Sunday Stamps: Bizarre or Unexplainable

My guess is that this stamp is only bizarre for me. For a German, for sure it's not. Please help me identify what are these two yellow objects on the beach.

For other bizarre of unexplainable stamps, check out the linky at See it on a Postcard.

~maria

Postcards for the weekend 9: Gardens by the Bay

I thought it would be easier not to work on a theme but I was wrong! When having a theme requires me to dig through my collection, not having one puts me in a big conflict. There’s a lot of beautiful and special cards that I wish to share!

But finally … here are cards from Singapore Gardens by the Bay – a place where I love going for a jog or a walk during the weekends. Though the scenery doesn’t change, there’s always new energy depending on the crowd of people who are there at the time of my visit.

To start with, here are two artistic renditions of the place. Are you able to count how many birds are there in the yellow postcard? How about the butterfly, dragonfly, and frog on the white one?

Outgoing, Traveling to Finland

SG-221079, Sent to Arizona, USA
Traveled 14,646 km in 21 days

For these next two cards, they’re almost identical but taken at different angles. It’s nice to notice that the bright white dot-like lights on the supertrees are more luminous on the last card.

The Gardens by the Bay is self-sufficient. There are solar panels on top of the supertree structures that power the place.

SG-224826, Sent to Gwynedd, UK
Traveled 11,074 km in 13 days

SG-221631, Sent to Bochum, Germany
Traveled 10,353 km in 9 days

I hope you enjoyed these cards. Have fun visiting each other’s page for their chosen features for the theme anything you wish!

~maria

PFF: Happy Halloween

SG-221629, Sent to Saint Petersburg, Russia

Traveled 8,974 km in 10 days

For Postcard Friendship Friday this week, I'm sharing this card that received the comment: fantastic, unusual amazing postcard. I'm glad that the puzzle pieces arrived all intact.

Upon seeing social media posts of Halloween dress up costumes, I was reminded of this puzzle postcard. I think, these are two men in elephant costume for the circus.

Enjoy the Halloween festivities, everyone! 

Head over to Beth's page to see what others have shared for PFF.

~maria

Sunday Stamps: City Views

On the left, issued on 24 April 2006 under the theme, Polish Cities. Czestochowa, a city name I'm not sure if I'm pronouncing properly. The city is famous as a place of pilgrimage. It houses the Black Madonna, credited for many miracles. The architecture too is evidently magnificent, at least for me -- judging from this stamp.

On the right, issued on 30 April 2013 under the theme, World Cultural Heritage of Russia, Historical center of Saint-Petersburg. This stamp features the Spit of Vasilyevsky Island. It captures one of the two Rostral columns and the Old Saint Petersburg Stock Exchange. Both structures are significant examples of Greek Revival architecture.

The theme for Sunday Stamps this weekend is city views. Check out other entries at See It On A Postcard for views of other cities from around the world.

~maria

Postcards for the weekend 8: Reflected Sailboat

Direct Swap, Sent from Green Bay, WI - 23 Jan 2012

I can't help but be amazed with the stillness of Lake Michigan and the symmetrical reflection of the sailboat. This photo, according to the sender was taken near sunset. The photographer is Darryl R. Beers. My little research about this postcard revealed to me that Mr. Beers had a collaboration with a writer, Dr. Raymond Reed Hardy. The showcase of Wisconsin scenes paired with haiku can be viewed at nature.org. I watched it and the video was peaceful and soothing; perfect to wind down with after a long week.

Our theme next week is "anything you wish" It's exciting to find out the postcards each of us will choose without an assigned theme. 

Cheers,

~maria

PFF: Hurray for Beth!

SG-221621, Outgoing to China
Sent 22 Aug 2016, Traveled 4,556 km in 24 days

Beth, the host of Postcard Friendship Friday has been in my thoughts. As some of you may know, she underwent surgery. I wrote to her last week and I'm happy that she's feeling better and a lot more mobile. Sending warm & cheerful thoughts your way Beth! I hope you will be back into good health again real soon.

The Best Hearts Are Crunchy, Beth's page is one of my favorites -- lots of beautiful vintage cards there. Most of these cards I can only admire online and never will be in my collection. Thanks Beth for sharing joy with your collection through your blog.

Wordless Wednesday: La Joconde

Sent 7 October 2016 from CDG Airport
Received 13 October 2016, Traveled 10,722 km in 7 days

Wordless Wednesday is one of the linky parties I used to participate when I was more active in blogging. It's a great collection of beautiful photos that speak for themselves from bloggers around the world.

Mon cheri was back to France and he said there's 2 postcards for me in the mail. One of the cards is La Joconde ... mesmerizing!

~maria

Stamps: Foods of the world

The stamps on top are food I'm most familiar with:

Satay from Indonesia - locally, satay is pronounced as sate. There are many variants and Sate Tambulinas (beef) is the most favored in Sulawesi, the western part -- according to my research. What sets apart the Indonesian satay from other skewers is the use of turmeric in the marinade. Normally, I get my satay with diced onions and sliced cucumber relish and the best part, peanut sauce.

Roast goose from Hong Kong - this I believe is the "star" on the menu for most of the Chinese restaurants. It's crispy on the outside and tender in the inside. Here in Singapore, we often get the roast duck version. I'm not sure if I've ever tried roast goose at all.

The stamps at the bottom are foreign to me:

Kranjska klobasa from Slovenia - In English, it's Carniolan sausage. From my research, Slovenia has successfully entered it into PGI status. The sausage are joined at the ends by wooden skewers; often coming in pair. It's often served with bun and mustard.

Karjalanpiirakka from Finland - The pie has a TSG status in Europe. I'm a bit confused about the ingredients of this pie. In the end settled with, "This is rice pie but not any rice pie, it's a rice pie from Karelia." I read that the release of this stamp caused an online protest because it shows a store-bought pie not a traditional home-made version.

For more gastronomic stamps, check the page -- See it on a postcard.

~maria

Postcards for the weekend 7: Children from JP, USA, & PH

Sent from Yokohama, Japan by myself
Sent on 30 May 2015, Traveled 5,291 km

Since Feb 2015 when I started traveling mostly around Asia for work, I've been sending myself postcards from my trips. This one is from my first trip to Japan. There's a poem/song about Akai Kutsu that tells the story of an adopted girl, best remembered for her red shoes. According to our Japanese business partner, the little girl with red shoes is a metaphor for little girls being adopted by Americans back then, leaving Japan through the port of Yokohama. I found an article here that elaborates more about a little girl with red shoes on.

Friendship Gift Postcard, Sender: Terry
Sent from Arkansas on 3 May 2013, Traveled 13,544 km

This second card is among my favorites! Terry said that these two friends -- the blonde girl is her and the other one with black hair is me. Terry and I met through a postcards exchange group in Facebook. We became close friends through the years since meeting each other back in June 2012. Terry pointed out to me that by the leg of the stool, there's the ME initials. ME is for Mary Engelbreit, illustrator of children's books.

~maria

Stamps: Post & Philately

Counterclockwise:

Poland Europa 2013, features the Postman Van used by the Polish Post

Malaysia 2012, a stamp for the World Post Day showing the uniform of postmen from the 1950s

Brasil, 2009, an express national delivery postman on a motorcycle

I love that I'm able to extract these three stamps showing transportation means of postal delivery from different countries.

Finland 2013, playful and colorful "I ♥ Postcrossing" stamp. 

Postcrossing has been a highly successful project, boosting the hobby of deltiologists. It's honestly what got me into collecting postcards.

Today is World Post Day. This event is celebrated annually to commemorate the creation of the Universal Postal Union (UPU) in 1874. The theme this year is Innovation, Integration, and Inclusion. To read more about the celebration this year, please click here. For more postal related stamps this Sunday, please check out the participants for Sunday Stamps, here.

For my readers who are part of the postal service, thank you so much for your contribution in taking care of our mails, parcels, packets, and packages!

~maria

Postcards for the weekend 6: Singapore Postal Boxes

Outgoing: 7 October 2016 to Tasmania, Australia

The postcards that can be found in bookstores and souvenir shops usually have touristic themes. In my efforts to find requested postcard theme(s) for swaps, I chanced upon The Postcard House. This post box postcard is one of the three designs I ordered last week. The ordering & delivery process was very efficient and this card is now on its way to Australia. I really like this card for featuring modifications for the Singapore postal box over three decades. Although, I reckon it would have been even nicer if the current post box design is on this card, too. There's a separate card for that, which can be found here. 

I found it a nice coincidence that the theme for Sunday Stamps linky this weekend is similar to our Postcards for the Weekend theme. To view stamps that are postal related, please head over to See it on a Postcard this Sunday, 8 Oct 2016.

Our previous theme, domesticated animals - generated a lot of informative and amusing postcards. I gathered that not everyone has postcards that will exactly fit the chosen theme every time. However with that experience last weekend, each of us were resourceful and creative with the postcards we shared! I hope we can continue with this spirit for future themes that pose to be challenging, given our individual preferences for the themes in our respective postcards collections.

For the end of this month, October -- I've decided to make it free and easy; hence, an anything you wish theme. It should be equally interesting and exciting to find out what postcards we'll share for that theme-less weekend. 

Happy weekend everyone,

~maria

Stamps: Birds

I'm very happy when I saw these new stamps last week. I thought to myself, "Perfect for the upcoming Sunday Stamps theme!" 

There were four designs issued on 21 September 2016. I only have these two, though. The theme was local birds of prey in Singapore. The other two designs can be seen here.

~maria