Turkey

Postcard showing Sultan Ahmed Mosque and the Sea of Marmara beyond. It was built between 1609 and 1619 by Sultan Ahmet I, who decided to build a large mosque in Istanbul to reassert Ottoman power following losses in Central Europe and Persia. It incorporates some Byzantine Christian elements of the neighboring Hagia Sophia with traditional Islamic architecture and is considered to be the last great mosque of the classical period. Part of the Historic Areas of Istanbul World Heritage site. Many thanks and teşekkürler to my Mum for sending this to me while on holiday.

Stamp on the left is the 1998 definitive of Kemal Atatürk, seen as the founder of modern Turkey (and a first-rate Dracula impersonator, by the looks of it). Stamp on the right is from a 2000 set of four about crocuses, and features the snow crocus, Crocus chrysanthus. It is native to Turkey and the Balkans and flowers very early in the spring, often pushing up through the snow.

British Antarctic Territory II

Postcard from Port Lockroy in the British Antarctic Territory. The harbour was used for whaling through the 1930s and military base was established during the Second World War that was used as a research station until 1962. In 1996, the Port Lockroy base was renovated and is now a museum and post office, one of the most popular stops for Antarctic cruise ships due to its good harbour and favourable landing conditions. – A staff of four typically process 70,000 pieces of mail sent by 18,000 visitors that arrive during the five month Antarctic cruise season!

Upper stamp from a 1982 set of six commemorating the tenth anniversary of the Convention for the Conservation of Antarctic Seals. Lower stamp from a 2008 set of five featuring the aurora australis. 

Slovenia

Postcard from the alpine resort of Bled, in northern Slovenia. In the centre of Lake Bled is a small island, home to the Assumption of Mary Pilgrimage Church. Human traces from prehistory have been found on the island and before the church was built there was a temple consecrated to Živa, the Slavic goddess of love and fertility.

Thank you and hvala to my Mum for sending this first Slovenia card in my collection when she was on holiday there.

Stamp is from a 2007 set of 17 on flowers of Slovenia. Pictured here is Cerastium dinaricum, a rare species of chickweed found only in one 50km² site in the Slovenian mountains.

Hungary

Postcard of Matthias Church in the Hungarian capital of Budapest, part of the longly-named "Budapest, including the Banks of the Danube, the Buda Castle Quarter and Andrássy Avenue" World Heritage site. The origins of the church go back to the eleventh century. During the Ottoman period, it became the city's main mosque. After regaining its status as a church, it became the coronation site of many Hungarian kings.

Thanks to my Dad for sending this card, along with this one and this one, from his trip "behind the Iron Curtain" and setting me off on my postcard adventures many years ago.

Stamps are from a 1986 set of six on Hungarian castles. Shown is Baroque Forgách Castle, in Szécsény in northern Hungary.

China

I was a bit surprised to notice recently that, although I have piles of postcard from China in my collection, I've never gotten around to putting one up here yet! – A situation now rectified with a favourite showing a group of people doing taichi on a famous stretch of Shanghai riverfront known as the Bund. The skyscrapers of Pudong, on the opposite side of river are in the background. When I first visited Shanghai, none of the skyscrapers existed and the view was mostly of farmers' fields and rice paddies. 

Stamp from current definitive series featuring Chinese birds. Pictured is the yellow-bellied tit – a snicker-inducing name if ever there was one – (Periparus venustulus), a common bird in temperate and subtropical forests.

Canada – Newfoundland and Labrador II

Postcard of Gros Morne National Park, a world heritage site located on the west coast of Newfoundland. The park was established as a reserve in 1973 and made a national park in 2005. As an outlying range of the Appalachian Mountains, the park provides a rare example of the process of continental drift, where deep ocean crust and the rocks of the earth's mantle lie exposed. It is also notable for its glacier-carved fjords, one of which is pictured here.

Definitive, self-adhesive stamp of blue-flag irises from a 2004 series on flowers.

Greenland IV

Postcard from Greenland showing a man in a kayak. Kayaks were originally developed by the Inuit people of the Arctic, and the word itself is indeed Inuktitut, qajaq (ᖃᔭᖅ), meaning "man's boat" or "hunter's boat". The first kayaks were constructed from stitched animal skins stretched over a wood or whalebone frame – Inuit in the western Arctic used wood whereas those in the east used whalebone due to the lack of available trees in the tundra. They are most commonly made of modern materials nowadays, but continue to be used in traditional fishing and hunting practices.

Stamp on the left is from the 2012 definitive series featuring Queen Margrethe II. Stamp on the right is from a multiyear series on Greenlandic herbs featuring Fucus vesiculosus, or bladderwrack, issued in 2013. Bladderwrack is a common seaweed in the North Atlantic Ocean and was the original source of iodine, used to treat a variety of ailments.

Canada – Yukon

Love this postcard; it goes straight to the top as one of my favs! Another card from my Mum on her trip in the Canadian Far North. Seen here are caribou, Rangifer tarandus, on the move during their autumn migration. The herd that typically crosses the Dempster Highway is one of the world's largest, numbering more than 100,000 animals. 

The Dempster Highway connects the Klondike gold rush town of Dawson with Inuvik, north of the Arctic Circle – the furthest place north one can drive in Canada. The highway was built in fits and starts from 1959 to 1979. It was recently announced that the road would be extended, as intended, a further 194 km to reach the community of Tuktoyaktuk on the shores of the Arctic Ocean.

Previously featured stamp of baby black bear, with a rather remarkable postmark quite unlike any other I've seen from Canada, which usually have black ink and are round (that is, when Canada Post uses a postmark at all, and not its typical, unlovely dot matrix laser scan).

Viet Nam

Card showing market-goers wearing Viet Nam's celebrated cone hats, known locally as nón lá. They form an integral and iconic part of Viet Nam's national dress and have been around for 3,000 years, as attested by their depiction in archaeological findings. They sometimes contain decorations or poem verses stitched inside that are revealed when direct sunlight shines through the palm leaf.

Stamp on the left features gerbera daisies. Stamp on the right features royal angelfish, Pygoplites diacanthus, a species found in tropical areas of the Indian and Pacific Oceans. They can grow as long as 25 cm and are sometimes kept as an aquarium fish.

Spain II

Another postcard from the archives, this one rather special because it was sent by my mother when she was a hippy backbacking around Europe on $5 a day in 1968. The card was sent to my great-grandmother and great-aunt. It shows the Court of the Myrtles in the Alhambra Palace in Granada in southern Spain. The courtyard is in one of the oldest parts of the Palace and was used to receive ambassadors and distinguished guests at the Moorish Court. It is so named for the myrtle shrubs lining the pond. Part of the Alhambra, Generalife and Albayzín, Granada World Heritage site.

 

Left stamp features former dictator, Francisco Franco. Stamp on the right commemorates the 2,000th anniversary of the foundation of the city of Cáceres in Extremadura in western Spain.

Soviet Union

Another card from the archives. When I was young, my dad went on a business trip to several Eastern Bloc countries, sending me postcards as he went. Back in the old days, anything from behind the Iron Curtain seemed terrifically exotic, and these onion-domed spires seemed more fairytale than real. To hold a piece of something so faraway was magical to young me. It prompted me to declare that I would collect a postcard from every country in the world, not realising how many countries there were (and today there are even more!). Now, more than twenty years on, I'm still at it and, at last count with 114 countries and postal entities left to go, still rather a ways from reaching the goal. But, as they say, getting there is certainly half the fun!:-)

A very special thanks to my Dad for launching me into this amazing quest.

Stamp on the left from the 1988 definitive series features a statue of Mercury in promotion of international trade cooperation. Four kopek stamp from the same series printed as a postage paid part of the postcard shows Spassky Tower and Lenin's tomb in Red Square, Moscow.

Uzbekistan II

After years of trying, I was happy to finally find someone to send me a postcard from Uzbekistan. When I received the card, it was indeed very lovely, but had unfortunately been sent from neighbouring Kazakhstan. My hunt for an Uzbekistan stamped, sent card continued. Then, today, as I opened up my mailbox, I was more than thrilled to find not one, but three Uzbekistan postcards, sent by three different people!

The first card shows the Kalyan Mosque in the Historic Centre of Bukhara World Heritage site. The minaret was built in 1127 and so impressed Genghis Khan that he ordered it to be spared when all around was destroyed by his men.

Many, many thanks to Alena for agreeing to swap cards.

Stamp on the left commemorates Berdaq, an Uzbekistani poet from the nineteenth century. The pair on the right are from a definitive series from 2008, showing the Uzbek National Academic Drama Theatre in the capital, Tashkent.

Japan

A blast from the past! I found this postcard inside a book a started rereading. It was the last postcard I sent from Japan before moving away. If you look closely, you can even make out the "Terminal 2 Narita Airport" cancellation mark on the stamp. It was quite an emotional move, but of course I found the wherewithal to send a postcard to Mum. :-)

A really quite lovely stamp issued in a series for the 1999 International Letter Writing Week featuring a classical Japanese print of 菊に虻 (Horsefly at Chrysanthemums) from the 1700s.