Postcrossing Blog

Last weekend, we brought the Little Mail Carrier’s cousin along for a trip to Cologne, where the latest Postcrossing meetup took place. He was really excited about it – here is his account of the day! :)

Hi everyone! Last weekend, I travelled to Cologne (or Köln, as they say in German) to see the city and meet the local postcrossers… I didn’t know much about the city beforehand, so the first thing I noticed was their huge Gothic cathedral, right in front of the train station!

Whoa… look at that! It’s just… massive! Did you know it is a UNESCO World heritage site, and the most visited landmark in Germany? I couldn’t wait to get inside and have a closer look…

I could have spent hours there, just wandering around, admiring the stained glass windows, tiled floors and golden relics…

The Hohenzollern bridge that crosses the Rhine just in front of the cathedral was also quite impressive! All the fences were covered in love padlocks… how sweet!

But enough of culture and sightseeing – it was time for shopping! We hopped on Isagv's backpack and off we went!

Our first stop was at the Maus shop! You might have seen this orange mouse on German postcards before… he’s really famous around here! Maus stars in a beloved children’s cartoon called Die Sendung mit der Maus (The program with the mouse) which first aired in Germany in 1971. We hanged out for a bit, and I tried to get him to share the secret of his success, but he didn’t talk much…

After that, it was time for proper postcard shopping! Cologne has a neat postcard shop, the Walther Königs Postkartenladen. Inside, thousands of postcards awaited the eager hands of the many postcrossers…

When all our bags were filled with postcards and our bellies started to rumble, we headed down to the riverside for mealtime. The food was nice, but everyone was more interested in the postcards! As soon as the plates were cleared, we all started to write, sign and stamp the many many postcards…

… which were then sent on their way around the world, to the mailboxes of other eager postcrossers and friends!

When it was finally time to say good-bye and head off home, my cheeks were hurting from so much smiling and smiling! A big thank you to everyone who attended for this lovely experience – it was great to meet you all!

Group photo by Isagv on Flickr, where you can see more photos from this meetup.

Would you like to meet other postcrossers too? Check the forum for future meetups in your area – or if there are none, just start one!

Earlier in December last year, me, Paulo and a couple other postcrossers were invited on a special mission. We brought the Little Mail Carriers' cousin along for the ride, and he wrote this lively report:

Hallo from cold and snowy Lübeck, once capital of the Hanseatic league! You might have thought the reason we came all this way was to tour its UNESCO worthy architecture or try their worldwide famous marzipan… but you’d be wrong! We visited Lübeck because Schöning Verlag, one of Germany’s top makers of touristic postcards, has a factory here, and invited us to come see how postcards are made! Isn’t that exciting?!

Turns out, Bernd and Jana, two of Schöning’s employees (and our hosts in this visit), discovered Postcrossing not so long ago, and embraced it wholeheartedly! Look at the wall of postcards they’ve set up in their office:

Neat hum? How nice it must be, to do Postcrossing when you have literally thousands of postcards to chose from! :D

But how are they made? We’ve learnt that there are many steps involved in the process… and huge machinery!

Before printing, postcards must be designed, and Schöning has a team of designers in house to cover that task. Something we’ve discovered on our visit, is that a specific postcard is never printed by itself, but as a part of set postcards currently in demand. A technician groups these postcards together in a large sheet, and checks it for mistakes. After that, the fun begins!

Here is a picture of Paulo, holding an aluminium printing plate – you can see the outline of what they’re currently printing in there! Schöning has to make several of these plates for each set of postcards, one plate for each colour that their big machine prints in… here it is, the Heidelberg Speedmaster!

It is huge, filling up a whole section of their warehosue, and paper flashes through its several colour sections at an incredible speed! The sheets are constantly checked and adjusted, so that the colors have the right brightness and contrast every time. Then, they are fed to another machine, which gives them a shiny coating. Again, sheets whoosh past so fast that if you blink, you’ll miss them!

In the end, a technician cuts the individual postcards using a very sofisticated (and scary) cutting machine, and they’re wrapped in sets, which are then stored in Schöning’s huge warehouse. It was postcard-heaven!

They also have neat old machines, like this Heidelberg press, which at the time was being used to cut out heart-shapes on some postcards – cute!

In the end, there was still time to tour Lübeck’s Unesco historical center and drink some glühwein in the Christmas market with friendly postcrossers turtles and mondkind, who took the time to show us around.

And of course, no visit to Lübeck would ever be complete without a trip to Niederegger, the famous marzipan manufacturers! Delicious!

Coming back at the end of the day, we were all exhausted, but incredibly happy, and felt like we learned a lot in this exciting trip. Thank you Schöning for inviting us, and showing us the ropes! :)

PS – Schöning Verlag offered Postcrossing an advertising opportunity on their paperbags, and we’re asking members to vote on a design to print. Check out this forum thread for more information, and to cast your vote!

It’s Bielefeld-time! Last weekend, the German city opened once again its doors to almost 50 postcrossers from several countries. The Little Mail Carriers were unable to attend this year, but instead sent their recently discovered cousin in their place! Below is his photo-diary of the long weekend in Germany.

Hello everyone! It was my first time on a big meetup, and boy was it exciting! I have a lot to tell you, so grab a cup of your favourite beverage and listen up!

Friday morning we visited a mail sorting center in the nearby town of Herford – I felt right at home! My colleagues at Deutsche Post showed everyone a presentation about the company and how mail is processed, and then guided the eager postcrossers through the mail sorting plant. Everybody ooh’ed and aaah’ed at all the envelopes speeding by! It was a real eye-opening experience, and I think that after the visit we all felt renewed respect for the diligent postal workers who labour the whole night for us to have our postcards in the morning.

On the afternoon, a group of postcrossers went on a Geocaching mission in the woods around the Einschlingen guesthouse, where we were all staying! The weather was unseasonably warm and the autumnal scenery was just stunning. We saw plenty of mushrooms and golden leaves, and after a few trials, found the cache we were looking for!

In the evening, MissMaple held a neat workshop where postcrossers got to experiment with old stamps as a decoration material for different objects. I found some great stamps on those piles, and saw the participants come up with very creative ways to decorate their bags and boxes!

Saturday was scavenger hunt day! sofa organised an exciting trip around Bielefeld, where postcrossers had to do all kinds of silly assignments, on a fact-finding mission in the city. It was a lot of fun – and we learned some intriguing facts! For instance, did you know that according to some theories, Bielefeld doesn’t actually exist?

On the evening, the traditional lottery was held. Every participant had brought something from their hometown, which they put in a big pile. Then, presents were pulled while names were called, and everyone got something new.
After that, a fantastic game of bingo was organized by dandilion! By the time it ended, it was almost bedtime, but we stuck around to wish a lucky postcrosser 'happy birthday’ at midnight! :)

Of course, everybody brought sweets from their hometown, to share with other postcrossers: there were delicious Schokokussen, Lübeck’s famous marzipan, Haribo’s gummy bears… I must have gained at least 20 grams from all those treats!! :D

Too soon Sunday came and it was time to say goodbye… I couldn’t believe how fast time flew! Throughout the weekend, the participants all signed hundreds of postcards which should now be on route to friends and other postcrossers. Fancy a guess at how many cards were signed? Reply in the forum for a chance to win some prizes!

All in all it was a wonderful weekend – the kind that leaves our cheeks hurting from so much smiling! :D A big thank you to Nordbaer for organising the meeting – and to everyone that took part and helped it become this outstanding event! I hope to see you all next year! :)

We’ve just received another photo-filled report from the Little Mail Carriers, all the way from frosty Siberia! Read on their adventures in Russia from their most recent host, Kelpie.

At the middle of February when the strongest frosts were over, we arrived at PO Box in Novosibirsk, Siberia, Russia. Or, more properly, we arrived not in Novosibirsk itself, but in Akademgorodok, it’s a part of Novosibirsk, located 20 km south of the city’s center. It is the educational and scientific center of Siberia. It is located in the center of birch and pine forest on the shore of the Ob Sea. This winter had little snow, but despite that, we fell in the snow up to the waist!

There are a lot of scientific institutions in Akademgorodok, the largest of which is the Institue of Nuclear Physics. It conducts research on elementary particle physics, accelerators, plasma and associated with synchrotron radiation. INP has performed quite an impressive amount of work for the Large Hadron Collider at CERN. We coudn’t go inside due to strict access control. The clock at the entrance also shows the level of radiation, which does not exceed the norm.

And of course we visited the center of the city too. Novosibirsk is the third largest city of Russia (after Moscow and Saint Petersburg) and so called “the capital of Siberia” with population about 1.5 millions. It is also the youngest city which attained the population of a million citizens. On the main square called after Vladimir Lenin there are some high statues of labour and State Theater of Opera and Ballet (against the background). It is the largest theater in Russia and the symbol of the city. Its dome has aunique construction that supports itself without girders or columns. The ratio of its thickness to its radius is less than that of a chicken egg!

Near the theater another symbol of the city is located. The city’s legend says that the exact geographical center of former Soviet Union was marked by the Chapel of St. Nicholas, originally built in 1915 (on the left). Residents build an ice town on the Ob River in winter, where we gave ourself up to traditional Russian fun, sledge (on the upper right corner one can see line of wishing to slither).

Novosibirsk Metro bridge over Ob river is longer than 2 km and the longest one in the world!

We also visited souvenir shop with Matryoshkas and other national souvenirs and an unusual puppet show building.

Also we celebrated “Maslenitsa”, Pancake week, a Russian religious and folk holiday. At this time, people begin to see off winter and welcome the Spring. It is celebrated during the last week before Great Lent. The most characteristic food of Maslenitsa is “bliny” (pancakes), popularly taken to symbolize the sun. The red teddy bear on the left is Kooky, the main character from Czech action comedy film “Kuky se vrací”.

Here you can see a local folk festival…

…and traditional Russian winter footwear made of wool felt, “valenki”:

On next photo you can see national rag dools. These dolls are made as a talisman without the use of scissors or needles. It was believed that in the production of ceremonial dolls, the use of piercing and cutting tools is unacceptable, because they are able to hurt people. Also, these dolls have no face, because faceless dolls do not allow evil forces to move into them.

At the end of celebrating woman of straw Winter is burn out in an impressive show!

On next photo you can see the PO Box from which you usually receive mail from Kelpie if you ever did, but sometime this box has its bottom open (it’s just one of the many reasons why Russian post might be lost) and she’s forced to carry mail to another one.

At the beginning of March presidential election was carried out, Little Mail Carriers made their choice too. As you might know already Vladimir Putin has won and it will be his 3rd official and 4th total governing.

And out last stopping in Russia this time was settlement called Sheregesh, previously a mining town and now a popular winter sports resort.

Thank you Kelpie for showing the Little Mail Carriers around Siberia! On they go…

The Little Mail Carriers have once again written home… from the far east! Turns out they’ve been enjoying the mild winter days of Okinawa! Read all about their adventures on this post from their host cbayha.

Greetings from sunny Okinawa, Japan! Did you know that there is a subtropical island that is part of Japan? Actually, the Prefecture of Okinawa is made up of hundreds of small islands, the largest of which is Okinawa Island. There are palm trees here, and they grow tropical fruits, like pineapple!

A long time ago, these islands were an independent nation, called the Ryukyu Kingdom. The kings and noblemen of the Ryukyu build many beautiful castles and because of this, 9 of the 16 UNESCO World Heritage Sites for Japan are on Okinawa.

Our first outing was to the Katsuren Castle, which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It was a beautiful day, sunny and warm! The castle sits way up on top of a hill, with a view of the ocean on either side. We were pretty tired after we hiked up to the top! Down at the visitor’s center they have built a model of the castle that was just the right size for us.

The people of Okinawa are very creative! They are famous for their pottery and hand blown glass. We took a trip to the southern end of Okinawa Island to visit the Ryukyu Glass Village. There we met this ferocious looking shisa. Don’t be scared – Shisa are Guardians. They protect buildings from typhoons, which threaten the island every year. Legend has it that a clay shisa, much like this one, once came to life and saved the island from a horrible storm. Now almost every building has at least one shisa (but usually a pair) guarding them and protecting them from the storms.

After watching the artisans at work, we admired the beautiful glass tile wall that is one of the main attractions. Okinawan glass is very colorful.

The glass is not the only thing that is colorful on Okinawa! The Okinawa sweet potato is bright purple on the inside! It is very nutritious and tasty and everyone’s favorite way to eat it is as cake! Sweet potato boats are the most popular present for tourists to take home with them from Okinawa. At the bakery we got to sample different varieties of sweet potato sweets, and watch how they are made.

We also met another shisa! This guy was very happy and relaxed. He was taking a break from his regular duties to eat a few sweet potato boats.

What a day we had today! Today we went on a road trip to the Northern end of the island to visit the Okinawa Churaumi Aquarium. This world-famous aquarium is a must-see for anyone who visits here. The aquarium has lots of hands-on exhibits for children, a sea turtle exhibit, a manatee house, a great dolphin show and one of the largest aquarium tanks in the world!

The Kuroshio sea aquarium has a capacity of 7,500 cubic meters and houses giant manta rays and whale sharks! We had lunch in the cafe along one side of the tank and watched all the big fish swim around.

After that we headed outside for the dolphin show. We were very happy, because it’s winter on Okinawa, so we didn’t think the dolphins would be out performing. But they put on a great show and we loved watching them leap in the air. If you look beyond the dolphins, across the bay, you can see an island. That is Ie Island. On Ie island they grow peanuts and flowers! They host an annual Lily Festival which is supposed to be amazing, but we are visiting at the wrong time of year.

Maybe we’ll come back some day to see all the flowers in bloom!