More postcard porn for my wanderlust (updated)

I can't believe it's been two months since I last blogged about any postcrossing cards I'd received. Now I have a bunch to all put up at once, though -- so I think I can be forgiven.

This first card marks the shortest distance travelled for a postcard to me -- having travelled allllllllllll the way from Germany, a hop, skip and a jump of 469 KM from a place called Wuppertal. The sender, Sille, tells me that more than 50 years ago a director of a circus wanted to advertise his circus -- and so he thought he would put a little elephant into the overhead monorail which goes through the city. But oh no! Tuffi the elephant didn't like this -- so she jumped through the door and fell into the river Wupper below. There was a happy ending though, as Tuffi the elephant was miraculously uninjured and is now -- like the monorail -- a symbol of the city of Wuppertal. I have no idea if this story is true, or if it is an example of the famous German sense of humour. Either way, it's an interesting looking card; you can see the elephant falling from the monorail in the main picture, and some slightly freakish people in the bottom-left picture.

The second card has travelled slightly further -- in this case having made the journey from Osaka, Japan. The sender Yukiko is a 23-year-old woman and tells me that "In Japan the intense heat day passed and goes from now in Autumn". In her poetic way, I think what Yukiko is telling me that now summer is passing the days are less hot as they go into Autumn.

I'm not entirely clear what the picture shows -- since the card is captioned only "ATC & WTC, Osaka" so if anybody can shed light on these initials, I'd be interested to hear it. Either way, it's a a stunning picture -- I love the reflections of the lights and the boat in the water. It's scenes like this that make me want to travel -- although it probably doesn't look so different to Portsmouth at night, or London's Docklands.

Hanna from Tampere Suomi marks my fourth postcard from Finland. Hanna informs me that she was shortly to be moving from the beautiful city (which doesn't look all that from the postcard) to South Finland. The caption on the back of the card tells me the city's cathedral was built in 1907, which is more information than Hanna gives me about her city -- but she said she was happy to be moving so maybe she doesn't care.

Contrasting with my barely-travelled postcard from Germany, it's clear this is one of my farthest-travelled, although it still comes second to my card from Dunedin, New Zealand. Of all the cards I have received, I'm sorry to say this is maybe my least favourite to date. The sender Jean (at least from her handwriting I think that's her name), tells me she lives in Central Queensland, about 3 hours from the sea, and breeds beef cattle. She then goes on to tell me that in Australia it is now spring and already warm. I don't mind that the text might not have been the most interesting of all cards -- when you're writing a short card to a complete stranger it can be difficult to think of something to say -- but I'm a little disappointed with the picture. I feel that a country as vast and fascinating as Australia could be better represented than this.

Today I wasn't even expecting a postcard -- according to the postcrossing site, I had sent and received an equal number of cards. Either way, this beautiful piece of art was sent from Miyuki in Japan -- although where in Japan she never mentions. Miyuki tells me she is a Japanese woman who likes handicraft, and chose this card for me because I like art. See? Much better than the last sender who sent me a rubbish picture. Miyuki also tells me it is Autumn in Japan -- which funnily enough it is also in England -- and that she and her daughter both have a cold.

I really like the mental image of the everyday life of this Japanese woman and her daughter, who today (or a week ago when the card was sent) is suffering a little with a cold. I expect they're wearing those freaky-looking facemasks.

It's a week of surprise postcards -- today I received another postcard from Japan. This makes it two postcards from Japan in one week, and three in total. Today's card comes from a young lady named Saori in Kyoto, who tells me it is "cool and comfortable" in Japan and "The leaves are going to change yellow and red". She also has gone to the trouble of sticking tiny red leaves on the reverse of the card. I think the Japanese have to be my favourite postcard writers, for the poetry of their descriptions. It also puts me to shame, not being able to say much more than "Where is the shoe store?" in Spanish and "My grandmother is on fire" in French.



And I know what you're all thinking right now. I can just see now in your eyes, you're all looking at me with that same curious blogger expression, saying:
Jay, what has this done to the graph?

I, on the other hand find myself thinking, what graph? Why would there be a graph? Why would you all get together and expect a stranger on the internet to give you trivial details about his life in graph form? How would that help us understand this any more? That seems a little bit sad. You don't need a graph, it doesn't help us in any way. There is no graph.







No. You need a pie chart for that kind of thing. And here it is:


To date, postcards received by country. Notice the disproportionate number of cards from Finland. According to Postcrossing, there are 32,945 people taking part worldwide -- 19,903 of them hailing from Finland. That means 60% of all users on Postcrossing are from the Republic of Finland, a country of 5.3 million people in Northern Europe. For anyone interested, the next most popular country is Germany with 38% of the users, closely followed by the USA with 33%. I have yet to receive any postcrossing from the USA. The Netherlands creep into the top five at number four, and Japan take fifth place.