Postcards for the weekend 74: Serenity/Peace/Calm

Friendship Gift Postcard, Sent from Yachiyo
Sent 16 Feb 2012, Traveled 3,022 km

I received this postcard from a Japanese acquaintance 6 years ago. The postcard didn't make any sense to me until I had the chance to travel to Kyoto, Japan and see an actual Zen garden back in November 2016.

This rock Zen garden is of The Temple of the Dragon at Peace (Ryoan-ji). This garden and the temple are listed as one of the Historic Monuments of Ancient Kyoto. It's a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

On this postcard, the garden is viewed at a seated position on the veranda of the abbott of the monastery/temple. There has been plenty of attempts to explain the careful placement of stones in the garden. According to a Garden historian, Gunter Nitschke, "The garden at Ryoan-ji does not symbolize anything, or more precisely, to avoid any misunderstanding, the garden at Ryoan-ji does not symbolize, nor does it have the value of reproducing a natural beauty that one can find in the real or mythical world. I consider it to be an abstract composition of natural objects in space, a composition whose function is to incite meditation."

Wishing you all a calm and peaceful weekend,

~maria

Postcards for the weekend 73: Happiness/Joy

Private Swap, Sent from Morges, Switzerland
Sent 3 Oct 2016, Traveled 10,451 km

On top of this perfectly joyous picture of little girls enjoying fondue, what made me pick this postcard for this weekend's theme was the message at the back. The sender wrote, "The Swiss national dish: fondue (cheese + white wine). I am not the father of these lovely girls!" -- I chuckled!

On a side note, I'm really happy as I'm here in the Philippines since Tuesday. It's so good to be back home!

~maria

Sunday Stamps: New Year

2018 is the year of the Earth Dog, the previous one being in 1958. Wow, that's 60 years ago! 

I just realized that my mother has an Earth Dog zodiac sign. She's turning 60, two days from now.

Now onto the stamps: (1) The Singapore stamp was released on 5 Jan 2018. It was designed by Mr. Leo Teck Chong, who has been designing Singapore's Chinese zodiac series of stamps since 2009 up to present. (2) The Taiwanese stamp was issued on 1 Dec 2017. It features a paper cutting of a dog surrounded by peonies. 

For Sunday Stamps hosted at See it on a Postcard.

~maria

Postcards for the weekend 72: Love/Lovely

I wish that I've bought more copies than I actually did of this postcard for this weekend's theme. Perhaps I'm too sappy -- I imagine this postcard can bring a nice smile to the recipient.

Have a lovely weekend!

~maria

Postcards for the weekend 71: Anything you wish

These are postcards that I wanted to share last weekend with the theme, mountains. I didn't have the chance to scan them though. These are from John of John's Island. The postcards are from northwestern-most part of the United States of America.

On the bottom leftmost part of this postcard is the name Dan Coe. He is a professional Artist & Sign Painter working out from his private studio in Anchor Point, Alaska.

The artist Sydney Mortiner Laurence painted this in 1935. The artwork as is printed on this is called, This is Alaska. 

This one is not really a postcard but a folded card. It's too beautiful not to share. The artwork is called Inside Passage, painted by John Fehringer.

And for the finale, a postcard showing a view of Mount Rainier and the Cascade Mountains. It was taken from the Sky View Observatory, the largest public observatory on the West Coast.

I was very glad to take these postcards with me, traveling 12,970 km from Seattle to Singapore. Now it's twice the fun, having to share these here on my blog with all my postcards loving visitors for the Postcards for the Weekend linky :)

Cheers & have a nice weekend everyone!

~maria