The Benefit of an Attempted Ban: Just purchased

I just received a new order of postcards yesterday. I ordered a bunch of these cards–which I otherwise wouldn’t have known about or sought out–thanks to a story I read about an attempt to prevent the image from being circulated.

Thanks to CBLDF and our coalition partners, the online marketplace Redbubble has reinstated a cartoon by Pulitzer Prize–winning editorial cartoonist Nick Anderson that was previously removed because of a meritless complaint by the Trump re-election campaign. CBLDF applauds Redbubble for reinstating the cartoon, and urges them to reject any other attempts by political campaigns to suppress protected speech.

And so, an attempt to restrict protected speech, to hide humorous commentary, has in fact resulted in greater exposure for the work, and more profit for the creator.

I also come across (and purchase) a lot of great books in similar circumstances. Do you ever read banned books?

“Lots” of Old Postcards (Strolling Character Edition)

A few posts back, I shared several old Disney cards I’d snapped up for my Postcrossing stash via online auctions. There were a lot more where that came from, so here is part 2! This time, the focus is (at least mostly) on the costumed characters wandering the parks. You can tell these shots span some number of years, based on the work Mickey is continually having done!

Do you have any favorites here? I think that Dumbo at the bottom is interesting, and of course I always like Baloo, but I think in this batch, my fave is astronaut Mickey & Goofy standing in front of Space Mountain!

Disney Afternoon (or whenever you are reading this): Received from Austria, China, Finland, Japan, & the U.S.

At least one of the cards in today’s batch is from 2020! I mostly see 2018, though. Some great Disney cards to share this time, and I really like the art style on this first pair.

Donald came to me from Austria, and Mickey & Minnie from Finland. A whole lot of good Disney cards do seem to come from Finland, including Scrooge McDuck’s money bin here.

Another pair of Donald cards; the left is from Japan, and the right from Finland.

Disney parks cards! Both of these are from the U.S.

Also from the U.S. is this card with Walt and friends riding a little train; that was a staff greeting card from the Walt Disney Family Museum in San Francisco. The Tokyo Disney card is from, yes, Japan.

Two more postcards to go–Aladdin is from China, and Beauty & the Beast is from the U.S.

Stamp & sticker time:

Spamming My Own Page

One thing about my postcards-for-mailing stash: it’s mostly made up of cards I would enjoy receiving. I just received this order for my Postcrossing stash. This is the kind of Spam I don’t mind.

Food & Travel Edition: Received from China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Singapore, & Taiwan

15 cards to share this time! Food & travel–but really mostly food you might encounter while you travel! I love this. These cards date back as far as 2017–still decluttering–and mostly came my way through Postcrossing Forum, but also from regular Postcrossing and Postcard United (do you use that service, too?).

The xiao long bao basket came, as you can see, from Taiwan. The sender wrote:

“Mini steamed dumplings (Xiao Long Bao) is one of the most famous food in Taiwan.
DIN TAI FUNG is the most famous chain stores and I think it has also some stores
in California! Have you ever tried it before?”

Yes. I have tried the Din Tai Fung XLB in San Jose, California; Bangkok, Thailand; and Taipei, Taiwan. I also stopped by the DTF in Los Angeles–but only to buy a mug with their cool dumpling folks on it!

There’s more xlb on these cards, so let’s serve it up now:

The card came from China, and the sender will have us know that this one is “…not xiao long bao. It calls guan tang bao. It’s a famous snack in Jiang province. Although I don’t know the difference between them yet. Lol.”

The card next to that is also from China, and I’m told the food is Xiazhi noodle, a dish traditionally eaten to celebrate the coming of summer, because “it can bring you cool feelings!”

Back to Taiwan for two cards showing a whole lot of food (including one last look at soup dumps for this time around:

I really like this night market snack card. My trip to Taiwan was quite recent, and I can tell you: the night markets were not crowded. Now, this is nice in that I really don’t enjoy crowds (I’ve been in crowded, touristy night markets, where I’ve had to put my arms down at my sides and just scootch along, tightly in the slow wave of humanity); but it was very much not nice, because most of the food was not freshly-prepared, as it would have to be were there a constant line.

A lovely produce market painting, also from Taiwan…

…and a delicious map of China. The sender writes, “do you know where in China you can eat food from all over the country? You can find food from every corner of China in universities. Because students may go far away to attend a university, so the restaurants should meet everyone’s taste on the campus.”

That’s funny; I think all of the colleges here in the U.S. have Pizza Hut.

And from Indonesia, a delicious, simple, Indonesian recipe! Indonesian restaurants are a rare find where I live. Now, here are a couple of great food photos from China:

Also from China, what seems to be a visual lesson in how to make jianbing:

The Hong Kong egg tart postcard came from Hong Kong.

Two cards to go! The card on the left is fron Singapore, and the sender wrote nothing at all about all of this food, choosing to tell me all about her 3 recent, expensive, trips to the dentist.

The card on the right is from Hong Kong, printed from a photo taken by the sender, who writes “noodle soup is a Asian staple food.”

…and, here are all of the stamps. Lots of nice ones, and one of my favorites is on the very bottom row, right in the middle. It’s a “Kitchenware Street” card from HK, and it was on the back of the card I ended with. Do you have any favorite cards or stamps this time?

Travel Edition: Received from China, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore, Taiwan, Tibet, and the U.S.

More Postcrossing incomings from way back in 2018 that I just rediscovered! What can I say: if this time is good for anything, it’s decluttering.

Love this beautiful card from Hong Kong:

More HK:

Next to are from China: Jing’an Temple, and Cha Ya Mountain.

Next up we have a card from Tibet, & one from the U.S.

That Hawaii card came from a Postcrosser in Colorado. She wrote:
“I took a trip to New Zealand with a six-day stopover in Hawaii on the way back. These vintage-type poster art cards were some of my favorites that I bought while there.”

On to Taiwan:

It’s Koinga Shrine in Tainan, and the sender wrote, “This was the first temple built in the Japanese colonial period.” I was recently in the area, and saw firsthand the colonial influence that lasts to this day in some of the local architecture and food.

Speaking of places I recently visited, here’s an image of Singapore, on a card printed from a shot taken by the Postcrosser who sent me this. I took a photo of this statue (Mauro Perucchetti’s “Jelly Baby Family,” in front of the Plaza Singapura Mall) myself, just several weeks ago. The card’s sender is from Bellevue, Washington–a place I have yet to visit. Yes, I’ve been to Seattle; what do you think I am, uncultured?

And speaking of so close and yet so far, when I visited Bangkok, Thailand, I never made the journey to the floating market, as much I would have loved to have seen it. The sender is from Malaysia, and she writes of having been there, “the river was crowded with boats. I had the the boat noodle and it taste great!”

Yum. Boat noodles: that’s something you almost never see at Thai restaurants in the U.S. Next post, I should go with the theme of FOOD and travel…

Oh, I almost posted this without the STAMPS! I didn’t scan the stamps last time around because doing so is so much work, but there are so many beautiful stamps on this batch. I love the ones on the back of the Hawaii card. Do you have any favorite cards or stamps this time?

 

 

 

“Lots” of Old Postcards (Donald Edition)

In the interest of keeping this blog alive, and following yesterday’s theme of posting several old postcards I’d bought in a lot, here is part of a purchase from several months ago: Disney cards! It was a pretty big batch I purchased, so I’ll keep my posts manageable by grouping them by sub-theme. Today: Donald Duck! Some off-model goodness here. I’d love to receive any of these cards.

Do you have a favorite? For me, I think I’m going with the two that portray Disneyland rides.

A New Handful of Old Postcards

It’s been such a long time! I’ll have to figure out a way to resume & continue documenting my Postcrossing adventures here, but today’s lot seemed easy enough to share quickly.

These are old and unused cards for my Postcrossing stash that I just received through an online purchase. This all started when I saw this tasty (?) image on a Facebook friend’s feed:

I was sure that I would like a pack of Burger Chef fish sammich cards, ready to send out. Okay, I didn’t find this card, but the search for “Burger Chef” did land me on “Big Chef Burger”–and how could I not want that big old statue? The rest of the cards were from the same seller.

Now we’ll see how the taggers in the Postcrossing Forums react.

Hope you are doing well. Postcrossing is good therapy in these times.

Catch-Up Edition: Received from Belarus, Bulgaria, China, Finland, Germany, Netherlands, The Philippines, Poland, Russia, Slovenia, South Korea, & the U.S.

It’s kind of false to call this a catch-up edition, because at this point, I don’t think I’ll ever be caught up. I thought this would be a good way to keep track of my postcards, but who has time? Anyhow, after a very long absence, here we go with SOME of the cards I’ve received over the last few months since my last post.

Could there be any postcard more wonderful than this Grandma Duck card that found its way to me from Lelystad, Netherlands?

I also love this postcard from Qingdao, China!

More Doraemon! This one from Poland.

from a friend in the U.S…

from Germany…

Also from Germany:

…and again.

…and again, again. This one below is from a guy who describes himself as a 30-year-old enthusiastic tobacco pipe smoker.

Received from Colorado, U.S.A. I had no idea Ikea sold postcards, did you? I don’t even know where I would start to look for them. The second I go in, the only thing I’m really looking for is the exit…

Here comes something tasty from Korea. The sender says, “nakjibogguem is a stir-fried octopus. It is made with chopped octopus and vegetables. Then make a marinade with red pepper sauce, soy sauce, garlic, salt, and sugar. Mix, marinade them and fry everything. It is pretty delicious with spicy taste. Hope you like it!”

I love this tasty dish of Chairman Mao’s Red Braised Pork from Shanghai, China:

From Quanzhou, Fujian Province, China:

Here’s a dish of food (“pyshenka with butter and piroshki (patty)) from Russia, and I it was dated 2015, about 4 years and 1 month before I received it. It turn out that the sender just apparently had the mid-20-teens on his mind: it was issued and mailed less than a month ago.

More Russian bread:

Received from Shanghai, China:

Received from China–must have been a Postcard Uniting meetup–lots of signatures!

From Hangzhou, China:

From South Korea:

From Shantou, China:

From Finland:

From Belarus:

More pink edibles from Belarus:

Something sweet from Russia:

From Poland:

Bulgaria:

Slovenia:

From the Philippines:

This one from Russia kinda freaks me out…

…if you think it’s not freaky yet, pair it with the message scrawled on the back:

Why are you so prickly, Hedgehog?
–That’s me just in case. You know who my neighbors are? Foxes, wolves, bears.
Happy Postcrossing!

E E E K !

 

My First Trip to Côte d’Ivoire: Sent to Australia, China, France, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Ivory Coast, Japan, Malaysia, Myanmar, and Singapore

Happy New Year! I’ve got a bunch of fronts & backs to share, from cards going out in Postcrossing Forum tags, and a few Postcard United clicks.

In this grouping below, clockwise from the top, where we start with a pair of food package postcards:

It’s-It cookies go to Saitama, Japan
Animals chocolate cookies are off to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Robert Mallet Stevens’s “Museum” goes to Shaanxi, China
William H. Bradley’s “The Modern Poster” is headed for Abidjan, Ivory Coast. I don’t think I’ve ever had postal contact with that country! THANK YOU, Postcard United! I guess this will make up for some of the times they’ve given me an address here in my own country!

Here’s the Great Bell of Mingun, in Myanmar. The card is making its way to Hong Kong.

A red panda off to Hokkaido, Japan…

This photorealistic view of Malaysia–my favorite of this round of postcards–goes off by request to Semarang, Indonesia.

Mickey goes to Sendai, Japan.

That one was off in a Postcrossing Forum Disney card tag, as is Gaston, who is headed to Kyoto, Japan.

This beautiful scene from coastal California goes to Melbourne, Australia.

Another coastal scene, this one going to Saint Sever, France.

Charlie Brown & Woodstock are bound for Singapore!

Yangon, Myanmar…

Hefeie, Anhui, China…

Frank Lloyd Wright’s “May Basket” seems destined for Shenyang, Liaoning, China.

Time for stamps, stickers, & washi tape. A whole lot of awesomeness down here, I say. What do you think?