Postcrossing Blog

Remember when we celebrated 20 million postcards last October? Well, 9 months have passed, and we’ve already sent five million postcards more! So it’s time to start the traditional guessing contest once again! :)

For those not familiar with the game, it goes like this:

Every member has a chance to submit a bet for the day and time on which they think the postcard number 25 million will be registered. The bets need to be submitted on the contest page.

And of course, there are prizes for the best guesses, sponsored by MOO!

The member who guesses the exact minute when postcard number 25 million is registered will win a pack of 40 MOO postcards (20 classic, 20 luxe) + a surprise set of 100 postcards.

But there’s more! If you’re not the lucky one, you could still win something: each of the 4 next best guesses (before or after the registering time) will also win a pack of 20 postcards from MOO!

Some rules: each time slot can only be chosen by one person, so the first person to pick that slot gets to keep it. You can change it at a later stage, if you want, but only from the available time slots left. We will close the bets when there are 1,500 postcards left to postcard 25,000,000. Check the contest page for more details.

So… what are you waiting for? Ask your lucky stars or open a spreadsheet to make your calculations… but be fast! Slots tend to run out quickly!

PS – MOO is having a 25% off sale until July 21st! If you follow the link to the special page for postcrossers, a small percentage of every purchase you make reverts towards Postcrossing – so with each pack of postcards you buy, you’re also helping the project. Win-win! :)

Happy birthday to you,
Happy birthday to you,
Happy birthday dear Postcrossing,
Happy birthday to you!

Hurray! It’s Postcrossing’s 9th birthday today! That’s quite a lot for an internet project, isn’t it? :)

A few exciting things happened in this past year. Here are some of the highlights:

• New Postcrossing-themed stamps were launched in Finland, Belarus and Guernsey and also a Postcrossing postmark in Czech Republic.
• Postcrossers and Deutsche Post raised €7845 on the “Postcards for a good cause” campaign.
• We reached 20 million postcards, bringing us closer to a postcard received every 5 seconds.
• You organized dozens of meetups all over the world, and flooded us with your lovely stories.
• And many more exciting things happened!

What a great year! :D

And since it’s a special day, we wanted to share something special with you…

Remember back in March, when we asked you to send us postcards for an event – and you responded in a spectacular fashion, sending us over 1000 postcards in a week? Well, the postcards were all delivered at TEDxOporto, and we thought we’d share the talk I gave that day, as it has just been translated into English! Here it goes:

I was so nervous that when I stepped off the stage that I couldn’t remember a single word I had said… but it was truly an honor to be able to spread the message and play “mail carrier” to all your nice postcards! The people loved them and were thrilled to take them home. Some joined the project immediately, others signed up their classes… and a few were already postcrossers and came to say Hi! in the end!

So, our heartfelt thank you to all of you, for making Postcrossing what it is today. Enjoy the day… and send a postcard… or nine! ;-)

Once again, we give the Little Mail Carriers’ cousin center stage, so that he can finish telling you about his adventures in Indonesia (here’s part one in Jakarta, if you missed it)!

The Yogyakarta meetup was slightly different because it was not just for Postcrossing members but for all mail lovers… even Indonesian Post attended!

The meetup was held in Indonesia Education Museum (Museum Pendidikan Indonesia) at Yogyakarta State University (Universitas Negeri Yogyakarta), and was opened by Vice-Regent of Sleman Regency, who symbolically signed a postcard.

It was really exciting for me to attend what was the largest meeting in Yogyakarta so far. Everyone was really friendly and took the time to introduce themselves and exchange gifts! :)

After that, we went straight to the post office, to have a look and mail some cards! Did you know that pillar boxes are orange in Indonesia? Neat!

The next day we visited Vredeburg Fort (which means Peace Fort). It used to be a military fortress, but these days it’s been restored and turned into a museum. Inside of the former barracks there is a collection of historical photographs, historical objects and replicas.

Street food in Indonesia is unbelievably delicious, I couldn’t get enough of it! This is mendoan, which is basically soy bean that has been yeast fermented for around to 2 days. When it’s sticky enough, flour and spices are sprinkled on it, and then it’s fried. Nom nom nom!

I also visited the souvenir heaven in the corner of Malioboro street, one of Yogyakarta’s main shopping streets. There were a lot of miniatures there that were just the right size for me, yay!

We got the chance to watch a lady painting batik, a traditional art in Indonesia which UNESCO has classified as a Masterpiece of Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity.

Wax must be applied to the cloth before it is dipped in color, so that the design can be unveiled once the wax is removed. It was wonderful to see, such attention to detail! The lady explained to me that batik must be painted diligently, neatly, and patiently.

I had gudeg for my last meal in Indonesia. It’s a jack fruit stew, served with rice and chicken, and it’s also the signature dish of Yogyakarta. I must have gained at least 20 grams here… I can’t seem to stop myself! :)

And that’s a wrap! Indonesia is so huge and diverse… I regret not having more time to properly explore it, but at the same time, I’m grateful for the amazing opportunity! :) A big thank you to Yanita, Aisha, Tintin, Ari, Dewi, Tascha, Dhani, Maya, Fathia, Sekar, and Fatima who welcome me warmly and took some very nice pictures for me!

Earlier this year, the Little Mail Carrier’s cousin was invited to attend some Postcrossing meetings in Indonesia. He begged us to go, so we packed him on a comfy envelope and off he went, towards the Java sea! Yanita (aka YanitaDC) kindly hosted the little man and showed him around her home country. Here’s his report of the trip:

Halo, Apa Kabar?

I just visited Indonesia, the biggest archipelago country in the Equator. I came here to attend the Postcrossing meetup In Jakarta, capital city of Indonesia… and stayed a bit longer with my host Yanita, to see the sights.

But first things first! The meetup was held in early March in Jakarta, at the Kantor Filateli Jakarta (Jakarta Philatelic Office), where a postcard exhibition of member’s collections was also taking place.

People came from all over Indonesia for this meeting, so I got to meet lots of new friends… I felt like a movie star having a fans meeting! They thought of everything and even made special postcards for everyone to sign!

That was really exciting! Can you believe how many people were there? There was even a news report made about the Indonesian Postcrossing community at this meetup, which was later played on the bigger post offices of Indonesia for a month! Have a look:

In a word… awesome! :D

Next on my tour of Indonesia, I visited Taman Mini Indonesia Indah (which means 'Beautiful Indonesia Miniature Park’). It was brilliant! I could see as much of Indonesia as I wanted… all in one place!

Aaaah, so many things to see… Indonesia is huge! After so much sightseeing, I was feeling a bit hungry, so Yanita gave me some kerak telor. It’s a sort of spicy omelet with sticky rice inside, topped with fried shredded coconut, fried shallots and dried shrimp. That was amazing and really hit the spot!

While I was in Jakarta, another meetup was being planned, this time in Yogyakarta, about 500km west from Indonesia’s capital. The organizing committee kindly invited me to join them, so I eagerly hopped on my envelope and took the plane over!

Stay tuned for my next update – there’s a lot more I want to show you from this lovely country scattered in the sea! :)

I have a confession to make: I get a little teary-eyed when I see a child writing (or receiving) a postcard for the first time. You can almost see the switch going off in their heads when they realize that some sort of magic is going on behind the scenes… they have so many questions! How is this postcard getting across the world? What is the stamp for? How did it land on our mailbox? And when is the next one coming?! :)

So when I saw the pictures that Arlene (aka whodalalee) submitted to our Facebook page… well, you can image the smile on my face! Arlene tells the story of how she and and her friend Evelyn (aka eskae) organized a Postcrossing event in Okanagan Regional Library, as part of the local summer reading program:

My Postcrossing friend Evelyn Skae and I were talking one day about how nice it would be to spread the word about Postcrossing. We had seen schools and teachers doing Postcrossing, so we thought it would be a great idea to see if the local library would be interested in doing something. I went to the library and they were very happy to incorporate Postcrossing into the summer reading program…so Evelyn who works at a print shop made a huge poster, and brochures for the library:

She put a post into the forums asking Postcrossing fans to send postcards to the library. I donated 60 blank postcards to the library so children could answer the postcards. The library set up a wonderful display for one month to let people know about it.

At last, the day for our Postcrossing-summer reading program project came… we arrived half an hour before and waited for the kids to come. It was so wonderful for the children to be able to pick the postcards they wanted, then write the sender a card in return. We had one sender who sent 8 postcards to the library! The children were very enthusiastic and had a wonderful time, there was even a parent who wanted to write a card too. Overall, our project was very successful and so much fun.

I also took many of my favorite postcards to show the variety of postcards we receive and the wonderful stamps on them. It is so exciting to share our passion with others!

We have a few extra postcards that were not answered, so I will be going to another library to see if they would like to continue the project!

Well done Arlene and Evelyn, what an inspiring event! :)

What about you? Have you ever introduced a child to the wonders of mail? Do share!