Postcards for the weekend 79: Transportation

For the theme this weekend, I'm sharing two postcards with boats and ships from my previous trips.

Souvenir from my trip to Malta, Traveled 9,863 km

This first postcard features luzzu, traditional colorful boats with the eye of Osiris. The boats are painted bright red, yellow, and blue. Moored at the Marsaxlokk Bay, these boats provide a beautiful contrast with the blue waters making the scenery even more photogenic. I've marked this postcard with 14-19 April 2017 at the back. Those were the dates of my visit to Malta. 

Souvenir from my trip to Sweden, 9,984 km

This second postcard features the Klippan, a cultural heritage area that gave birth to the city of Gothenburg. The postcard was given the title "Skepp a hoj". If I'm not wrong, I think it means, "ship ahoy". I've marked this one with 19-30 April 2017. 

I've totally forgotten that these postcards are from the same trip I made to Europe early last year. They make me nostalgic, even more so because I don't think I'll see that part of the world this year.

It's a long weekend here in Singapore for the Easter holiday and I'm not traveling this week. So, for one of those rare moments, this post comes early :)

~maria 

Postcards for the weekend 29: France

Private Swap, Sent by Ulla
Sent on 12 December 2012, Traveled 10,897 km

For our theme this weekend, I'm sharing postcards from France - one among the many countries that I wish to visit. This card is special as it was written and sent to me on 12.12.12. It shows the French tri-color flag and different UNESCO World Heritage Sites. France is 4th in rank in ascending order of Spain, China, and Italy for countries with the most number of world heritage sites.

Direct Swap, Sent from Lyon
Traveled 10,747 km in 6 days

Lyon, a city that is in the UNESCO WHS for culture has always been on my list of a specific city that I want to explore. My partner is from this place. It is in the south of France and the third biggest French city next to Paris and Marseille.

Friendship Gift Postcard, Sent by Wan
Traveled 10,747 km

This is a postcard he sent me from Lyon back in 2011 I believe. It was sent in an envelope together with stamps from his collection. On this card that I received from him 6 years ago when we're yet to be a couple, he wrote: Here is a postcard from Lyon, my parents' place as I promised ... I'm sure you'll get to visit it someday just like the French Riviera. And hopefully you'll have a nice guide (myself ;-) ) This year in the summer, we'll travel to France together. Reading about the historic places just in Lyon alone, I can't wait to board the plane for France!

Happy weekend everyone,

~maria

Postcards for the weekend 22: Anything you wish

Some of you may have seen in my previous posts that I have a habit of sending postcards to myself whenever I go for a trip. These postcards were sent from Mumbai Airport. I got them though from New Delhi. 

Swaminarayan Akshardham is a spiritual and cultural complex. It was placed at the Guinness World Record as the World's Largest Comprehensive Hindu Temple in 2007. 

Akshardham means the divine abode of God. Information about the place says that the mandir in the middle is the most visited structure within the complex. I was totally in awe of the statues decorating the mandir. The gajsthar (plinth of elephants) was my favorite. Our visit became all about walking around the mandir to examine and understand the story depicted by all 148 full sized elephants.

We had a great view of the entire temple complex from the elevated express way leading to the entrance of the place. We were brokenhearted at first as we thought the queue was so long and we only had 2 hours left. Good thing, we realized it was the queue for the cloak room and not for the entrance! A lot of items are prohibited inside, such as cameras and mobile phones. Visitors need to deposit the prohibited items prior to entering the place. Needless to say, the security was very tight and we had to queue for at least 15 minutes to pass through the x-ray machine and body frisking.

We're almost left by our flight from New Delhi to Mumbai. I wanted to run into the Post Office inside the New Delhi Airport but we won't just make it on time. In the end, I had quite an adventure to get the stamps in Mumbai but gladly, I was able to send the postcards from Mumbai Airport before eventually boarding my flight back to Singapore.

These are my postcards for this weekend for our theme "anything you wish" . Sending myself postcards during my business trips gives me interesting memories from the place, and not just the endless meetings and usual stuff about work -- which leaves the travel experience too dry sometimes.

Hope we're all having a good break this weekend! I'm glad to finally get a real weekend after a continuous 16 days of work! 

Signing off this post from a place surrounded by pepper farms in the province of Kampot, Cambodia.

~maria

P.S. My apologies for the late posting as internet here wasn't working last night. I wish for those who came here to my page prior to getting the linky up will be back to link up their postcards for this weekend. If not, please help me get the word out -- thanks!!

Dreaming of Alsace, France

Last week, I had the pleasure of meeting not just the big shots in my profession 

from all over the world. I also had the chance to meet and spend some lovely time 

with a very nice woman, Khadoudja. She's the wife of the chairman of the meeting

we hosted here in the Philippines. Her and I share the same sub-specialty.

She's also Diagnostic Radiology Medical Physicist, but is no longer practicing.

She's now teaching Mathematics and traveling with her husband instead.

She's born in Paris, later moved to Algeria, and now resides in Vienna.

Her husband and her generally speaks French. I had a great time learning

some French words and phrases from the two of them.

Meeting Khadoudja was a very rewarding experience for me.

She's very down to earth, I didn't know she's got a doctorate degree

until I looked her up on Google for the papers she published. She's gentle

and soft-spoken. There's a spark of warm kinship between us since day one.

We talked a lot about many things French and of course Paris, her birthplace.

I told her I am curious to see the "City of Light" on Christmas season. At the same time, 

I'm also very keen about visiting the Germanic region of France, Alsace in the east.

Facebook Swap, Sender: SébastienSent: 9 Sep 2013 from Cadillac, France
Received: 18 Sep 2013, Traveled ~11,526 km in 9 days

Alsace is made of two departments, the Upper Rhine and the Lower Rhine.

Colmar is the capital of the Upper Rhine. It is the best preserved historic city centre

in Alsace. On the postcard above is La Maison Pfister, a historical monument in Colmar.

It was built in 1577. The name Pfister came from the family who occupied it from 1841-1892.

Facebook Swap, Sender: Sébastien
Sent: 9 Sep 2013 from Cadillac, France
Received: 18 Sep 2013, Traveled ~11,526 km in 9 days

The most beautiful villages in France are found in Alsace: Eguisheim and Riquewihr. 

Apart from being famous for the half-timbered houses, Alsace is also famous for its wine. Riquewihr is part of the Alsace wine trail. On the postcard above is shown the Hotel- Restaurant Dolder

in Riquewihr that boasts of serving the best Alsatian dishes and wine.

Facebook Swap, Sender: Ulla
Sent: 19 August 2013 from Marly, France
Received: 1 September 2013, Traveled ~10,900 km in 14 days

More than the delicious wine and the sumptuous dishes, Alsace is famed for its villages

which are 'une symphonie de couleurs'. Alsace is of brightly painted, steep-roofed, half-timbered houses. Historically, the paint color of the houses were significant; the houses

are painted according to the type of shop or boutique they have 

on the ground floor. Nowadays though, they are free 

on what color to paint the their houses.

Merci infiniment to Sébastien and Ulla! They are my postcard swap

partners who introduced me to the beauty of Alsace!

Sharing this post for:

Paulita's Dreaming of France

Sally's Blue Monday

~maria

References:

http://about-france.com/regions/alsace.htm

http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maison_Pfister

http://www.dolder.fr/fr/le-restaurant.html

Take me to Warsaw!

Facebook Postcard Swap, Sender: Joanna
Sent: 27 August 2012, Sent from Katowice, Poland
Received: 3 September 2012, Traveled 9,614 km in 7 days

The entire morning was for a 99-item examination, noontime was for a working lunch -- meeting for the clinical residency, and  in the afternoon, I facilitated a forum on writing of bid specifications for a CT scan equipment. It was completely draining. The fact that we've got real warm weather here in Manila nowadays doesn't help. Worse is that the weather bureau announced that temperature is not going anywhere down the scale for the month of May. It's a terrible experience sleeping at night without an air conditioning unit. My sleep has been intermittent, and would often wake up in the morning, feeling that I haven't slept at all. Lack of sleep and all these things I did today, I am really extremely exhausted right now but I know I can't miss posting for the Friendship Postcard Friday.

I have been imagining being transported into somewhere cooler. Europe has been constantly in my mind, particularly Warsaw, Poland. This postcard really makes me dreaming of walking holding hands with my love in the cobble-stoned streets of the Old Town. Him and I both love medieval architecture / places so being in this town for sure would be perfect for us. Well, it could have been any other 'colder than Manila weather European city/town' right now. But I've always wanted to see Poland for the admirable effort in reconstructing their old town after World War II. It speaks a lot about the people's regard for their history and keeping it alive for their future generations to see and experience.

I cannot afford a Warsaw visit any time soon. So since I'm almost nodding off here in front of my laptop, I'm running now to bed so my dreams can take me to Warsaw.

I wish all of you a fun closure for the week, or a quiet one for those who prefer it that way.

~maria

Okita from the Kansei Era, Japan

Friendship Gift Postcard, Sender: Leo Baluyot
Sent on 01 April 2013, Sent from Narita Airport T1, Japan
Received on 10 April 2013, Traveled 13,183 km in 9 days

Leo wrote: Here's some tea to relieve your stress from all the DRMP (residency) stuff. Konichiwa from Tokyo!

Reading on the internet about the artwork on this postcard was very interesting. I learned that Okita was a waitress, depicted on this artwork serving a cup of tea. She's a waitress at the Naniwaya Teahouse, near the Niomon Gate in the grounds of the Asakusa Kannon Temple She was reputed to be one of the Three Beauties of the Kansei era (1789-1801). *

The postcard is a reproduction of the original ukiyo-e artwork by Utamaro Kitagawa, one of the famed woodblock painters in the Japanese rich artistic and cultural history. Ukiyo-e means "pictures of the floating life (or everyday life)". This artistic style was most prominent during the 17th up to mid 19th century Japan, also known as the Edo period.

Submitting this card for Beth's Postcard Friendship Friday.

Happy weekend everyone!

~maria

Source: http://www.adachi-hanga.com/en_ukiyo-e/item/utamaro060.htm

Ciudad Murada

Ciudad Murada means 'walled city'. The fortified place was Maynilad, the core of everyday activities in a Muslim settlement by the river in the 16th century. When Miguel Lopez de Legazpi came to the place, he decided to make it as the center of Spanish activities in the colony. A pentagonal wall was built by the Spanish to ward off Chinese invaders. It encloses a .67 square kilometer of what was called Intramuros, Latin word for 'within the wall'.

Access to Intramuros is by gates or puerta, with draw bridges. This is the reason why I thought of the similarities between Viseu and Intramuros in my previous post.

Though severely damaged during the World War II, Intramuros remains as the center of cultural heritage to what is now cosmopolitan Manila. 

Uncle Wiki said that Intramuros is listed by the Global Heritage Fund as one of the 12 worldwide sites on the verge of irreparable loss and destruction. This is really making me sad as I've been into Intramuros so many times (atop it's walls is one of my silent sanctuaries in this busy city of Manila), I know there's so much truth in it... now I don't want to touch something political here so I wish I can won the lottery so I can donate my winnings for the restoration of this national historical monument.

~maria

Porta do Soar, Viseu

PT-227143, Sender: Ricardo
Sent from Viseu, Portugal, Sent on 10 March 2012
Received on 22 March 2012, Traveled 11,935 km in 12 days

This postcard makes me dreamy, it would be a real pleasure to walk around this place for sure with it's medieval charm.

Shown here is a part of the historical old walls of Viseu, Portugal. This is Porta do Soar or Porta de Sao Francisco. According to my readings, this is only one of the two existing doors (from an original count of seven) leading to the city of Viseu. This gives me the impression that during medieval times, Viseu was a city within the walls. Which is, similar to our very own Intramuros, the old capital of Manila. 

I think that just make someone raise a brow due to confusion, so I'll post an Intramuros postcard after this one :)

Moving forward, I am pleased that this card was sent by a 12-yr old who told me, "Do you know that Maria is a Portuguese name, too?" -- Yes, Ricardo I do. Many given names here in the Philippines are Spanish/Portuguese sounding. This is because we were a Spanish colony for 333 years.

Obrigado! Gracias! Salamat for the card.

~maria

La plus belle avenue du monde.

Friendship Gift Postcard, Sender: My twin, Wan
Sent from Paris, France, Sent on 10 March 2012
Received on 22 March 2012, Traveled 10,908 km in 12 days

Avenue des Champs-Élysées, said my twin at the back of the card, 'is as famous to the French as the Epifanio delos Santos (EDSA) is to the Filipinos'. Champs-Élysées of the French is witness to many historic events, with the Arc de Triomphe at one end of it (shown here on the card), built to honor the victories of the famous Napoleon Bonaparte. EDSA Avenue is an eternal reminder to the Filipinos and the world, of the very first ever peaceful people power revolution.

This card fashioned to the '80s, marks the time when the avenue  transforms into commercial vibe from what was once fields and market gardens. Today, Champs-Élysées is one of the most famous and most expensive strip in the world for upscale shopping. Hence, the name la plus belle avenue du monde or "the most beautiful avenue in the world".

Hope each of us is having a beautiful start for the week! Beautiful Monday, readers!

~maria