Xitou Monster Village and Pyrestes curticornis - a card from Taiwan

XITOU MONSTER VILLAGE

Country: Taiwan

Place: Birmingham
Received: 13/04/2013

Distance: 8 025 km
Travelled: 119 days

Cute monster

Xitou Monster Village is a Japanese style village built in 2011 in Taiwan. Torii, a traditional Japanese gate standing at the entrance of the village, symbolically marks the transition from the profane to the sacred. All over the small village you may find cute Japanese monster statues.

Pyrestes curticornis stamp

Vintage Tula - a card from Great Britain

TULA

Country: Great Britain

Place: Birmingham
Received: 04/04/2013

Distance: 1 960 km
Travelled: 37 days

Vintage card of Tula

Elizabeth II

Tula is a city in Russia, located 193 km to the south from Moscow, on the Upa River, which is 345 km long. Tula was first mentioned in 1146 and is famous for Tula accordion (a free-reed wind instrument), pryaniki and samovar.

Traditional Russian pryaniki (gingerbread) are the cookies made with honey and spices. Tula gingerbread often looks like a rectangular tile or a flat figure and contains jam or condensed milk and honey as well. Gingerbreads in Tula originate from the 17th century, and In 1996 Tula opened a museum dedicated to these cookies.

Tula is also a center of samovar production. Samovar is a heated metal container used to boil water. The Russian idiom says "You don't take a samovar to Tula", which is an equivalent of "coals to Newcastle".

Cat and the window, Tagetes and Eurasian lynx - a card from Germany

CAT AND THE WINDOW

Country: Germany

Place: Kaiserslautern
Received: 30/03/2013

Distance: 1 450 km
Travelled: 20 days

Cat and the window

Kaiserslautern has the population of almost 99 500 people, and its historic center dates to the 9th century. Additionally, Kaiserslautern is a home for about 50 000 people from NATO military community. The early American military population had some difficulties with pronouncing the German name, and Kaiserslautern is also named as “K-town” for this reason.

Tagetes flower stamp

Eurasian lynx stamp

Lynx is widely used in heraldry, symbolizing visual acuity. Due to this, the constellation was named after the lynx by Johannes Hevelius in 1690. Hevelius commented his choice: “Only small stars are located in this part of the sky, and you are to have the lynx’s eyes to distinguish between them and recognize.”