Do you know the Gotochi cards?
Gotochi cards are designed and released by the Japanese Postal System, and each one of them represents a place in Japan - hence the name 'gotochi', which means 'local'. They showcase Japanese symbols (which might be local dishes, costumes, monuments, landscapes, etc.) on a national and regional level, in a brightly coloured and fun cartoon.
Gotochi cards have a couple of unique features that make them special. First of all, they are not perfect rectangles, but in fact take on the shape of their picture. Also, each card not only has a cartoon picture on it, but also the name of the place that is depicted in the image. Every prefecture has multiple cards, which might be one of the reasons that collecting them has taken off and became such a popular hobby! (Taken from the Postcrossing blog).
I had seen many, many, many of these cards on the net. But I had not received any of them until the twin of this one landed in my mailbox. It arrived from Japan... after a short layover in Heleen's mailbox (the Netherlands). It was beautifully stamped on the back:
And the stamp (I mean the real one, on the cover) was, to a certain extent, also Japanese:
It also belongs to the Grenzeloos ('Border Free') set of 2014, that show different aspects of the relationship between the two countries. Each stamp is framed by an origami model.
In fact, I had previously received part of the set...
... Oh, wait: and one of the whole sheets!
Thank you for posting! So glad to see the card arrived well!
ReplyDeleteAnd I had forgotten that I sent you the 'grenzeloos Japan' stamps before, thank you for reminding :-) (and nice to see that the post company people did their utmost to get all stamps stamped/cancelled :-D )
Yes, it was perfectly cancelled :)
DeleteI really love this grenzeloos stamps, and the of "no borders" beyond them.
J'ai pas vu ces cartes la, mais qqc qui s'appelle "who mails" et les cartes montre des endroits conue avec un lapin, une giraffe etc. Voir www.moonstruck.in
ReplyDeleteC'est joli!
DeleteThese are great. I wonder if Japan Post is suffering the same decline in mail as other countries with the advent of email/texting taking over communications. They seem to have a lot more mail-promoting ideas and events.
ReplyDeleteI think that also in the UK they have a "Letter Writing Week" or something like that. I read about a lot of initiatives in the net, but not sure about their success.
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