Designer's X-Ray

Postcard ID: TW-1067294
Country: Taiwan

I like funny cards. This card is funny and kind :)

The sender is also nice and funny. She likes Taiwan (and recommends to visit it), listening to music and playing the bass guitar :) 

Prague, Czech Republic

Postcard ID: CZ-396556
Country: Czech Republic

This card is named on the backside like Prague. The Vltava river. Charles Bridge. The Prague castle.

However for me this is one from the most beautiful city in the world. I love this place with all my heart and to be honest, I'd like to live there.

When I see on this card I remember October 2010 when i visited Czech Republic. I was walking along this bridge, floating on a boat on the Vltava river and admired this castle. I can talk about Czech Republic and Prague endlessly, however I strongly recommend just visit this place to understand that there are no words to describe beauty of Prague :)

And look on these stamps! My thanks to Hana for this great emotions which your card gave to me :)

Funny Pigs

Postcard ID: NL-2160924
Country: Netherlands

A sender said that he tried to find postcard with butterflies, but did not have them... It's ok, I like almost all cards :) especially if this is funny card and it contains message more than Happy Postcrossing!

During my childhood I spent every summer time at the village with my grandparents. They have a yard with a doghouse. Of course, dog lived there. However sometimes I saw that chicken came in this doghouse =) dogs, chicken, pigs.. doesn't matter :)

Ortaköy, Turkey

Postcard ID: TR-165380
Country: Turkey

This card was sent to me by Denis from Turkey. I've never been there, however this place looks so colourful and positive :)
If I remember correctly I saw mentions of Ortakoy during reading of "Museum of Innocence" by Orhan Pamuk.

Ortaköy is a neighbourhood, formerly a small village, within the Beşiktaş district of Istanbul, Turkey, located in the middle of the European bank of the Bosphorus.

Ortaköy was a cosmopolitan area during the Ottoman era and the first decades of the Turkish Republic, with communities of Turks, Greeks, Armenians and Jews. Today the neighbourhood still hosts many different religious (Muslim, Jewish, Orthodox, and other Christian) structures. It is also a popular spot for locals and tourists alike, with its art galleries, night clubs, cafés, bars, and restaurants.

Here is an interesting Turkish stamp:

Bến Thành Market (1925), Vietnam

Postcard ID: SG-128291
Country: Singapore

I'm not a fan of black and white cards, however I think that it has its own charm. To receive card like this is like to touch something old, ancient and enigmatic.

 Bến Thành Market is a large marketplace in central Hồ Chí Minh City, Vietnam in District 1. The market is one of the earliest surviving structures in Saigon and one of symbols of Hồ Chí Minh City, popular with tourists seeking local handicrafts, textiles and souvenirs, as well as local cuisine.

The market developed from informal markets created by early 17th century street vendors gathering together near the Saigon River. The market was formally established by the French colonial powers after taking over the Gia Định citadel in 1859 (see Citadel of Saigon). This market was destroyed by fire in 1870 and rebuilt to become Saigon's largest market. In 1912 the market was moved to a new building and called the New Bến Thành Market to distinguish over its predecessor. The building was renovated in 1985.

This is the first card from Singapore in this blog, so here is the first nice stamp:

Greetings from St. Petersburg

Postcard ID: RU-2256569
Country: Russia

This is a nice card, huh? It's just greetings from early 20th c.

I like St. Petersburg. It has its own cultural atmosphere. I visited this city almost 2 years ago, when there was "white nights". Since I have wanted to return there again. By the way, I bought there a nice black and white set of postcards!

So, I like St. Petersburg and cards came to me from this city and with views of this city:)

Temple Bar, Dublin

Postcard ID: LT-344478
Country: Lithuania

It's a little strange to receive card with Irish Pabs from Lithuania :) However, it's already interesting to know something new.

Temple Bar is an area on the south bank of the River Liffey in central Dublin, Ireland. Unlike the areas surrounding it, Temple Bar has preserved its medieval street pattern, with many narrow cobbled streets. It is promoted as "Dublin's cultural quarter" and has a lively nightlife that is popular with tourists.

The area is the location of many Irish cultural institutions, including the Irish Photography Centre (incorporating the Dublin Institute of Photography, the National Photographic Archives and the Gallery of Photography), the Ark Children's Cultural Centre, the Irish Film Institute, incorporating the Irish Film Archive, the Temple Bar Music Centre, the Arthouse Multimedia Centre, Temple Bar Gallery and Studio, the Project Arts Centre, the Gaiety School of Acting, IBAT College Dublin, as well as the Irish Stock Exchange and the Central Bank of Ireland.

After dark, the area is a major centre for nightlife, with many tourist-focused nightclubs, restaurants and bars. Pubs in the area include The Porterhouse, the Oliver St. John Gogarty, the Turk's Head, the Temple Bar, Czech Inn (in the former Isolde's Tower), the Quays Bar, the Foggy Dew and the Purty Kitchen (formerly Bad Bobs).

This is the stamp:

Niagara Falls

Postcard ID: CA-403122
Country: Canada

This card is one from my favourites coming to me this January. I think that this view as absolutely amazing and incredible. Sometimes I revert this card head over heels and imagine that this is polar lights :)

As wrote on the backside "the Falls and landscape are awash in light every night of the year".

Niagara Falls is the collective name for three waterfalls that straddle the international border between Canada and the United States; more specifically, between the province of Ontario and the state of New York. 

Niagara Falls were formed when glaciers receded at the end of the Wisconsin glaciation (the last ice age), and water from the newly formed Great Lakes carved a path through the Niagara Escarpment en route to the Atlantic Ocean. While not exceptionally high, the Niagara Falls are very wide.

I would like to see this beauty with my own eyes :)

Also this card has nice stickers...:

...and nice Christmas stamp:

Monument to the founders of Odessa

Postcard ID: UA-906552
Country: Ukraine

I like Odessa. I visited this city summer 2012. Sea, sun and relax were my friends :)

From Chisinau (hometown of my husband) to Odessa is 4 hours by train or bus! Although there are Moldavian and Ukrainian border (and even Transdniestrian border in case train).

This card shows the monument to Catherine the Great and her companions - José de Ribas, Franz P. de Vollan, Grigory Potemkin and Platon Zubov. The monument is located in Odessa on Catherine square. It is placed in 1900. In 1920 the monument was dismantled and and restored only in 2007.

Here is one more from amazing Ukranian stamps:

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts

Postcard ID: US-2576687
Country: USA

Hurray! This is one more map of USA state! So love it :) Here in Minsk I have a shirt with inscription "Massachusetts", so I have special love to this state :)

Nickname: Bay state

Capital: Boston

From the quite Berkshire Hills, through bustling Boston, to the sands of Cape Cod, Massachusetts is a vacationer's paradise. The state has interesting historic sites, well kept woodland parks and ocean beaches, superb museums, fine hospitals and universities, excellent restaurants and always more to see and do than almost anyplace else.

Great description! Here are some more amazing stamps:

Maryinsky Palace, Kyiv

Postcard ID: UA-901838
Country: Ukraine

Kyiv is really nice and beautiful city. I hope that now revolutionaries did not hurt and destroy its beautiful buildings.

Mariyinsky Palace is the official ceremonial residence of the President of Ukraine in Kiev and adjoins the neo-classical building of the Verkhovna Rada (parliament) of Ukraine. It is a Baroque palace on the hilly bank of the Dnieper River.

The palace was ordered to be constructed in 1744 by the Russian Empress Elizaveta Petrovna, and was designed by Bartolomeo Rastrelli, the most famous architect working in the Russian Empire at that time. One of the students of Rastrelli, Ivan Michurin, together with a group of other architects, completed the palace in 1752. Empress Elizabeth, however, did not live long enough to see the palace. The first royal figure to stay in the palace was Empress Catherine II, who visited Kiev in 1787. In the late 18th and early 19th centuries the palace was the main residence of Governors-General.

In the early 19th century, the palace burned down in a series of fires. Roughly half a century later, in 1870, Alexander II of Russia had the palace reconstructed by the architect Konstantin Mayevsky, using old drawings and watercolours as guide. It was then renamed after the reigning Empress Maria Alexandrovna. By her wish, a large park was established off the southern side of the palace. The palace was used as a residence for visiting members of the imperial family until 1917.

During the years of the Russian Civil War in 1917-20, the palace was used as the Kiev revkom headquarters, particularly during the Kiev Bolshevik Uprising. In the 1920s the building belonged to an agricultural school, soon after which it became a museum. The Mariyinsky was badly damaged in World War II, and restored at the end of the 1940s. Another major restoration was completed in the early 1980s.

Here are amazing stamps with symbols of Ukraine:

Penang Island, Malaysia

Postcard ID: MY-180707
Country: Malaysia

Captain Francis Light founded Penang Island as a British settlement on the 11th August 1786. His monument stands in the grounds of the Penang Museum and Art Gallery

On 7 July 2008, George Town, the historic capital of Penang, was formally inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site alongside with Malacca. It is officially recognized as having a unique architectural and cultural townscape without parallel anywhere in East and Southeast Asia.

Here are postal stamps from this card:

Cute Christmas card

Postcard ID: NL-2220854
Country: Netherlands

This nice and warm card was sent to me by Reina. She is engaged in ice-speedskating and even was in Minsk!

I like people that like my country and I like this card :)

Here is the stamp from the envelope:

Painted by Jan jr. Voerman

Postcard ID: DE-2628800
Country: Germany

It's so interesting to receive postcard from Germany in Russian :) Thank you, Ana!
And also you can see here my favourite butterflies :)

Jan Voerman Junior was born in 1890 in the Dutch village of Hattem, as the son of painter Jan Voerman Senior. Voerman Jr. was taught painting by his father at an early age. As a young boy he was fascinated by the world of animals, plants and insects, and he collected shells and beetles to compose his own still lifes. He would study and observe these objects to become well-acquainted with rendering a perfect image from nature. He was also an apprentice at the Amsterdam Academy and the Academy in The Hague. Voerman Jr. received his first commissioned assignment when he was 15 years old. He was asked to make the illustrations for the well-known Dutch Verkade nature albums, which he did for many years. The Second World War ended this cooperation. From 1939 onwards, he focused exclusively on painting in oil. Like in his Verkade illustrations, subjects from nature dominate the scenes in Voerman’s paintings: landscapes and still lifes with plants and flowers. He would study these items carefully, which is shown in his precisely rendered paintings.