Venezia – Venice

By ilyani | Published 31 January, 2009

I was checking the postcards from the last batch found. I said found because oh, I don’t know why this happened to me again. I was abroad for 1.5 months and when I came home, all I had to do was to SEARCH my own postcards which had arrived during my absence. Because nobody at home cared about my postcards so they were anywhere they could be placed.OK back to this bunch of cards I noticed a neat Venice card but I can’t scan it now because the scanner is still unexistent. But I went to dig out my box (and tell you what, I started grouping my postcards according to country so it’s easier for me to find a postcard again – lol my postcards are well more organized than my bedroom!). Anyways. Venice postcards, so I was counting, and I have actually received 7 Venice all this while hahaha :) Let’s see the views of this breathtakingly beautiful city..

Venice 1 from Lilo. The real Venice, as it pictures here: lots of water, bridges and and people walking. The farthest bridge is called the Bridge of Sighs, because it connects the Doge’s palace to the prisons, so the prisoners used to take their final view of Venice, and sigh when crossing it. Hmm, scary.

Venice 2 from Lilo again. This is the marvellous Piazza San Marco, a famous square with its church Basilica di San Marco.

Venice 3 from Lilo again. A real romantic view with traditional Venerial boat – it’s called Gondola. The small rivers in Venice are called Rio, and the narrow streets are Calle, and the squares are Campo.

Venice 4 from Lilo again. Okay I must admit I was in a mission of seeking Venice postcards back then and luckily had Lilo as my postcard pal. This is another breathtaking view from the Piazza San Marco showing the church Santa Maria della Salute.

Venice 5. Oh how I wish I was in that boat :) This card was sent from old postcard pal Drs_dolittle from Belgium, she bought the card during her vacation to Venice, which according to her it looked like you ended up in a fairytale. Wonderful.

Sigh, I really want to see myself in Venice! Hmm.. *dreaming away*

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Maori culture

By ilyani | Published 30 January, 2009

I still haven’t got a new scanner *sigh* so all I can do is to blog about my randomly chosen old postcards from the Flickr. Okay now I would love to share my postcards on Maori culture – yep, from New Zealand. I have come to know Maoris from the postcards I received, yeah obviously, and they’re believed to be the origin people of New Zealand with so colorful and creative culture.

This is official card (NZ-4761) I received from Rhonda which I can’t help loving :) It shows Maori children wearing their traditional costume. Maori people make up about 15% of NZ population.

And this is from Kasha10 showing Maori dancers and those facial art :D Alright – it’s some kind of face tattoo called Moku and is meant to scare the enemies during the battle. I don’t know why it sounds funny to me.

This lovely card came from From Buttercup65.

Maori woman from Feordiegirl84. The while balls she is holding are called Poi and are swung on woven strings when dancing.

And this one is very interesting, came from funkymunky showing traditional carvings of the Maoris. In the past whale bone was used for these carvings (huh?) and nowadays it is predominantly cattle bone.

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Truly Malaysia

By ilyani | Published 30 January, 2009

Malaysian Postcrossers are really cool! I am saying this not that because I am one, but they are really great at making me happy :) I love my fellow Malaysian Postcrossers in the forum. There has been this MY-tag in our Bahasa Melayu community forum where we can tag each other and send local postcard! And don’t be surprised if I tell you, in my Postcrossing collection Malaysian postcards are the 3rd most received after Finland and USA. Yep, even they beat Germany and the Netherlands! LOL. I’m so proud of you, Malaysian postcrossers! Here’s few of their cards I would really love to share, and others can be seen in this Flickr set.

This is Kelantanese Rebana Ubi (giant drum) from Aliah. I live in Kelantan myself but never found this card, sigh. This is an old image probably taken in the Gelanggang Seni (Culture Field) here in Kota Bharu. You can come and see the Rebana show regularly held in here.

Melaka multiviews from Newrule, showing Malacca Fort, Malacca house, Bullock carts and the cultural meseum. Oh if you must know Melaka has been listed in UNESCO Heritage Site since last year. Aliah and I visited Melaka with her in 2007 and it was great!

Ketupat sent me this card with Rambutan fruits on a bike. Do you have Rambutan in your country? It’s really juicy and sweet – gotta love it!

Art card from Chat_noir with lovely painting showing Malay girl. I don’t know where he found this kind of cards, as I hardly find art cards in here or KL when I was there. Or maybe I didn’t search hard enough.

Ubudiah Mosque from Charlie_dale. This is one of the most beautiful mosques in Malaysia, I can be sure of this because I’ve been there once! Postcardswise, this mosque has got more of its pictures printed as postcards than any other mosque in Malaysia.

This is a squid! Giant squid! Or actually, it writes here Broadclub cuttlefish. Maybe in Sabah underwater you can find this creature. Borneo postcards are really something and we’re lucky to have Gundohingnick there to send us postcards :)

HAHAHA. Reggie Lee comic cards are my favorite! Though it’s real hard to find them in my place. Thanks Rosnah for sending this piece to me. Poor these jobless rockers.. “No Lepaking” is (maybe) Malaysian English for No Loitering. You know.. sit in a group somewhere doing practically nothing.

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