Dundurn Castle is a neoclassical mansion found in Hamilton. It was completed in 1835 and built by Sir Allan MacNab. MacNab was a Canadian politician, land speculator, and property investor, lawyer, soldier, and militia commander. He served in the Legislative Assembly of Upper Canada, and was the joint premier of the Province of Canada from 1854 to 1856.  Fun fact - MacNab is related to Queen Camilla, King Charles III's wife, Camilla is the Royal Patron of Dundurn Castle today.  Dundurn has been many things since MacNab's death. It was used as an institution for the deaf for a time. the City of Hamilton bought the Dundurn in 1899. In the late 1960s, Dundurn was restored as a Centennial project and is now designated a National Historic Site of Canada.  Today, Dundurn operates as a civic museum.

 

A great maxi-card commemorating the 25th World Scout Jamboree, which was held in Saemangeum  새만금 , just outside Seoul. When I wrote my thanks to the sender I mentioned that my late grandfather was a serious stamp collector. One of his focuses was on Scouting stamps. In response he sent me another card that featured various stamps of the some of the Jamborees over the years. Stamps from Canada, Indonesia, New Zealand, Grenada, and Philippines were featured. Unfortunately my grandfather has been dead for 40 years, but I know he would have gotten a kick out of both postcards. 

Qingyuan  清远市  is located in the north of Guangdong Province in China. There are four million people that call Qingyuan home. The Bei River  北江  flows through the city.  The city is a major economic and transportation hub. The Bei River is big enough for large ships to transport good in and out of Qingyuan. 

 

A great multiview card from Bremen. It shows several sites you can find.  Der Roland (Statue of Roland) is found in the Rathausplatz (market square), facing the cathedral. It shows Roland, paladin (knight) of the first Holy Roman Emperor Charlemagne and the hero of the Battle of Roncevaux Pass. It was erected in 1404. It was designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2004. Legend has it that Bremen will remain free and independent for as long as Roland stands watch over the city. It is alleged that a second Roland statue is kept hidden in the town hall's underground vaults, which can be quickly installed as a substitute, should the original statue fall.  Die Sogegruppe (Swineherd with dog and sows) was erected in 1974. Die Muhle (Windmill) was built in 1604 and can be found in Wallanlagen. Burger und Handwerkerhauser are found in the Schnoor Quarter. Bremer Stadtmusikanten (Town Musicians) was erected in 1952. 

The sender bought this card while travelling in Idaho for a trip. They were hoping to see some elk on their journey but didn't.  Oregon City was established in 1829 by the Hudson's Bay Company when the area belonged to the British. Today it boasts almost 38 000 people and is located just south of Portland.  Dr John McLoughlin established the fort for the Hudson's Bay Company. Besides trading at the fort, he also established a lumber mill and used the power of the Clackamas River to run the saws. In the 1840s and 1850s, Oregon City was the destination for those traveling on the Oregon Trail. It was in Oregon City where arrivals filed their land claims.  Forestry dominated the economy until the 1980s. The last paper mill in the area closed down in 2017. Today, Oregon City is a bedroom community of Portland. 

Bournemouth is located on the south coast of England. It is the largest town in the area with 187 000 people. It is a part of the South East Dorset Conurbation (I think it's the English term for metropolitan area) which has a population of 465 000 people. Bournemouth is near where a large part of my own family tree hails from - Gosport (maternal great grandparents). The card shows The Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall at Ascot. Ascot is a famous horse racing course. It was founded in 1711 by Queen Anne and is found about 10 km from Windsor Castle. Ascot was a favourite of Queen Elizabeth II. 

This card features some anime but there is nothing written on the card to show what series it is from. The sender wrote down the following quotation: Learning without conjugation is equal to ignorance, Yukichi Fukizawa  福澤 諭吉 (1835 - 1901).  He was a Japanese educator, philosopher, writer, entrepreneur, and samurai. He founded Keio University  慶應義塾大学  and the Institute for Study of Infectious Diseases  東京大学医科学研究所 . Fukuzawa was a strong advocate for women's rights in Japan. He often spoke publicly about equality between a husband and wife. He promoted education for girls and boys. And he advocated for parents to love their children equally.  Fukizawa appears on the Series E (2004)  ¥10 000 banknote. 

The sender is a new resident of Vancouver. Her card is a part of a Wild Animals of the World  series.  The bird pictured is a Toco Toucan Ramphastos toco . They are native to South America. Their beaks are full of blood vessels that make the beak seem to glow red and yellow. The beak is important to help regulate the bird's body temperature. If the toucan gets too cold, it can put its beak under its wings to retain heat.  

A neat card of various old time racing cars. These are the open cockpit ones. F1 racing seems to be huge in Europe and several European Postcrossers have mentioned who their favourite team/driver are. I have to admit that I do not enjoy watching racing cars. I find it boring to watch on television. However, a former colleague of mine travelled to Daytona (I think) with her husband several years ago to watch a big NASCAR race. She said that the race is only one part of the experience as fans were allowed to go see the cars up close and there were many activities that they could participate in. To each their own, I suppose.  Stadthagen is a city of about 22 000 people and is the capital city of the district of Schaumburg. Count Adolf III of Holstein created Stadthagen in 1224. Apparently it was near an important trade and military route. It was called a few different names until 1378 when it was named Stadthagen.  Coal mining started in 1501 and continued until 1961.  Under...

A nice tourist card from Warsaw (Warszawa). It's funny because in the senders Postcrossing biography, she says she doesn't like multi-view cards.  In the bottom left hand side of the card there is a photo of the Warsaw Rising Museum (Muzeum Powstania Warszawskiego). It was established in 1983 and is dedicated to the 1944 Warsaw Uprising. The Warsaw Uprising was led by the Polish underground resistance to try to liberate Warsaw from German occupation. It was timed to coincide with the retreat of German forces from Poland ahead of the Soviet Union's advance towards Germany. Unfortunately for the leaders of the uprising, the Soviet Red Army stopped in a Warsaw suburb which allowed the Germans to regroup and defeat the Polish resistance and subsequently destroy Warsaw in the process. The Uprising lasted for 63 days and there was little help from outside the city.  Almost 15 200 members of the Polish resistance were killed, with and addition 5000 wounded. Almost 5700 Polish Fi...

I received the exact same card in the post two days before getting this one. 

The sender says Dalian  大连市   is famous for a clothing festival. Let's see what Wikipedia has to say about it.... The Dalian International Fashion Festival is held in September. It attracts the world's top fashion designers, businessmen, and models. 

The flag of Arizona is one of my favourite American flags. It was adopted in 1917. The flag was inspired by the current flag of Spain. The 13 rays of red and weld-yellow symbolize the Spanish conquistadores that explored the area. The centre star represents copper production: Arizona produced more copper than any other state. The blue and red on the flag are the same colours found on the American flag. The North American Vexillological Association ranked Arizona's flag in sixth spot out of 72 North American flags. This was from a poll of members in 2001. 

Myeong-dong  명동  is a neighbourhood of Seoul. It is one of Seoul's main shopping, parade route, and tourism districts. There are about 3400 people that live in this district.  The Myeongdong Cathedral is a popular tourist attraction here. It's actual name is the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception  천주교 서울대교구 주교좌 명동대성당. It is the national cathedral of the Archiocese of Seoul. The Archbishop of Seoul is Peter Chung-Soon taick  정순택 베드로. The Myeongdong Cathedral was started in 1892 and construction was complete by 1898. In August of 2014, Pope Francis presided over the Holy Mass at the Cathedral that was attended by former Korean President Park Geun Hye and seven comfort women who had survived the Japanese occupation of Korea in World War II. Comfort women were women forced into sexual servitude to Japanese soldiers. 

Mainz is the capital city of the German state of Rhineland-Palatinate and has about 220 000 people. Mainz is home to the Baseball and Softball Club Mainz Athletics(founded 1988), a German baseball and softball club. They play in the Baseball-Bundesliga Süd , or the southern division of Baseball-Bundesliga. Both the  Süd  and Nord have eight teams each and play a total of 28 games, usually on weekends.  The Mannheim Tornados dominated in the 1980s and 1990s winning 10 champions. Paderborn Untouchables won six German titles in seven seasons between 1999 and 2005. Mainz has won the Baseball-Bundesliga twice - 2007 and 2016. 

The sender is from  Kiryū   桐生市  in central Japan and is complaining about the 40 degree temperatures in the summer. As I type this, the overnight temperature was -41 degrees, and at 1300, is -34.  Kiryū has a population of almost 110 000 people. Nearby is Mount Akagi, a dormant volcano. Mount Akagi is a part of the " Three Mountains of Jōmō"  ( 上毛三山). The other two mountains are  Mount Myōgi   妙義山  and  Mount Haruna   榛名山. Akagi, an Amagi-class battlecruiser, was converted into an aircraft carrier and was the flagship for the strike force that attacked Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941. The strike force was commanded by Vice Admiral Chuichi Nagumo. The Akagi was later sunk at the Battle of Midway. 

I think this card is from the 1970s because on the back Sri Lanka has Ceylon in brackets after it. Sri Lanka changed its name from Ceylon in 1972. This card is from a PhD student from Tezpur. The card is of the Botanical Gardens found in Peradeniya, Kandy, Sri Lanka.  Tezpur is located in norther India on the banks of the Brahmaputra River. There are about 102 000 people who live here.  

The sender says the photo is of some art dipicting "A Success story of military commander Hideyoshi of the Middle Ages in Japan." Toyotomi Hideyoshi  豊臣 秀吉  (1537 - 1598), was a Japanese samurai and  daimyō, is known as the "Great Unifier" of Japan. Hideyoshi succeeded Oda Nobunaga and continued Nobunaga's campaign to unite Japan. He became the de facto leader of Japan. He was also responsible for the invasion of Korea in 1592 which ended in a stalemate. When he died, the Council of the Five Elders kept Hideyoshi's death a secret in order to preserve morale. Eventually Tokugawa Ieyasu took over and was declared  shōgun after the Battle of Sekigahara in 1600. 

 

 

 

I like these type of map cards. The sender is from the south of Brazil in Curitiba. Curitiba is the capital city of  Paraná and home to almost 2 million people. In the Curitiba Metropolitan Area there are 28 municipalities and 3.7 million people. It ranks very high, rare for a Brazilian city, on the Human Development Index. In 2010 it was awarded the Global Sustainable City Award. This award is given to cities that excel in sustainable urban development. The crime rate is low, by Brazilian standards, and is considered one of the safest cities for youth.  The sender also used Brazil's Postcrossing stamp!

This is a photo from The Cloisters (Met Cloisters), which is a museum in Washington Heights, in Upper Manhattan, in New York City. The museum specializes in European medieval art and architecture, with a focus on the Romanesque and Gothic periods. The Metropolitan Museum of Art governs The Cloisters.  The sender is from Hopatcong, in northern New Jersey. Hopatcong is a borough located on the shores of Lake Hopatcong of almost 15 000 people, but the sender says the population swells to 65 000 people over the summer. Needless to say, tourism is a big part of Hopatcong's economy. 

The sender is from a small city of 27 500 people in central Germany. Her card is a movie poster for a Spencer Tracy film The Old Man and the Sea. But the poster is for the Spanish language version of the film.  Butzbach was the host of the 47th Hessentag in 2007. The Hessentag is an annual event in Hesse to represent different regions of Hesse. The Hessentag runs for about a week and a half and is a combination of a fair and a festival.  One hundred and ten thousand people visited Butzbach when they hosted the Hessen tag. 

 

LaFayette is a small town of 5000 people located just south of Syracuse in Upstate New York. It was named after the Marquis de Lafayette, who is considered a national hero in France and in the United States. He was a key figure in both the French and American Revolutions.  The photo on the card is of the Occator Crater on Ceres. Ceres is a dwarf planet in our solar system. It is found in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. It was first discovered in 1801 by Giuseppe Piazzi in Sicily and thought to be a newly discovered planet. By 1851, it was reclassified as an asteroid. In 2006 NASA said it would use the guidelines set out by the International Astronomical Union and refer to Ceres (and Pluto) as unterplanets (dwarf planets). 

Orting is a city of 9100 people and is found between the Carbon River and the Puyallup River. It is 50 km from Mount Rainer. Orting has been designated the most at rick city from lahar ( a violent type of  mudflow  or  debris flow  composed of a  slurry  of  pyroclastic  material, rocky debris and water. The material flows down from a  volcano , typically along a  river valley ). It is estimated that lahar could reach Orting in 30 minutes. As such, Ortine is a part of Mount Rainer Volcano Lahar Warning System. Schools in Orting stage evacuation drills in the event of a lahar event. Residents are also aware of lahar escape routes. 

Rauenberg is a town situated about 15 km from Heidelberg. According the the sender, the town is famous for its old castle ruins. 

Lorain is a city of 65 000 people and is located on the shores of Lake Erie at the mouth of the Black River. It's about 40 km west of Cleveland and is a part of the Greater Cleveland Metropolitan Area.  American author, Toni Morrison (1931 - 2019), born in Lorain, set her first novel The Bluest Eyes  in Lorain. The novel, published in 1970, is a about a young African-American girl named Pecola. She is constantly regarded to as ugly and as a result develops an inferiority complex where she dreams of having blue eyes. The novel is set in 1941. There have been numerous attempts to ban the novel from schools and libraries in the United States. The Bluest Eyes  have topics of racism, incest, and child molestation in it.  Toni Morrison has numerous accolades, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom, presented to her by President Barrack Obama in 2012. 

China has these neat postcards where there is another photo of the card that you can tear off and keep it for yourself. It's about a quarter of the size of the actual card. So you can keep a copy of the card for yourself while send the other part to someone else. Clever idea. I haven't seen this from other countries, though. The send sent me the whole card so I have both parts, as you can see in the photo. 

Orwell is a village of 1500 people and is named after Orwell, Vermont, where an early settler of the area was from. The post office called the area Orwell since 1826. Orwell is home to the King Training Camp, owned by boxing promoter Don King. Many famous boxers have trained here, including Cory Spinks. 

Sastamaia is located in south west Finland. It's nickname is the Book Capital of Finland. It has a long tradition of literature. During the summer it hosts the Old Literature Days ( anhan kirjallisuuden päivät. The Finnish Book Museum Pukstaavi was opened here and it promotes Finnish book culture and reading. Pukstaavi tells the popular story of a Finnish book on cultural history and social significance.  Sastamaia is also the home of Vammalan Lentopallo (VaLePa), who plays in Mestaruusliiga (Finnish Volleyball League).  VaLePa was founded in 1978 and play at the VeXve Arena (1500 capacity). They have been the Finnish league champions  twice (2012 and 2014), and won the Finnish Cup in 2012. 

The Shanxi Loongs play in Taiyuan 太原.  They play in the Northern Division of the Chinese Basketball Association  中国男子篮球职业联赛 . They were founded in 2001 and play at the  Taiyuan Riverside Sports Centre Gymnasium  太原市滨河体育中心体育馆  in front of 8000 spectators.  The team played in the International Basketball League in 2008, which is a spring/summer league based in Portland, Oregon.  The team's roster consists of an all-Chinese teams except for three international players - two from the United States, and one from Russia. The American players are Isaiah Taylor, who played in the NCCA (American College) Big 12 with the Texas Longhorns. He went undrafted, but signed with the Houston Rockets, first playing in their NBA Development League. He did make it in the NBA and has played 71 career games - four with Houston and 67 with Atlanta. He did sign with the Toronto Raptors in 2019, but was waived a month after signing his contract. He spent some time in the NBA De...

The sender's map on their profile says they are from Seulberg. Wikipedia says that Seulberg were merged in July 1972 with Friedrichsdorf,  Köppern, and Burgholzhausen to form Friedrichsdorf/Taunus. Seulberg was first mentioned in documents in 767. Pottery has long been an important economic activity here, along with farming and linen weaving. In the 17th century, 31 women were put to death during Seulberg's witch trials. 

Clear Lake has a population of 7700 people and is named after the large lake on which it is located. Marinas, state parks, and tourism fuel much of the economy in Clear Lake.  Clear Lake is a part of rock 'n roll lore as it was near Clear Lake where the plane carrying Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and the Big Bopper (J.P. Richardson) crashed killing all three, including pilot Roger Peterson. The plane crashed after losing control in poor weather at night.  This card depicts the Minnesota Ore Docks in Duluth, Minnesota. The card looks to be from the 70s or 80s. 

Haan is an ancient city with evidence of settlement going back to 2200 BCE. Today it is a city of about 30 000 people in western Germany. 

San Ramon is a city of 85 000 located in the San Ramon Valley, near San Fransisco. On a hill overlooking the San Ramon Valley is Memorial Park. Memorial Park was named to honour local resident, Tom Burnett, and all those killed in the September 11, 2001, attacks. Flight 93 was a Boeing 757-222 plane flying from Newark, New Jersey, to San Fransisco. About 45 minutes into the flight, hijackers killed a passenger and struggled with the pilots to take control of the plane. Passengers, having learned of the suicide attacks earlier in New York and Washington, decided to try to take back the plane. In the ensuing struggle, the place nosedived into a field about 105 km south west of Pittsburgh. All 44 passengers and crew, along with the terrorists, were killed.  The terrorists planned to fly the plane into a federal government building in Washington. Memorial Park is 16-acres and includes a play area, a BMX course, a picnic area, a bocce ball court, horseshoe pits, a ball field, and a dog ...

Mönchengladbach is home to Schloss Wickrath, a moated castle on the River Niers. The original castle was demolished in 1859 by Prussian authorities. Today there are several buildings in the park, including the residence of the former Landstallmeisterhaus (Stud Master).  The German on the front of the card translates to  A Ship in the harbour is safe. But that's not what ships are built for.

Wolfsburg is a city on the Aller River and has about 125 000 people. It's famous for having the world's largest car plant and is the corporate headquarters for Volkswagen.  The city was a planned city and was founded on 1 July 1938. It was named  Stadt des KdF-Wagens bei Fallersleben.  It was built as a home for workers producing the KdF-Wagen (Volkswagen Beetle). During the Second World War, military cars, aeroplanes, a nd other military equipment was built here by a workforce of mainly forced workers and prisoners-of-war. In 1942, German authorities established the Arbeitsdorf concentration camp for a few months.  The city and the Volkswagen factory were captured by American forces on 11 April 1945. About 7700 forced labourers were liberated from the Volkswagen factory. The Americans changed the name to Wolfsburg, after a castle located nearby. The area became a part of the British occupation zone in June 1945.  Wolfsburg is also home to the Autostadt, which i...

A card from a colleague! He teaches the same age and he teaches history.  Trhový Štěpánov is a town of about 1500 people located about 50 km south east of Prague. It is an ancient town, founded in 995. It is first mentioned in documents in 1108. 

 

The sender says he is envious of Canada because we are the FIFA World Cup. China hasn't been to the World Cup in 21 years (Canada officially finished in last place). The last time (and their only appearance) China was at the World Cup was in 2002, when Japan and South Korea co-hosted the tournament.  Brazil, the eventual champions, defeated China 4-0; China lost to Costa Rica 2-0; and to Turkey 3-0. It was a tough group for China as they had to play the eventual champions, Brazil, and the eventual third place champions, Turkey. China, however, did not finish in last place in the 32 team tournament. Instead, Saudi Arabia finished 32nd, while China was 31st. Slovenia rounded out the bottom three at 30th place. All three of the bottom teams did not earn a single point in the tournament. Slovenia did score 2 goals, while China and Saudi Arabia didn't score a single goal.