City postcards to Russia

I really wanted to write a post into my blog today, as I have a day off. We're 2 in the camp, and totally bored. Ohh, yes, I'm in the USA now for a week already, so I stopped doing Postcrossing for a few months. I still have 2 cards left which I haven't showed you guys, and I also received a card. All of them are Russians. 

FROM Russia

Anastacia, the Russian girl started and ended her letter with some Hungarian words, so I was very glad to read her lines. She lives in Chelyabinsk, which didn't sound familiar to me, but she mentioned in 2013 a meteor falled in her town. That's a little bit more similar to me, to be honest :D She put some UNESCO stamps on the envelope, which unfortunately I don't see, because I'm not at home :( but I'm very excited to see it in person and save it in my collection. 

TO Russia

One of the Russian cards goes to a girl who likes Europe. As I have a lot of Helsinki postcards at home, I decided to send her this one, and wrote about my experience in Finland, where I spent 5 months as an exchange student. Of course I stayed in Helsinki, the capital of Finland. I really liked being there, though the city can be visited in about a day. But I liked walking in front of the white church, which is the most popular attraction in Helsinki. 

TO Russia

The another Russian girl loves New York! It was the best moment to send a New York card for her, as I have more postcards from New York than from anywhere else, thanks to the 15 for $1 kind of sales. Because of this sales I bought a lot of postcards in my 1st and 2nd year as well. So this card shows the Rockefeller Center, which is a very popular spot in New York. Personally I haven't been there, I planned to go there in my 3rd year, but somehow it didn't come to happen. Instead of this building I visited the Empire State Building and the World Trade Center. If I have some days in New York this summer, before going to home, maybe I would go up there. 

This is all for now. As I have a break from Postcrossing, probably I won't show you any cards in the next few months. In this moment I have 7 cards traveling in the world, and it seems some of them don't really want to reach their final destination, mainly a Polish one, which is traveling for 51 days already. I guess it got lost or something like that. I will wait till the others arrive to their destination, and write to the girl whether she got my card yet. If not, I'll try to order some postcards from Amazon - I found very cute ones, so maybe I'll treat myself (and of course my Postcrossers) with some. 

Toulou buildings - a World Heritage Site from China

In the past days I received some beautiful postcards, and I also sent one. In this post I would like to write about a World Heritage Site from China, and of course I would also like to show the other postcards I received.

FROM Malaysia

Although the postcard is from Malaysia, the card shows a place from Fujion, China. You can see the Tulou buildings, the 8-Diagram Fort. It was built between the 12th and 20th century. A tulou is a large, enclosed and fortified earth building, most commonly rectangular or circular in configuration, with very thick load-bearing rammed earth walls between three and five stories high and housing up to 800 people. Smaller interior buildings are often enclosed by these huge peripheral walls which can contain halls, storehouses, wells and living areas, the whole structure resembling a small fortified city.

The fortified outer structures are formed by compacting earth, mixed with stone, bamboo, wood and other readily available materials, to form walls up to 1.8 m thick. Branches, strips of wood and bamboo chips are often laid in the wall as additional reinforcement. The result is a well-lit, well-ventilated, windproof and earthquake-proof building that is warm in winter and cool in summer. Tulous usually have only one main gate, guarded by 100–130 mm wooden doors reinforced with an outer shell of iron plate. The top level of these earth buildings has gun holes for defensive purposes.

Since 2015, it is an UNESCO World Heritage Site.

TO Belgium

The woman likes birds, so I decided to send this postcard. I sent it a few days ago already, so I hope it arrives to its destination soon. 

FROM Russia

The card I got from Russia is really related to my hobbies - I really like collecting stamps, so the stamp postcards are one of my favourites. If I'm talking about stamps, she put some very beautiful ones on the back of the card, including a Formula 1 stamp. Unfortunately I cannot remove it without ruining the postcard, so I decided not to put it into my collection :( 

The machines you see on the picture are traditional Russian tea makers. I love drinking teas, so it's also interested to receive as a tea lover. 

FROM Belarus

A little bit about my penpalling

After a few days I finally received some cards from Post Crossing. I didn't want to write a post before, as I don't really have stories for any of the cards. I'd rather wanted to collect more cards and post them together. Here they are:

FROM the Netherlands

Probably the sender read my hobbies and saw I like exchanging snail mails :) Snail mailing is my beloved hobby. I started exchanging letters with Hungarians when I was 9 or 10 years old, and I'm still doing it. When I was 14, I got my first foreign penpal from the UK. She had a very serious disease, so she died a few years ago :( I was very sad, because her personality was perfect. Even she was ill, her way of thinking was much more positive than anyone's else. 

In this moment I have around 30 countries from the following countries: France, Romania, Italy, Germany, Moldova, Scotland, Norway, Malaysia, New Zealand, Canada, Indonesia, Poland, the USA, England, Switzerland, Bulgaria, Thailand, China, Australia, Sri Lanka, Finland and Japan. I exchange my letters with them mainly in English, but I write letters in German and Italian as well. 

FROM Portugal

This card is so cute! The guy wrote me some words about the donkeys. He wrote that the donkeys are disappearing because of the humans nowadays :( But I really hope they won't disappear forever, because they are cute animals in my opinion. 

FROM Belgium

FROM Germany

I got this beautiful card from a man who really likes train models and car models. He likes traveling for taking photos about trains and so. Actually, in Germany there are many beautiful trains, especially the ICE train (I hope that's the name of it).

FROM Poland

After this postcard I can say I really miss Finland. I would really like to go there back one day, and meet my friends again. However, I wouldn't mind going to this place to Poland! :D

Rabindranath Tagore and a Hungarian town

Today some of my traveling postcards reached their destination, so I could send some new postcards for 2 new people. And, I also received one from England. In this post I would like to introduce the connection between an Indian writer and a very beautiful town nearby the Lake Balaton, but I will also show a natural wonder from my beautiful country.

TO MALAYSIA

The Malaysian girl doesn't write too much to her profile, she wrote only that she loves doing Postcrossing. Well, me too :) I decided to send her a touristic postcard - from Balatonfüred, which is not that far from my home village. I live about 40 kilometers far from it. It's pretty close to me, because I spent 5 years there as a high school students. Actually I hated my class there, but the town was amazing - it's one of the most beautiful towns at the Lake Balaton, the biggest lake in Central Europe. I lived there in a dormitory, which I really enjoyed, not like my class. With my room-mates we often went to the beach and to the mole to study or just to hang out. It has a street nearby the lake which is named after Tagore, the Indian writer. On the postcard you can see that street on the 2nd picture in the first row. So why does it have its name after an Indian writer? In November, 1926 he arrived to the sanatorium of Balatonfüred, where he could recover successfully. For this reason he planted a tree and wrote a poem as well:

,,When I am no longer 

on this earth, my tree

Leth the the ever-renewed

leaves of thy spring, 

Murmur to the wayfahrer:

The poet did love while he lived."

After his movement many famous person planted their own ones: like Bertalan Farkas (the first Hungarian astronaut), Gandhi, Mandelbrot, etc. Above the trees many sculptures can be found in the park.

TO THE USA

The American woman likes getting postcards about natural wonders, so I decided to send this one about the stalactite cave of Abaliget. It can be found in the Danube-Dráva National Park. In Hungary we have a more famous stalactite cave, that is in Aggtelek, in Aggtelek National Park. Aggtelek is in the UNESCO World Heritage since 1995.

FROM ENGLAND

The couple from England treated me with this postcard, a napkin and some stamps. Firstly both of us were surprised, because the card arrived only in 2 days. I got my English penpal's letter on the same day, but she sent it a long time ago - so this postcard definitely arrived in a pretty short time. The napkin and the stamps I got were very nice. I put the stamps into my notebook immediately. You know, before I went to Indonesia I decided to open one notebook for each continents, and every country got its own page, so now I can put the stamps into their place. With this system I probably won't have any dublicates. 

It's time to continue! - Central Market in Budapest

After a long time, I decided to run my Postcrossing blog again. I have been traveling so much in the last year that I didn't see the sense of writing blog, as I could not really follow the happenings on Postcrossing. 

Now, after my 6 months internship in Indonesia I decided to continue doing Postcrossing, and post my beautiful postcards here. 

Today I'm going to send 3 postcards out:

TO BELARUS

The girl had a very special wishlist: she wanted to get Polish postcards or cards from the Soviet era. As I don't have any in my collection, I decided to send a Budapest postcard for her. She wrote she cannot speak English, she has started learning it and she uses Google Translator most of the times. Therefore I didn't want to write her too much, but of course I introduced her our little country and our beautiful capital city.

TO GERMANY

The woman likes to see special places from the postcrossers' countries, so I decided to send this postcard about the Central Market in Budapest. It's the largest (10,000 square meters) and oldest indoor market in Budapest, which located in the heart of Budapest in Fővám tér. It's a huge market hall, where fruits, vegetables and meats can be found on the ground floor, while the second floor is all about touristy souvenirs. When I go abroad, I usually come here to buy souvenirs for my friends or colleagues. It also have a lot of Hungarian restaurants, where people can try the traditional Goulash Soup, the Lángos, and many other Hungarian meals. For Hungarians this floor is a little bit pricy, but for foreigner it's a good place to try many kind of food or buy souvenirs for their beloved ones. If you happen to stay in Hungary, you shouldn't miss visiting this amazing place. It's not that far from other interesing points, so you can make plans easily.

TO SOUTH AFRICA

The woman had her own wishlist, including postcards about people. To be honest I don't really like postcards with people, so I decided to send her this. Logically it would have been better to send the Budapest postcard for her than to the German lady, but anyway! :D I like sending cards according to the people's wishlist, because I'm also more pleased when I receive some with my favourite themes. 

She likes reading and asked the postcrossers to write about their favourite book - so I wrote mine: the Memoirs of a Geisha. I like stories about other cultures and happenings in the past (no, not history books! :D Actually I always hated history in my life). Memoirs of a Geisha includes everything I'm interested in: the culture and a very interesting story that happened with a young girl in Japan before the 2nd World War. I have seen the movie, which is also amazing. I have to tell you that the movie and the book are totally different, if you read the book, you won't be bored of watching the movie, and vice versa, though the second part of the book is not that interesting. You know, in the beginning the author wrote how the girl made a friendship with a man who made a deal with her father to sell and go to an "okiya" as a slave. Okiya is a house where geishas live. So yes, I don't want to write down the whole story, because maybe some of you want to read the book or watch the movie, but I really suggest you to read or watch it. You won't be disappointed if you like other cultures! 

About Hungarian coins

In the last few days I got some postcards from abroad. I think this is the time to set my profile to holiday mode, as I'm not able to send any postcards from the camp, or at least it wouldn't be the same anymore... but it seems I keep getting them from others. 

FROM the USA

I got this postcard from Oregon. I really love bald eagles, they are one of my favourite animals. Although I have been to the USA several times, I haven't had the chance to see any, I wish I would! Maybe in this year, or in the next years - who knows where I'm heading after camp! 

FROM Portugal

The girl sent this postcard from nearby Porto. She met some Hungarians in Madeira, and she mentioned me how kind they were, so she would really like to visit Hungary in the future. I would also love to visit Portugal and Porto, when I was on Erasmus in Helsinki I shared the room with a Portuguese girl, who also studies in Porto, so it would be nice to visit her! 

FROM Russia

This postcard came from East Russia, from nearby the sea. You can see Nakkodka Bay with Sister Mountain, which is the symbol of the village where the girl lives. I really like this picture, I wish I could visit this area! *.*

FROM Russia

I got this card from Moscow. The girl collects stamps and coins, so I wrote a letter to her whether she wants to swap any of them, but she hasn't replied to me yet. She wrote she hasn't been to Hungary before, so in my opinion some Hungarian coins would be nice in her collection. As I have more visitors on my blog from abroad than from Hungary, I would like to describe how the Hungarian coins (Forint) look like. There are several coins:

- 5: has the Great Egret bird

- 10: has the coat of arms of Hungary

- 20: has the stool iris 

- 50: has Saker falcon on it. Sometimes there are unique 50 Forints, on some anniversaries or on some kind of special events. They are pretty rare, and quite hard to find. 

- 100: also has the coat of arms of Hungary, but in my opinion it's much more beautiful than the 10 Forints.

- 200: this is the most beautiful one. It has the Chain Bridge on it. Before the banknote was changed to coin, people can vote what kind of motives we want to have on the 200 Forints coin. Most people voted for the Chain Bridge, so eventually that was put on it.

FROM Germany

I got this card from North Germany. It's a free card, which I really liked there - in a lot of bars, pubs, hostels, etc. you could find several nice and funny postcards. When I was in Hamburg and Bremen I took home a lot of free postcards and put into my collection. Next time, if I'm in Germany again, I'll collect more cards I'm sure :D

Hungarian embrodiery

In the last days of my stay in Hungary I received some postcards and I sent 1 as well to Japan. 

TO Japan

The girl wanted to get pictures about national costumes. So I chose this card, which has some Hungarian clothes with traditional embrodiery style, called Kalocsai. In Hungary we have quite many type of traditional costumes. My favourite is this one, and the "Matyó". Unfortunately we can hardly find these kind of clothes and they are very expensive to purchase in my opinion. Usually folk dancers wear traditional costumes, but I think I haven't seen them wearing Kalocsai or Matyó before. Of course it depends on the area of the country of course. I don't live close to the Great Plain, where Kalocsai and Matyó are popular. Other popular embrodieries from Hungary are Kalotaszegi, Torockoi, etc.

FROM Estonia

This person sent me a piece of napkin as well. I'm collecting napkins too. It was strange, because the napkin is in Hungarian :D

FROM Norway

The guy felt what my favourite aircraft is - the Boeing 747! Unfortunately I haven't travelled with any before, but I hope it will change in the near future :) 

FROM France

This place is wonderful! The mountain is called Pyrenees, and it's on the border of France and Spain. I would like to visit this place soo much in the future *.*

FROM Finland

I liked this card. I already have a Finnish flag, it's above my bed, and it's anormous! So I can put this card next to it and enjoy them together :D