Postcrossing: Rach from Hong Kong (First "Received" Postcard! :D)

Rach, Hong Kong
HK-356207

Requested Address: 19 July 2015

Received: 4 August 2015

Travel Time: 16 Days

Distance: 1,145 km

After a long mental debate regarding my safety and security, I finally decided to join Postcrossing last June.

For those who don't know what Postcrossing is, it's a postcard project that's been around for a decade now. It allows people from all over the world to exchange postcards and share a piece of their culture or their life with someone from another side of the globe. 

I wouldn't go far into detail as to how Postcrossing works (you can visit their website to know more), but here's one thing I can tell you about it: Joining the project has been quite an interesting and exciting cultural experience so far. 

As someone who finds joy in receiving snail mail, I just love coming home to find a postcard or a bunch of them on my desk, waiting for me to read them. I may not have the money to travel to a lot of countries at the moment, but receiving postcards from Postcrossers sure is a great way for me to "see the world". 

Two months after joining Postcrossing, I received my first postcard (see photo above and details below) from Rach, who is based in Hong Kong. It was a nice postcard to start my Postcrossing collection.

The front of the card features the Mei Ho House Museum, which is situated inside a youth hostel. The museum gives its guests an idea of how the interiors of old, traditional houses in Hong Kong looked like before a devastating fire broke out in the area in the early 1950s. 

Rach surprised me by writing her message in Spanish. But, I was even more surprised to find out that I understood every word in her letter without having to use any online translators or having to consult my trusty English-Spanish dictionary, for it's been a while since I last read something written entirely in Español. 

Attending those nose-bleeding Spanish classes in college paid off after all. Haha!

"Hello, Andy! How are you? Greetings from Hong Kong. My name is Rach, and I'm 
a professor of English in a high school here. I speak some German and Spanish. I like 
travelling and learning foreign languages so much. I hope you like this postcard."

Check out the variety of stamps Rach used to post my letter
(I love the last one, which is inspired by a popular Chinese folk story about
a foolish old man named Yu Gong.)

♥Andy