Colorful sails, Malaysia

This lovely card came as an official, MY-186201.




There isn't any info about the photographer or where this was taken.



The stamp, issued in August 2007, shows the post office of Yangon, Myanmar. It was an ASEAN joint issue commemorative.

Lääne-Virumaa, Estonia

Lääne-Virumaa

Lääne-Virumaa is one of the 15 counties of Estonia. It was settled in prehistoric times by the Vironians,  a Finnic tribe. Twelve landscape preserves and 3 state nature reserves are located at least partially in the county.

According to the county's English website:

"The development of the Estonian culture and population has been directed and influenced by the sea. According to the common law, every kind of profit gained from the sea is lawful and so the profession of coast watchers is well-known since ancient times: he was a man, who kept watch on a high shore, lit signal fires, informed about ship accidents and the arrival of the enemy, observed the movements of fish shoals. The villages were situated away from the coastline then, because of the lack of farmland near the sea and also to avoid the frequent looting raids from the ships. Fish was mainly caught from inland waters, coastal fishing took place only during the spring and autumn seasons."

I got this card from Eellaa for the favorites tag. Looks like a lovely place to visit... picnic in the poppy fields, go out on the water in the little boat in the foreground...

The stamp on the right is a Christmas stamp from 2002. The stamp on the left is from 1996.

Gratitude 2012

I made a list of things I was grateful for in 2012. Of course, postcards was one of the things on the list! Many of them were also places I went and people I met this year, so I thought I would share a few of them with you all.

In no particular order:

Postcards

Viking ships

Sagrada Família




Hugs

Skee Is

 


Bayon




Cambodian stamps

family

waffles

Chichen Itza
new friends
laughter

old friends
love
music
fuzzy creatures
ripe nectarines

♥

Feel free to add your own in the comments.
Best wishes everyone for a healthy and happy 2013.

North Sea, Germany

DE-601801 from Barbara.

I've decided to post a few of my favorite cards, since I'm not feeling too good today and I thought it might cheer me up. This card shows scenes from Germany's northern coast. The Wadden Sea National Parks along the coastline is a UNESCO world heritage site. (I'm not sure if the card actually shows that; there isn't any printed info.) Anyhow, this card is a perfect example of a beautiful multiview... artistic, with each view chosen and arranged with care.

Stamp here.

Portuguese Fisherman

I received this card as an official last October... I love it when I get official cards that are this beautiful. :)
The sender writes that you can find traditional boats like this in northern Portugal, and, as in this picture, sometimes they still use animals to transport boats to and from the sea. I am not sure, but I think the boat is called a moliceiro, and can be recognized by its bright colors, flat bottom, and curved prow.

The stamp features Amália Rodrigues, a Portuguese singer and actress famous for popularizing the fado genre of music. Fado is actually listed as an intangible cultural heritage "site" by UNESCO.



This is my first meme post... for Our Wonderful World Tuesday, hosted by Jocelyn.

Aberdeen, Hong Kong

This card is from the boat/ship tag. It's actually a photograph pasted to a piece of thick paper, which is fine, because it's a nice photograph. The photo shows the harbor of Aberdeen. According to the sender, this used to be a little fishing village where native Hong Kong people would dock their boats.

The 水上人家 (shui shang ren jia), or boat-dwellers, were aborigines who were shunned by the Cantonese and Hakka Chinese people who lived on land. The boat-dwellers were said to be descended from water-snakes, and able to stay underwater for 3 days without breathing.

It seems that the boat dwellers have been subject to extreme racism ever since the Chinese colonized the area in the Song dynasty.

Hong Kong has its own stamps. This is a 2006 definitive showing a red-whiskered bulbul (Pycnonotus jocosus).

Great Lakes, USA

It is a good day for tall ships, I think. I got this card from the favorites tag, so you know it is a good one. :) The back of the card reads "Tall Ships with the wind in their sails make a spectacular sight on the Great Lakes waters." The Great Lakes, located in the northeastern United States, consist of the freshwater lakes Superior, Michigan, Erie, Huron, and Ontario. Apparently some Americans refer to them as the "Third Coast," although as a Pacific Coast denizen I have to disagree...

The domestic postcard rate recently increased by one cent, so they issued new stamps in the denomination of 29¢. This is oregano in a set of five herbs.

Tall Ship

I just finished reading "The Sea Wolf" by Jack London. It's about this guy who is just going on a ferry ride across San Francisco Bay, but it gets caught in a storm and he goes overboard. He gets picked up by the Ghost, a seal-hunting ship run by a totally unscrupulous captain who has just killed his first mate. The captain is now short a crewmember, and impresses the man to join the crew, and on they continue, bound for Japan and the herds of seals on the way there. It's a great story, and I could hardly put it down since I started reading it a couple of days ago. So now I'm posting a card of a tall ship... not the Ghost, though. This one, according to the back of the card, is called "Sigyn," which is a Norse female given name. Apparently a fairly common one for tall ships, if you can judge by the results for a google image search of that name. Anyway, the painting is by Håkan Sjöström, who I believe is a Swedish artist, but the card is from Finland. I got it in one of the favorites tags from Kata, who writes:

I love it!

A stamp from a 2009 series of 6 on Finnish Art, this one of a piece by Tuomas von Boehm.