England, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Taiwan, & the U.S.

I have learned what a “Maximum Card” is! Well, at least if the sender of this stamp-on-a-matching-card (received via Postcrossing from China) is to be believed. The college student writes:

“The picture of the postcard is Chinese New’s famous painter, art educator Liu Haisu. Hope you enjoy this Maximum Card!”

That card with the something-or-the-other with the diamond-shaped hole… well, it came by way from Indonesia via Postcard United, and the sender wrote little more than “Greetings from Indonesia”–but fortunately, the words “Borobudur, Jawa Tengah” were printed on the front, and when I asked Jeeves, he told me this:

Borobudur, or Barabudur is a 9th-century Mahayana Buddhist temple in Magelang, Central Java, Indonesia, and the world’s largest Buddhist temple. The temple consists of nine stacked platforms, six square and three circular, topped by a central dome. It is decorated with 2,672 relief panels and 504 Buddha statues. The monument is the single most visited tourist attraction in Indonesia. The high volume of visitors ascending the Borobudur’s narrow stairs has caused a severe wear out on the stone of the stairs, eroding the stones surface and made them thinner and smoother.

Sounds like tourist heck!

The orangey building painting is from Taiwan, via Postcard United:

I’m sending you a card image of an UNESCO site in which I like to visit one day–“Toulou,” an unique historical architecture albeit structure that exists in southeastern China. Such structure is aparments alike as its interior has many households. Toulou comes in square, rectangular, circular and oval like architecture. Toulou in Chinese means “soil floors.”

I’m so confused; I looked up “Toulou China UNESCO” online, & none of the photos seems to resemble this postczrd image.

From India, via Postcard United, I received the hilltop-castley-forty-looking “General View Golconda Fort.” A couple of issue with the card: it’s printed on what’s a lightish-medium-weight magazine cover stock (but I don’t care); and the “caption” printed on the other side covers all of the writable space, leaving the sender to squeeze a greeting & signature into the corners (and I do care). But it’s always nice to receive a card from India.

The white gate with pigeons came from Taiwan via Postcard United, and there’s not much of a message, but lovely stamps, and a very special dog postmark that the sender writes was only available on the day she sent the card. Wow, other countries sure to have special mail/postcard cultures!

That scene from the Thames came from London via Postcrossing, and the sender says:

“This time of the year it’s almost always cloudy outside, but since it’s a big city you can always find somewhere indoor forgetting about the weather!”

Do you think the books below were purchased soley for their uniform spines? The card came to me from somewhere in the U.S. via swap-bot–and you need to scroll down & see the very old stamps the sender used. She writes:

“I only have a handful of old books, probably oldest is from 1880s. I stared reading it and it was boring, LOL.”

I’m not sure what’s going on in that dark painting that looks like a child’s hand holding a wooden horse’s head. Creepy. It’s from Russia, and the decorations on the back–all snacks & Starbucks–lighten the mood considerably. It came my way in a Postcrossing Forum “last movie I’ve seen tag,” and if you look for the stickers I mentioned below, you’ll be able to read about her last movie seen.

That snowy scene is from Takamatsu City, Japan, and the sender sets the scene:
“This garden was constructed by the feudal lords in 16th to 17th century. It’s open to the public now, one of my favorite sites to visit. This card shows a snowy view, however, it hardly snows here. Good photo, I think.”

I’d love to see it green & springy!

We’ll transition over to the stamps by way of this stamp-themed postcard from Malaysia. Much more pleasing are the real-life stamps used to mail the card. Malaysian stamps never disappoint! I love the center of the three used, laden as it is with jackfruit, durian, mangosteen, and rambutan!