Two Cards and Other Things

Hello. I have a couple of cards for today along with a couple of other things. First let me say that cards have been a little scarce lately , just 2 postcards since last Thursday. Those are the ones you will see today. Without new cards arriving, it becomes difficult to write a blog about postcards. So with just two cards, I will have a few words about a book and a few about a map.

The first card today is from The United States. Ten year old Rebecca , a young Postcrosser living in New Jersey sent this postcard along. Rebecca lives just 45 minutes from New York , so it's just natural, for her to have sent a New York postcard. Rebecca's card shows the Empire State Building , towering over the midtown skyline at night. The 102 story Empire State Building , in midtown Manhattan was completed in 1931. The main structure is 381 meters and with the superstructures on top it rises to 443 meters. This skyscraper is the 3rd tallest building in the U.S. and the 15th tallest in the world. Rebecca used 2 copies of the 2009 Liberty Bell First Class Forever stamp.Today's second card comes to us from Hong Kong. It's another night scene . This one shows us the Lee Theatre Plaza in Causeway Bay. This is one of the major shopping districts in Hong Kong. This is an area with an extremely high density of buildings. I think that with all those bright lights shown on the card , Billy Idol's song , I Wear My Sunglasses At Night , certainly comes to mind. The card is from Akira, another PostCrosser. She used a definitive stamp from a 2006 set of 16 bird stamps.Now what's this about a book ? Well, David from Dublin, Ireland told me about a book called Inviting The World At Home by Rolf Weijburg. The book is a survey of the world's postal links to the Netherlands. But, for a postcard collector, especially one attempting to collect a stamped postcard from every country of the world, this book is a wonderful read .
I couldn't find a copy of the book anywhere in Canada or even North America, but was lucky enough to find a copy in Belgium. I put in an order and a week later my book arrived.
Once I cracked the cover, I was hardly able to put it down. I loved it and am now reading it for a second time. In addition to postcards from all the usual places, you'll find cards from places you never even knew existed. It's a really good read. Mr Weijburg put 30 years into his survey and 400 postcards later, we postcard collectors can be thankful for his dedication and hard work. I'm glad I found a copy of this book and highly recommend it to all my fellow postcard collectors.

My final topic is the afore mentioned map. I have a world map on my office wall.This map is a visual record of where many of my postcards come from. Every time I receive a card from a new country or some otherwise strange place , a pin goes in the map. As you can see, I have cards from many places, but Africa could certainly use a few more.

Well, that's about it for this time. I know this was not my usual update, but like I said, it takes postcards to do this. I hope I haven't lost too many of my readers.