Postcrossing Blog

The writing prompts invite postcrossers to write about a different topic on their postcards’ messages every month. These are just suggestions though — if you already know what you want to write about, or the recipient gives you some pointers, that’s great too!

We’re slightly anticipating September’s writing prompt as we have some exciting stuff to share in the coming days. 😊 So, without further ado…

The first World Postcard Day will take place in just one month, and we want to hear all about your plans to celebrate this special day! Are your postcards and stamps ready? Have you made a list of nice people or good causes to whom you will be writing?

Our plans so far include mailing as many postcards as possible, mostly to postcrossers out there! We’ve also bookmarked a page that promotes writing to old people’s homes in Portugal, to offer some much needed cheer in these troubled times. Is there perhaps a similar initiative in your country?

Beyond writing postcards, some other ways to celebrate the day include teaching a lesson about mail and postcards, visiting a postal museum, helping set up a library event, or simply spreading the word!

What will you be up to, on October 1st? Share your plans with the community on the comments below, and also on the postcards you write this month. Let’s get this party started! 🎉

Remember Audrey (aka audreyyung), the little girl from Macao that we featured on the blog some years ago? Audrey is now 8 years old, and has received so many postcards through Postcrossing and other swaps that she made her own postcard exhibition!

The exhibition took place last month at the Fundação Rui Cunha, in Macao. The postcards were hanged around the room in thin wires within reach so that the visitors could interact with them, and there were also posters in 3 languages explaining Postcrossing. Despite the current circumstances, lots of people visited (including her classmates and teachers!) and Audrey was even interviewed for the local TV and radio stations, as well as the Macao Daily newspaper!

All the images on this post came from the Fundação Rui Cunha website, where you can browse more photos from the exhibition and even see a video of the event. We love how the exhibition turned out, and are super proud of Audrey and her dad Alan’s achievements — well done! 🎉

We’ve written before about the Underwater Postoffice in Vanuatu, and we thought at the time it was the only place you could post a letter underwater in the world.

Well, turns out that isn’t quite true! Postcrosser Cindy (aka cindybeaule) let us know about an underwater post box in Susami, Japan, which was put in place in 1999 as part of a fair to promote the Kumano Kodo pilgrimage trail. It’s a collaboration between the former postmaster, a man called Toshihiko Matsumoto, and the local diving community. Waterproof postcards are sold in the dive shop, and you have to write your message using waterproof oil-based markers, so the message won’t wash off.

You need diving gear to even reach the post box, because it’s 10 metres below the surface. It’s actually in the Guinness Book of World Records because it’s the deepest post box in the world, and they have a certificate to prove it! The boxes are made of cast-iron, so there are actually two used in rotation, so they can be cleaned and repainted.

I even did some more poking around, and it turns out there are a few other underwater post boxes. There’s one in the Malaysian island of Mataking, another one in the Jemeluk Bay Underwater Gallery in Indonesia, and two “dry” ones: an underwater observatory in the US Virgin Islands and the Risør Underwater Post Office in Norway.

You can watch a whole mini-documentary about the post box in Susami on Youtube—we were amazed to learn that there had been over 38,000 special waterproof postcards sent from this underwater post box at the time it was filmed in 2018. I wonder if any Postcrossers have ever sent or received a card from Susami…? Do let us know!

In October last year, Ethan (aka Ebot) took part in a Postcrossing meeting in his hometown of Tampa, Florida, his first time attending one. The postcrossers there were charmed by this young postcrossers’s curiosity about the world, geography and stamps, and his enthusiasm for postcards! They suggested we interviewed him on the blog, so here he is, to tell us all about his favorite postcard, and the green initiative that he started together with his brother some years ago!

How did you come across Postcrossing? What got you hooked?

I came across Postcrossing as I was searching for pen pals a few years ago. After I looked into it a bit, I was instantly hooked because the thought of sending and receiving postcards from all over the world blew my mind!

Do you have any other interesting hobbies?

My favorite hobby is playing drums. I’ve been doing it for about 6 years and recently got my own electric drum set which I practice on almost every day!

Show us your mailbox, your mailman/mailwoman, your post office or the place where you post or keep your postcards!

I store most of the postcards I’ve received in special cardboard boxes I created myself out of shipping boxes.

Show and tell us about your favorite received postcard to date, and what makes it special.

My favorite postcard I’ve received during my time on Postcrossing is a card from a postal museum in Hungary. The front of the card is amazing with all the vintage postal contraptions and there is a spectacular moon landing themed stamp on the back!

Have you been surprised by any place that you have received a postcard from or sent a postcard to?

I was surprised to get an amazing card from Kazakhstan after 63 days!

Have you met any other members in real life?

Yes! I’ve been able to go to two Postcrossing meetup events in my area. One was in October 2019, and the other in January 2020. Both of the events were very fun and I even designed a meetup card for one of them!

Is there anything that you are passionate about?

My brother and I started our environmental organization called “Green Gasparilla”, about 5 years ago. The Gasparilla Parade occurs every January in Tampa. It is a mock pirate evasion where one main pirate ship and a few thousand other boats pass through the channel throwing cheap plastic strands of beads over the water to people on shore. As you can imagine, not everyone has perfect aim and over 50% of the beads land in the water and sink to the bottom. The goal of our organization is to combat this very harmful pollution, by stopping it and holding diver cleanups.

In the past few years, we have held 3 diver cleanup events with over 30 divers each time. Also, within the past year we have been able to work with the mayor of Tampa to create a campaign called “Bead Free Bay” to educate citizens of Tampa on the proper way to safely celebrate the parade without throwing beads over the water. We even created a PSA video that was posted all over the city’s social media.

Our work is definitely not done, but we have made lots of progress. I hope that this inspires people to speak up and do something if our ecosystem is being exploited in their community.

The writing prompts invite postcrossers to write about a different topic on their postcards’ messages every month. These are just suggestions though — if you already know what you want to write about, or the recipient gives you some pointers, that’s great too!

Every country has inventors, talented people who brought something new to the world. Maybe it’s a novel product or an ingenious process, a breakthrough in some field of science… or maybe a cultural invention, like a new musical instrument or a different way to look at things! This month, we’re exploring these inventions and sharing some of our country’s creative heritage with the world.

So, I’ll go first. It’s a hard job to pick one of the Portuguese inventions… but I think one of the earliest ones we’re taught in school is the sea astrolabe.

This is an instrument that was used by sailors to determine their location at sea, based on the altitude of the sun at noon or of a known star at its peak, during the night. By measuring the angle of the star with the horizon, they could calculate the latitude of their ship in the globe, thus getting the information they needed to guide the ships to the right destinations. The oldest Portuguese astrolabe was discovered a few years ago in the wreck site of the ship Esmeralda, which sank in 1503 off the coast of Oman.

What about your country? Which inventions did your fellow citizens bring to the world, and which are you most proud of? Do share these in the postcards you write this month… and also in the comments below, if you can — we’re always curious to learn new things! 😊