Aloha ʻoe! Today (June 11) is usually celebrated as King Kamehameha I Day in the U.S. state of Hawai’i but the festivities have been curtailed this year due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The organizing committee that sets up the events for the annual festival (held since 1872) is already working on plans for next year as well as the 150th anniversary in 2022. I spent … Continue reading Hawaii: King Kamehameha I Statue in Honolulu
This is another postcard recently won in a Facebook group lottery and came from the same user in Hong Kong as the clouded leopard card last month. The card was printed in Wuhan, China, and features hazmat-suited and face-masked personnel marching towards a sickly-appearing coronavirus. I really do not have much else to say about the postcard as we have all been living with COVID-19 … Continue reading Hong Kong: Marching on the Coronavirus
For 2020, I have re-purposed my main stamp blog — Philatelic Pursuits — to covering primarily the stamps issued this year. ALL the stamps, from EVERYWHERE. It is a daunting process but gives me a means to collect the entire year, albeit DIGITALLY. I am basically “collecting” the highest quality images that I can find for the stamps released in 2020 as well as providing … Continue reading Vietnam: COVID-19 Maximum Cards
I only received one journeyed-through-the-mail postcard in the entire month of May (a couple of others arrived inside of envelopes). Significantly, it arrived from Hong Kong — postmarked at the Central Mail Center in Kowloon on 14 April, it arrived in Phuket on 15 May. This transit time is actually about average for non-pandemic mail service, at least for postcards. The weak link has always … Continue reading Hong Kong: Clouded Leopard
So many postcards to choose from and I have been only writing about one per month for a while now. Every time I decide that “It is time to concentrate on the cards,” something comes up to take me elsewhere. Being under almost total lockdown for the past month due to the coronavirus COVID-19, I actually seem to have LESS free time these days. It … Continue reading Palacio de los Capitanes Generales in Antigua Guatemala
This postcard was mailed from Hodgenville, Kentucky, on August 25, 1961, and sees Sherry writing to her grandparents in Pimento, Indiana. At the time, she was in the middle of a two-night camp-out behind the cabin on the then-privately owned Knob Creek Farm which was the childhood home of future United States President Abraham Lincoln from 1811 to 1816. Lincoln later said living here was … Continue reading Hodgenville, Kentucky and the Early Life of Abraham Lincoln
I must confess that I will be relieved once the current school year finishes. For most of the local schools, that will be the end of next week but some will linger until the middle of March. I do not recall another year when I have been as busy during second term filling in at numerous schools all over the island. Sometimes, the request (more … Continue reading India: Darjeeling Himalayan Railway
In my continuing effort to clear out a backlog of un-blogged postcards, today I present a trio of cards from New Mexico. I lived in the Albuquerque area between early July 1997 until I moved to southern Thailand in early 2005, following what was originally just a short Christmas vacation. New Mexico remains my favorite amongst all the varied places in which I have spent … Continue reading Three From New Mexico, U.S.A.
Amazingly, I only added one postcard from Tennessee (and none from Texas) in 2019. I will have to improve on that in 2020. We moved to the Nashville area around 1973 or 1974 and stayed several months in a hotel near the airport until our home was ready. We lived for about a year in Hermitage, not far from Andrew Jackson’s mansion. Our housing development … Continue reading Great Smoky Mountains, Tennessee
A two-week party has kicked off in the Midwest region of the United States as the Kansas City Chiefs won the AFC Championship Game earlier today and will advance to the Super Bowl, to be played in Miami, Florida on 2 February 2020. Kansas City actually encompasses a huge area, made up of multiple communities in several different counties on both sides of the border … Continue reading Johnson County, Kansas: Courthouse
by Mark Joseph Jochim
Postage stamps are pop culture
Sharing cards I have received through Postcrossing, Swaps, Friends & Family
Sharing cards I have received through Postcrossing, Swaps, Friends & Family
Sharing cards I have received through Postcrossing, Swaps, Friends & Family
Sharing cards I have received through Postcrossing, Swaps, Friends & Family
by Mark Joseph Jochim
