Postcards for the weekend 38: Traditional festival

Direct Swap, Sender: Meylinda from Hong Kong
Sent: 19 Sep 2012, Traveled 1,129 km

Although I don't totally agree with seeing these children in what seems to be heavy facial make-up, it appears that it is part of the over-all traditional costume. The back of this card reads:

Cheung Chau Island Bun Festival. The children in the procession are the stars of the Bun Festival. Aged between five and eight, they are supported on frames and carried shoulder-high throughout the whole parade to create an elaborate, often whimsical tableau, often representing characters in history or mythology. 

 This festival is celebrated on the eighth day of the fourth month in Chinese Calendar. It usually coincides with Buddha's birthday (April/May). 

BY-691110, Sent by Marina from Minsk, Belarus
Sent: 1 Dec 2012, Traveled 8,926 km in 61 days

Despite my increasingly overwhelming tasks at work and frequent business trips, one of the reasons why I keep on writing about my postcards collection is the mix of emotions I get whenever I review my postcards album. Just like with this postcard, it's kind of hard to believe that it took 2 months to reach me! Wow! Having moved to Singapore, the postcards I receive normally traveled only for a week or two. I don't understand why most of my received postcards, while I was still in the Philippines, seem like they traveled forever to reach me when my home is less than 30 minutes by car from the post office ... well, okay, fair enough, perhaps the postman is always stuck in heavy traffic!

Moving on, this postcard shows the celebration of the Day of Belarusian Written Language in Kamenets. I didn't have the chance to find out on what year this took place. For this year, this festival will take place in Polotsk. Belarus is celebrating 500th Anniversary of the Belarusian Book Printing this year, 2017. More information on this festival can be found here: http://www.belarus.by/en/about-belarus/culture/den_bel_pism_en

SI-52097, Sender: Emil from eastern Slovenia
Sent: 20 Jan 2012, Traveled 9,938 km in 14 days

I'm quite pleased with the assortment of postcards I found for the theme this weekend: featuring children, to grown-ups, to animated creatures. This third and last postcard shows the Ptuj carnival called Kurentovanje. This carnival is celebrated to preserve the tradition for the ancient rite of spring. It usually lasts for a period of eleven days and consists of music and dancing, with the Kurent groups in masks with feathers and horns. I found this excellent page about the carnival, containing a detailed explanation about the masks and the costumes: http://www.slovenia.si/culture/tradition/kurents/

This theme educated me about traditional festivals that I'm sure I wouldn't have known at all if not for these postcards. Have a nice weekend everyone although it's a nay for me as I'm working both on Saturday & Sunday.

~maria

Postcards for the weekend 19: Trains/trams

Direct Swap, Sent from Pawlowice, Poland
Sent 26 July 2012, Traveled 9,615 km

A steam railway locomotive photographed by Ilya Semenov. It's a model L-3348 from the former Soviet Union. Do you know a place where steam trains are still used for passenger service?

Souvenir postcard from Gothenburg, Sweden

I ran out of stamps for all the postcards I bought when I went to Sweden in April of 2015. This is one of a couple of postcards that remained with me. I think these are much older models of the trams I saw and used when I was there. It was my first time to ride a tram in Europe and I think I spent a good 5-10 minutes just to watch the trams passing by and stopping at the Central Station in Gothenburg.

CA-249624, Sent from Hong Kong
Sent 18 May 2012, Traveled 13,422 km in 21 days

Here's another tram that looks like an older model compared to what exists in Hong Kong nowadays. Hong Kong was my first out of the country trip back in 2009. I was amazed to see the tram as no trams exist in the Philippines (at least none that I'm aware of which are being used for public passenger service).

I wish the year is starting well for all of us!

Happy weekend,

~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

Oriental Birds

Arriving back in Manila today, I'm greeted with two postcards on top of my study table. At the back of one card are really bright and beautiful stamps:

Issued by SingPost, the green stamp is from the "Pond Life" definitive collection, issued in 13 April 2011. It features the most common and beautiful specie of damselfly -- Ceriagrion cerinorubellum, commonly known as ornate coraltail. Another stamp from this set, can be found here.

The red stamp is from the "Flora and Fauna" set issued 6 June 2007. For the Aethopyga siparaja, the males have the bright crimson belly and greenish black tail. The females are olive green with hints of pale yellow. To read more about other commemorative stamps from this series, click here.

Drawing inspiration from these two stamps, I found similar ones to share for Sunday Stamps. It's perfect 'cause the theme this week is 'anything you wish'.

Issued in 2005 by Pos Malaysia, the stamp shows tekukur or the spotted dove, Streptopilia chinensis. The Malay name was derived from its soft te-croo-croo call. More information about this bird can be found here.

These 4 stamps are from a PhilPost special issue on 7 March 2008. I have the entire souvenir sheet and very happy to have it. It was for the Philippine participation at the 2008 Taipei 21st Asian International Stamp Exhibition. The first stamp (upper left) is the Philippine Eagle or Pithecophaga jefferyi -- our national bird. To read about these stamps and other stamps from the issue, click here.

These 2 stamps are from the bird definitive stamps issued by the HongKong Post on 31 December 2006. I have here the Greater Painted-Snipe or Rostratula benghalensis and the Red-whiskered Bulbul or Pycnonotus jocosus. The souvenir sheet features 12 birds (including these 2), and there were 4 high-value stamps, that can be found here. The complete set can be found here.

I'm happy to come up with many related stamps to the Singaporean stamps. Also, it's nice to know that despite most places are highly urbanized, there are still tangible efforts to raise awareness for the protection of our ecosystem, like printing beautiful birds on stamps. I think my challenge is to check out whether I have bird stamps from the west in my collection...Well, we'll see to that, until the next 'anything you wish' theme for Sunday Stamps.

~maria

Star Ferry from Hong Kong

Salamat po (thank you), Jocelyn for inviting me to join in your 'Our Wonderful World Tuesday' blog fest :) I'm following your lead for my first entry in participation to that -- here's a card of the Star Ferry that I got from a private swap. The card arrived last week and it's definitely making me miss Hong Kong more and more.

I was lucky to spend a one-week vacation in Hong Kong and Macau in Nov 2009. The Star Ferry rides are one of the most memorable experiences. I am scared of ship rides, no matter how short the distance. The Star Ferry rides were particularly dreadful. The water in the Victoria Harbour on which it travels is always busy; the ship tilts a lot from left to right!

But what makes me wanna repeat the experience again is I feel like I'm being part of something important in the history of navigation. A part of history that will always remain alive, and I would know that I was also a living part of it. Haha! I wish I was able to phrase it nicely that would properly convey what I wanted to mean with it. :p

According to the Star Ferry Company website, The National Geographic Traveler named the ferry crossing as one of the 50 places of a lifetime.

~maria