Hong Kong from the Peak

The Peak is Victoria Peak, the highest point on Hong Kong Island.  In the evening you can see what is considered to be one of the great night views in the world.

Hong Kong

As a complete contrast to my previous card from the wide open spaces of Africa, here is Hong Kong, exactly as I imagine it.

But there is so much more to Hong Kong, so much that I couldn't attempt to tell a fraction of it here.  I'll leave you with a trivial piece of information that interested me:

The name Hong Kong is an Anglicised attempt to pronounce the Chinese name which means Fragrant Harbour, possibly because of the fresh water delivered by the Pearl River, or possibly because of the incense that was stored around the harbour before export.

There is a novel, "Fragrant Harbour" by John Lanchester which covers the period just before Britain handed Hong Kong back to China in 1999.

Modern Melbourne

From the top:
The Docklands
Yarra River
Crown Casino and Entertainment Complex.

The waterfront looks stunning.  I can't help imagining Australia as full of wide open spaces with kangaroos and long straight roads stretching away in the distance, so it's good to receive a postcard such as this one as a reminder not to hang on to preconceived ideas and stereotypes.

New York, New York

Midtown Manhattan skyline (sent to me from Austria!)

The Arktikum

It seems to be a good week for postcards from Finland.  This postcard comes from Lapland, the northernmost province.  The Arktikum in Rovaniemi is a museum dedicated to the northern way of life, culture and history.  It includes the mythology surrounding Lappish animals such as the moose and bear, as well as the life and culture of the Saami people.

It also has exhibits telling the history of Rovaniemi, a cold room where you can experience Arctic chill, and a theatre where you can lie down and see the northern lights.  One of its most distinctive features is, of course, the glass tunnel which stretches for 172 metres.

Petronas Twin Towers

"Glowing radiantly in the twilight sky, the Petronas Twin Towers in Kuala Lumpur is a shining symbol of Malaysia's national capital."

They were the tallest buildings in the world from 1998 until 2004 when the Taipei 101 overtook them.  That in its turn has been overtaken by the Burj Khalifa in Dubai.  I suppose these ever taller buildings are forms of status symbols but I do wonder why.

Nevertheless, the Petronas Towers and their reflections do make for a superb postcard.  An interesting piece of trivia: when I looked up some details, I was very surprised to learn that the individual towers were built by different firms.  Nor did I know that Petronas is short for Petroliam Nasional Berhad, a Malaysian gas and oil company wholly owned by the government of Malaysia.

Skytower

The Tuntex Skytower, or 85 Skytower as it's sometimes known, is the tallest building in Kaohsiung and was the tallest in Taiwan until Taipei 101 was built.  The 85 comes from the number of floors in the building which was completed in 1997.

I don't know that the scan does justice to the card which is really very striking.  I'd love to know whether the characters actually say anything or are just decorative scribble.

Kuwait

This card and stamps arrived from Kuwait yesterday.  My first ever card from Kuwait, in spite of having had a son working there for some months.

Work on the tower shown on the card was started before the invasion by Iraq, and was at the time called the Telecommunications Tower.  The construction work stopped during the invasion and when it started again, the tower was renamed the Liberation Tower.

The stamps were issued in 2010 and are part of a set commemorating the 50th anniversary of OPEC.  Almost all the black outlines and writing you see, should be gold but the scanner refused to show it.

The currency of Kuwait is the dinar, divided into 1000 fils.  One dinar is worth over £2 sterling or over $3.50, making it the highest value currency in the world.  Therefore it cost in the region of 20p or 35c to send this postcard, which seems next to nothing to me.

This is a post for Sunday Stamps, now hosted by Violet Sky at "See it on a Postcard!"

Frankfurt am Main

I don't know whether this is what people mean by a city view, but it's what I have always understood, and until recently I haven't felt myself to be especially fond of them.  Now, though, I can see there is more to them than just an array of city buildings.  This one appeals to me in the way the high rise modern architecture rises up from the centre, surrounded by lower development where you can see there are other buildings which were no doubt thought to be high rise when they were first built.

Frankfurt am Main is the fifth largest city in Germany and lies on what was an ancient ford over the river Main.  It is the financial centre of Germany and it is the financial district that has all the skyscrapers.  Frankfurt is the only German city to have so many.

Victorians at Alamo Square

The title of this post was all the information printed on the card but a small amount of detective work, actually almost none at all, revealed that Alamo Square is a residential district in San Francisco and that the Victorians, the houses in the foreground, are known as the Painted Ladies.  Groups of Victorian houses in other cities have since become known by the same name.

Apparently this particular row is also known as Postcard Row because it features as the foreground in so many views of the city centre.  You can see why, the contrast between the different styles of architecture is striking.

National Museum of Natural Science, Taichung

Although this has the name of the National Museum of Natural Science of Taichung, the card acttually shows the Tropical Rainforest Conservatory, part of the Botanical Garden, and that in its turn is part of the National Museum.  It must be quite some place.

It is 31 meters high by 56 wide and houses about 500 different plant species you might find in a tropical rainforest.  The building is one of the landmarks in Taichung.  It sounds very much like the Eden Project in Cornwall which I visited many years ago before it was properly established.  I'd love to go again.  I don't even have a postcard from there!

Post number 999 - almost there!