Postcards for the weekend 61: Food & beverage

I have just returned from an overnight team building trip to Melaka, Malaysia. We were joking among ourselves that it was not a team building trip but a food marathon instead. Melaka is a foodie haven! I wish I found a postcard for a souvenir but I didn't! Too bad as I realized that it would have been nice to share a postcard with Melaka delicacies for this weekend's theme of food & beverage. 

Now, onto the main topic, postcards:

Postcard sent to self, sent from Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
Sent 26 June 2016, Traveled 2,678 km

One of the best things about Vietnam is food. My partner and I went to a cooking class where I learned how to properly wrap a fresh spring roll without creating tears through the rice paper. 

Postcard sent to self, Sent from Beaufortain, France
Traveled ~ 10,600 km

This slice of cheese is from my first trip to France this summer. I was taught to eat more varieties of cheese. For this Beaufort cheese, the affinage variety was said to be the best. That variety also costs twice as much compared to the rest. Thankfully, its strong taste didn't agree with my palate. I don't have to break my wallet whenever I have the craving!

Postcard kept as a souvenir

For a Christmas treat last year, my boss invited us for a high tea at the Fullerton Hotel here in Singapore. It was a very expensive experience that I most probably won't pay for by myself. As a souvenir, I took this postcard from the hotel shop. It features local Singapore dishes, that are served in the hotel. These dishes are a combination of Malay and Chinese dishes.

I hope I have your tummy full by the end of this post.

Happy weekend, 

~maria 

Postcards for the weekend 46: Places of worship

Friendship Gift Postcard, Sent from Helsinki
Sent 28 December 2016, Traveled 5,757 km

I had my first ever hail storm experience on my way to this cathedral back in April. My friend Tuija who sent me this postcard and who was with on that same day of the hail storm, wrote: This stunningly beautiful church is Helsinki Cathedral and most probably the most beautiful in Finland. I was only able to look at it in awe both outside and inside!

Friendship Gift Postcard, Sent from Bulacan, Metro Manila
Sent 21 June 2012, Traveled 35 km

This is probably one of my postcards that took the shortest distance to reach me (see caption). It's a Postcrossing Meet-up Postcard featuring the Basilica of St. Martin de Tours. It is considered the largest church in the Philippines and in Asia.

Postcard sent for swap

In my opinion, this is the best building in Kampong Glam, a historic Malay area in Singapore. I always love sitting at a cafe at night and just marveling at the beauty of this mosque. The website YourSingapore describes this mosque as the focal point of Islamic faith in the country.

Postcard sent for swap

Will you believe that this Hindu temple is located in Chinatown? It is indeed! Sri Mariamman is the oldest Hindu temple in Singapore. The number of sculptures & figurines at its entrance is just awe-inspiring. More so, is the social role this temple plays in the life of South Indian Tamil Hindus. I read that this temple provides them shelter until they find work and a more permanent accommodation in Singapore.

Postcard sent to self, Sent from Ho Chi Minh
Sent 23 Oct 2016, Traveled 2,679 km

This card is from my solo weekend trip to Ho Chi Minh last year. It was such a traumatic trip though and I vowed that I will never go back to Vietnam on my own again. I am sad to give this bad impression of Ho Chi Minh but my experience was pretty terrible. Oddly enough, I'm writing this blog post while here in Vietnam at the moment. Only at a different city though, Hanoi.

I'm sorry for disappointing my blogging friends for my tortoise-ness with the linky. It's been really insane at work. I've just finished organizing and hosting a regional distributors sales meeting. I went back to Singapore for one night and back on the road again today. I'm away for another 2 more weeks for this series of business trips. I hope the rest of you are able to enjoy less demanding days.

~maria 

Postcards for the weekend 24: Love

Private Swap, Sent from JM Aalten, The Netherlands
Sent 21 Sep 2011, Traveled 10,374 km 

Friendship Gift Postcard, Sent from Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam

I don't have the words to describe these gestures of love and affection ...

Lovely weekend everyone,

~maria

Postcards for the weekend 20: SE Asian land transpo

PH-61397, Sent to Pella, Greece
Traveled 9,664 km in 14 days

Here's a horse-drawn wooden carriage that's been widely used in the Spanish colonial era of the Philippines. The local term is calesa. I remember when I was a child, my grandparents would bring me to the church or to the town market in a calesa. Nowadays, it's mostly found at tourist attraction sites and is no longer used as a means of every day public transportation.

Sent from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Traveled 350 km, sent 12 June 2015

This is called a trishaw. Similar to the calesa, tourists are the ones seen enjoying a ride. The back of this postcard says that this is static image was taken in Malacca. I've never been there but I've seen for several times a row of trishaws carrying tourists around Chinatown (Singapore).  

Friendship gift postcard, Sent from Jakarta
Sent 23 July 2012, Traveled 2,787 km

Trishaw in Indonesia is called becak. I've never seen a trishaw for the couple of visits I've had to 2 different cities in Indonesia. I reckon that it has been widely replaced by motorbikes. As far as I know, at least in Jakarta, there's an app for motorbikes which works like an Uber/Grab where you can order a motorbike for a pick up / drop off service.

Friendship Gift Postcard, Sent from Ho Chi Minh, Vietman
Sent: 20 November 2013, Traveled 1,611 km in 6 days

I've been to Ho Chi Minh several times and I've seen few people still riding this type of tall bicycles. Although nowadays, as most of you may know, the city's streets are full of motorized bicycles. Perhaps for originality or to attract attention, some street vendors could also be seen like the man with his items for sale on the postcard below:

Sent from Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam
Traveled 2,698 km

I hope you enjoyed these postcards from my part of Asia. I'm currently traveling for work and facilitating workshops even on Saturdays for this weekend and the next. It's been really busy on my end lately and I hope you all would forgive my delayed visits on the pages you share for our weekly linky party.

I hope you're all having a more relaxing weekend as compared with me!

Cheers,

~maria

Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

Friendship Gift Postcard, Sender: Jay Tio
Traveled 1,611 km

This card is a souvenir from a friend who went to Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC) back in 2011. The previous weekend, I flew to HCMC and had the pleasure to actually see this hotel in person and the other two that I was only seeing in postcards back in April.

Ho Chi Minh City has the busiest yet most fluid road traffic I've seen so far in my travels. It also has some of the best dishes I've tried in my Asian gastronomic trips. Curious? You may find some of these dishes that I had in my instagram posts, shared on the upper left corner of this page.

I definitely recommend this city to any traveler who wants to have a Southeast Asian adventure -- both on the palate and on the road!

~maria 

F is French Influence in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

For letter "F" -

Formerly a French colony, classical Western architectural style was left in some important buildings in Ho Chi Minh City. Thanks to the French best friend who once lived there for sending me these postcards below. I couldn't label these postcards as well as they were hand delivered to me.

In support of my postcards and stamps hobby, I received this Ho Chi Minh City Post Office postcard. The building was designed by Alexandre Gustave Eiffel, the same designer of the famous iron lattice tower in Champ de Mars.

He knows I am a big fan of Marie Curie, the first woman to win the Nobel Prize. A Polish and naturalized French physicist, her brilliance paved the way for my profession today -- physics in medicine. How appropriate that on the postcard above, I have a view of an entrance to a public high school named after her.

Ho Chi Minh is on the top three in my wishlist of cities to visit this year. Hopefully I could see these buildings in person real soon!

~maria

Ethnic groups of Vietnam

The info sheet that came with the stamp set reads:

Vietnam is the home of 54 ethnic groups. They have been living in harmony on the S-shaped land for thousand of years and fostering a rich and diversified culture.

On the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the Independence Day of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, the Ministry of Posts and Telematics issued a definitive stamp set "Vietnamese Community of Ethnic Groups" consisting of 54 values, the largest number in the history of issuing Vietnam's Revolutionary Postage Stamp up to now.

Images on these are the characteristics of 54 ethnic groups respectively. On the basis of the "standard" value of King Group selected from all competition works, the artist designed stamps 53 other ethnic groups so as to ensure harmony in terms of form and the substance, as well as presentation style in the whole series. The ethnic groups are arranged in alphabetic order with two vignettes carrying the national flag, Dong Son Bronze Drum and the wordings: "60th anniversary of the foundation of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam": The country of Vietnam is an entity. Rivers can go dry, mountains can collapse but this truth cannot be denied."

I believe I got this stamp sheet in 2011. It was a gift from my beau, who was doing his internship in Vietnam back then.

This is my first post for Viridian's Sunday Stamps after being gone for a month. I'm glad the theme for this week is "anything you wish" so I grabbed this chance of posting this really special stamp sheet that I've been meaning to share for quite a while. I believe I just got the best opportunity to do so! ;-)

~maria