Japan - Gotochi Card

March 4, 2020

An envelope arrived containing a lovely letter and three Gotochi cards from Norie in Gunma prefecture.  I didn't have any of the cards that she sent, so I was doubly happy to receive them.

I won't type out the letter that Norie sent, but I will paraphrase a little.  She wrote that she's been to Canada 5 times but has never been to my part of Japan! She asked me if I have travelled all
around Japan--not quite! She closes by saying that she would love to visit Yamagata someday!

This is the card that I registered with Postcrossing, the others are below.

Add caption

This is the envelope with the amazing stamps and cancellation stamps that Norie arranged to have on the envelope.  Very cool!

Japan - Gotochi Card - Saitama

January 22, 2020

I'm back!  Sorry for the long delay, but when I came back from Canada and the US, I was quite busy and quite jet-lagged! I didn't have time to send postcards for a while. I have a few travelling now, and I've received a few this year already, so...on with the show!

I received this great card from Hirotaka in Yokohama.  He has a cool thing that he does on Instagram...he takes photos of the Gotochi card with the object in the card. He has other photos too.  See below for his Insta-handle!

He wrote;

"Hello!
My name is Hirotaka M______ from Yokohama. I like to travel. I collect GOTOCHI form card all over Japan - from Hokkaido to Okinawa. I can't wait 31st January...the sale of 10th GOTOCHI at Tohoku area!

I often take pictures of GOTOCHI and something. See my pictures at instagram@philatelist.jp

Happy Postcrossing!

Hirotaka"

Bell of the Time

Because Gotochi cards are large and shaped, they cannot go through the usual sorting systems, they must be hand sorted. Of course, that means that it costs a little more to send them. If we send them outside Japan, we have to use envelopes.  Here are the bright and lovely stamps Hirotaka used on the card. Japan has great stamps!

France

June 22, 2019

Francoise sent me a card of Japan, although she lives in France.  I would say it is a bit like sending coals to Newcastle though!

It's a lovely card and she put a friendly note on the back.

She wrote,

I send you a card of your country, fun is not it, I like this series a lot: as a travel, I wish you a beautiful summer wear well.

Francoise

Toshodai-ji, Honshu island, Japan

The big stamp on the right depicts a view from the cave paintings at Lascaux.

Gotochi Card - Tohoku 2017

2017 Tohoku Cards

A friend of mine bought these cards for me at her local main post office.  I had asked at my local main branch but they said they didn't have them and couldn't get them.  Methinks they couldn't be bothered to try!

I have already posted the card for Yamagata, so I didn't repost it here.  

Wooden Lunch box from Akita

Aomori

Aizu Wakamatsu Castle in Fukushima

Morioka's Jajamen noodles

Sendai's famous Gyutan, or beef tongue from Miyagi

Gotochi Cards

January 23, 2018

Just before Christmas, I did a few Gotochi Card exchanges with other people in Japan, and I will share a couple of the cards with you now.  I got some great cards!

From Chiba

This is the 2017 Limited Edition Card.

From Okinawa

This is the 2016 Card.

I'll be posting more of these swapped cards soon!

Japan - Gotochi Card

November 6, 2017

I am back!  I finally got a few cards sent out and have already received a couple. I hope to be able to post a little more regularly for a while.

Anyway, this card arrived from a Japanese sender and it was a great one.  She sent me a Gotochi Card and it was one I didn't have already. Yay!

She wrote,

Hi Helen!
Nice to meet you. こんにちは
My name is Mayumi. I'm 45 years old. I live in Shizuoka with my daughter. I'm very happy if this postcard makes you smile.  Have a good day.  Best wishes,
Mayumi

This is Kunozan Tosho-gu
and here's the Wikipedia article about it!

These are the stamps she used.  To be honest, there was one more of the ten yen stamps, but to show it I would have to show my address and I would rather not do that!  If you look closely at the 50 yen stamps, you'll see that there is a kimono shape around the flowers.  I like these stamps a lot!

Thank you so much Mayumi! 

Gotochi Card - Kagoshima

September 14, 2017

I received a Gotochi card from a friend in Japan.  We are both Postcrossers and we started exchanging our prefecture cards a few years ago.

This card shows Shirokuma, a dessert made of shaved ice.  In Kagoshima, it is covered with condensed milk and then fruit is scattered on top.  It is said to resemble a polar bear...Shirokumi translates to "white bear".

You can read more about it if you like here.

Thanks, Annette!  It's a great card.

Gotochi Card - Yamagata

September 1, 2017

The new Gotochi cards have been released finally.  I like the one for my prefecture this year. It shows the LaFrance Pear, which is a famous product of Yamagata prefecture.  I found a little blurb about it on a Tohoku Website...love the last paragraph about not squeezing the fruit in the store!


I am not completely sure, but I believe that LaFrance Pears are not a major product of my city.  I do enjoy them when they are in season.

Postcards for the Weekend: Mount Haguro Pagoda

March 11, 2017

The theme for today's Blog Linky Party is from a country you have visited or a favourite place in your country that you have visited.  That's quite a mouthful, so I am choosing Japan and specifically, a place in my own city.

Tsuruoka is known as the gateway to the Dewa-Sanzen, three sacred mountains.  The Three Sacred Mountains are Mt. Haguro, Mt. Gassan and Mt. Yudono.  Mount Haguro is within Tsururoka city  and is a very special place.

There is a pagoda on the Mountain that was built hundreds of years ago out of wood, without using nails.  It has burned down on occasion or been otherwise damaged, but has always been rebuilt.  To visit the pagoda, you must climb down many stone steps and walk through gorgeous woods.  Walking through the woods is magical.  The area is special and peaceful and incredibly beautiful.

The man with the shell is a Yamabushi, or mountain priest.  I sometimes see them
walking through my city!

This is the Gojū-tō, or five storied pagoda on Mt. Haguro.  

A night view.

This is the best view of the pagoda that I could find in postcards.  It doesn't do it justice.

Japan Post office also released a Gotochi Card of the pagoda. Since I have seen the original, I wasn't terribly impressed, but since it a "local" card, I like it!

For people in great physical condition, or pilgrims, the next step is to walk up the 2000 odd steps to the top of the mountain to the shrine.  I have never done that.  What I do instead is climb back up the steps to the road and have my husband drive us to the top of the mountain!

The shrine at the top is also quite beautiful, but I'll save that for another day!

Thank you for joining me on my too brief look at the Mt. Haguro Pagoda.  Please visit the other members of the Blog Linky Party to see what they are showing off today.

Japan - Gotochi Card

January 30, 2017

This beautiful card came to me from Yokohama in Kanagawa Prefecture and was sent by Erika.  She wrote the card and put a nice stamp and a friendly note on the back, so I really liked it.

Erika wrote,
"Hello Helen 😃
My name is Erika. I live with two budgies inYokohama.  My budgie's name are Anzu and Yuzu.  They can speak some words.  This card is "Minato Mirai 21". I often go there to shop.  I hope that you like this card too.

Erika."

The interesting thing is that I have been to Yokohama a couple of times, the last being about 3 years ago, just before a terrible snowstorm hit the area.  I ended up being stuck in a city near Yokohama for an extra day as all of the trains were stopped.  I went to Minato Mirai 21 and did a little shopping and eating there.  It was a very interesting area to visit.

Minato Mirai 21

 I rarely see this stamp as I don't usually buy stamps in this amount. It is rather pretty!

Sunrise/Sunset

January 20, 2017

The topic of today's Blog Link Up is Sunrise and Sunset.  There are no Gotochi cards dedicated to the sun of course as it is not a Japanese preserve!  However, there are a few cards that have what looks like a sunrise or a sunset in the background, and it is two of those that I will feature today!

I received this postcard from a friend who used to live in Hyogo Prefecture, on Awaji Island just off the mainland.  I believe that on occasion, she even used this bridge.  This is Akashi Kaikyo Bridge, which is the longest suspension bridge in the world. Wikipedia has a rather informative article about it here.  

This not very attractive bird (in my humble opinion) is the Japanese Crested Ibis, or Toki in Japanese. It is very endangered in Japan, and in fact became extinct.  However, there has been a concerted effort to re-introduce the toki to Sado Island in Niigata Prefecture. Although I have visited Sado Island twice, I'm afraid that I did not see a toki, nor did I visit the Preservation Center.  The Wikipedia article needs to be updated, but you can see more information about this odd bird here.

Thank you for visiting my not-quite-on-topic look at sunrises and sunsets.  I hope that you have enjoyed your time here.  Please visit the other members of the Blog Link Party to see their take on this topic. 

Transportation Cards

January 14, 2017

This edition of the Linky Blog Party is about Transportation.  There are many types of transportation available in Japan, but today I'll feature a few that are on Gotochi Cards.

Lake Kasumigaura in Ibaraki Prefecture features some interesting boats called Hobikisen.  They revolutionized the local fishing trade, which before the invention of this boat was a group activity.  With the Hobikisen, fishing became an individual activity.  I don't have a lot of knowledge about this boat, but this link leads to a rather informative article from The Japan Times that might be of interest.

Lake Ashi in Kanagawa has Pirate Ships! These are tourist boats that cruise up and down the lake with Mt. Fuji in the background.  I have been unable to find any English history about them, but this website has some information about the tours and the cruises.

Saga City in Saga Prefecture is host to one of the largest Hot Air Balloon Festivals in the world.  This festival has grown from humble beginnings. Wikipedia has a short article on this Fiesta, and a link to the English website.  

Sad to say, but this is all that I have time for tonight.  I hope you have enjoyed the Gotochi Cards that I have posted tonight.  Please check out the other members of the Blog Linky Party to see more great postcards from all over the world.

Trains

January 7, 2017

I'm back, after a bit of a break.  New Year in Japan is A VERY BIG DEAL, although we celebrated in a very low key fashion here in my corner of the world.  I haven't received any postcrossing cards in a while which explains why I haven't posted much recently.

The topic of today's Blog Linky Party is Trains and Trams.  Many people in Japan are fascinated by trains, and here in Japan they are rather wonderful.  Despite being a big fan of movies like Murder on the Orient Express or Narrow Margin that take place in or on trains, I'm not terribly interested in trains except as a method of travelling.

I have two Gotochi cards for you today.  One of them was featured earlier when we looked at cards with Lighthouses on them, but I don't think I have shown off the other one.  There is at least one more  regular Gotochi card with a train on it, but I don't have it.

As I stated before, this card represents the Choshi Electric Railway Line, which is only 6.4 km long. A rather interesting fact about the company that runs this Railway Line is that to supplement their income, they started to sell senbei (a Japanese rice cracker) Interestingly, the senbei are so popular now that the company makes double the amount selling the crackers that they do on the railway line!

Wikipedia gives a good overview of the company and the history of the rail line, so do have a look at it if you are interested in learning more about this train line in Chiba.
   

The card below features the Enoden or the Enoshima Electric Railway.  This train line is another private train line that runs between Kamakura Station and Fujisawa Station.  I'm not completely sure, but I may have ridden on this train when I visited Kamakura one year, a very long time ago.  The train track is single, but some stations have double tracks which allows trains to run in both directions.  

The Japan Post Office has also created Gotochi cards for train lovers.  I have found examples of the cards for my readers and am listing them below.

These are special sets of Gotochi Cards.  I do not collect them personally, so have little information about them. 

Kyoto Railway Museum

Summer Trains

Nankai Electric Railway

JR East Bullet Train -Interestingly, this series features bullet trains that can be seen in Tohoku, the part of Japan that I live in.  However, my city is not on a Shinkansen Line, so I hardly ever ride these trains.  

Enoden and Hydrangea Cards

The POSTA COLLECT "News" page.  To find these cards that I have linked to, I had to scroll down quite far.  There may be more train cards of interest if you follow the links on the page.

Thank you for visiting my Trains Link up.  I hope you have enjoyed this look at Gotochi Cards and trains.  Please visit the other bloggers to see their take on Trains and Trams.  

SaveSave

China/Japan - Art

December 12, 2016

This friendly card was mailed in China but was bought in Japan.  That's a little odd, but....

Max wrote,

"Hi Helen!
Greetings from China!
This is card I bought in Japan this summer.  I went to Tokyo this summer vacation.  It was a great trip! I hope that I can visit Japan again!

Now I'm a university student in the west part in our country.  Have a nice day!  Max."

I don't know if the sender knows or not, but this is quite a common card in Japan and I've even sent copies of this picture out to people myself!

53 Stations of Tokaido/
Ando Hiroshige

This is quite a beautiful stamp.  It's on the left side of card for a change.

Winter Holidays

December 17, 2016

The Blog Link Up Party's topic for this week and next week is Winter Holidays.  I am not sure if I will post next week as I will be celebrating the season with my special someone, but will post a few cards today.

Japan is fairly new to the Christmas thing.  It is not a Christian country and as such, celebrates Christmas mostly as a secular event with Santa Claus.  For many people, the ideal Christmas Dinner is KFC and indeed, the KFC outlets are very busy in December with people booking their buckets of chicken for their family's meal.  Christmas decorations often come down on Christmas day. I tended to work Christmas Day during my first few years here and one of the saddest things I saw happened during my lunch.  I was in a little restaurant near my work and the staff were taking down the Christmas tree as I watched, on Christmas Day.

Not surprisingly, there are Gotochi cards for Christmas time.  I have one!  Below is the card for 2014. After spending some time scanning the Posta Collect website, it looks like the same design was also used for 2015 and I haven't seen the design for this year.  It wasn't on the website.

Japanese Snowmen only have two parts, in Canada we have three.
How about in your country, if you have snow?

I found this card when I was shopping in Sendai earlier this year.  I haven't sent it yet, I'm waiting for the right person to come along for it.  I think it is very cute.

Hi! I'm Back!!
I love the food he has...the long negi in his hand, and the garlic and probably
onions in the bag! 

I don't often receive Christmas Cards, but I did just receive one this week from Sweden.  I'll feature it as usual later, but as it survived a long journey and came out scarred I think it deserves to be shown here too.  

Merry Christmas
Happy New Year

Thank you so much for visiting.  I hope that you have a Happy Holiday and that 2017 is a wonderful year for you.  Thanks for viewing my Blog Linky Party entries this year.

Winter Scenes

December 9, 2016

Here in Japan, we are heading into winter.  My friends in the far north are already experiencing snow, and here in Yamagata-ken in Tohoku we are just starting our snowy winter.  Our local mountains are covered in the white stuff and we are all looking out our rubber boots and warm woolies. As a person from Edmonton in Canada, I don't find the winter here cold, but I often am surprised by the amount of snow we receive.

In another Blog Linky Party entry, I mentioned Mt. Zao and how it borders two prefectures here in the north.  The Yamagata card featuring Mount Zao shows the "Juhyo" or Ice Monsters.  This website, about halfway down the page, describes how they are made.

This is a postcard of the "real" Ice Monsters on it.  They are rather beautiful aren't they?

Winter Festivals are all over the northern part of Japan.  Probably the most famous one is the Sapporo Snow Festival at the beginning of February, but there is another one in February.  Akita Prefecture has the Yokote Kamakura Festival on February 15 and 16.  Part of the festival involves buildings called kamakura made out of snow, rather like igloos, all over the city. There is usually an altar set up inside the kamakura at which people pray to the god of water.  

Sadly, I don't have any postcard/photographs of the real kamakura in Yokote, but I do have this other artistic card of one.  I am posting it because I think that it is rather beautiful!

The winter here in Northern Japan can be rather fierce and anything that helps people get through it enjoyably is great in my books! 

Please visit the other members of the Blog Linky Party to see what fabulous cards they have posted about winter.  Thanks for visiting me here in cold Northern Japan.  Brrr!

Lighthouse Link-Up

December 2, 2016

I only have a couple of Gotochi Cards for you today.  The subjects of today's Linky Blog Party are Lighthouses.  I was only able to find three Gotochi cards for today, but will only show off two shaped cards and a bonus.

The first isn't exactly a lighthouse, but it looks a lot like one! It symbolizes a lighthouse to the landlocked city of Kyoto.  I have been to Kyoto and was probably very close to this tower, but I don't remember it at all.

Here is the website of The Kyoto Tower.  The building includes a hotel, restaurants and even a public bath.

The second Gotochi card shows a lighthouse, but it is in the background of the card.  If we ever feature trains on postcards, I will probably post this card again! The card represents the Choshi Electric Railway Line, a 6.4 km railway line.  It was popular at one time with people who wanted to watch the first sunrise of the year along the coast. I believe that the lighthouse in the card is the Inubosaki Lighthouse, which was designed and built by Richard Henry Brunton, a Scottish Civil Engineer.

For a more local view of a lighthouse I present this one...

This is a picture of a lighthouse in the next city, Sakata.  It is still a working port and there are often ships from other parts of the world visiting.  I believe that this isn't a "real" lighthouse, it is a tourist attraction in Hiyoriyama Park.

Thank you for joining me for this look at lighthouses. I'm from a completely landlocked area of the world, so lighthouses are not a thing that I am very familiar with. They are fascinating though.  Please feel free to visit the other members of the Linky Blog Party.  Until next time!

Japan...No,...France! No, Japan!

November 25, 2016

I received this French postcard from a postcrosser in Japan.  There is a reason she sent it though...

Nadine wrote,

"Hello Helen from Kyoto!
Here is a view of my hometown in France (near Switzerland) a beautiful place.  All the best, Nadine."

Add caption

 Nadine used the special International Letter Writing Week postcard stamp, which is actually worth more than she had to pay for a within Japan postcard.  However, I very rarely receive this stamp so I appreciate it.

Museums

November 25, 2016

The topic for today's Weekend Linky Party is Museums/University/Library but I'm going to concentrate mostly on the first part of it.

In Japan, there are many old buildings, many of which are preserved and open to view.  I hope you will allow me to count some of these buildings as Museums.  They may not be exactly the kind of places that many of you are used to calling Museums, but they do provide a window to the past.

The first card would have been a good entry to last week's topic of Authors, but I forgot that I had the card.  A friend sent it to me a few weeks ago and I hadn't had time to scan it before last week.  This card shows Aomori-born author Osamu Dazai in front of a museum dedicated to his life.  He lived in the town for some of his childhood, and the building was built by his father. This is the Osamu Dazai Memorial Museum.

Below you see a Gotochi Card for Ouchi-Juku in Fukushima.  I was actually there this week! The village is nestled near the top of a mountain and due to the remoteness was allowed to remain as it was for centuries.  All the buildings have thatched roofs and it is an interesting, if touristy place to visit.  There is an actual museum set up there, the Ouchi-Juku Pavilion. This is a rebuilt inn that shows what life was like for visitors and workers alike in olden days.  I'm not sure which building it would be on the card, but I'm sure it is in there somewhere!

I enjoyed visiting Ouchi-Juku, but was a little saddened that almost every building sold souvenirs.  It was also very cold while we were there, and even snowed a little that day.

Another view of the town is below, from a postcard that I sent today!

I hope that you have enjoyed looking at these "museums" as much as I have.  Please visit the other members of the Weekend Linky Party and see what great cards they feature.