One of my favorite parts of traveling is sending postcards. I usually take a long time choosing cheesy tourist postcards. (Naoto is very tolerant of this habit. I don’t know what he’s thinking while he stands waiting outside the tourist shops, but he certainly isn’t showing impatience!) And I like to write them out during a slow mid-vacation morning, over coffee of course. There’s less pressure that way. I also always send a postcard to Naoto and me, with a little recap of our favorite things about our trip. It is seriously like pulling teeth to get Naoto to participate, but I know someday he’s going to thank me…when we’re old and grey, he’s going to love remembering that his favorite part of Tokyo 2013 was the food (ahem…and of course seeing his family!) 
Unfortunately, I was rather unorganized during our trip and postcard writing had to wait until the last two days in Japan. It was difficult to find “travel-y” postcards there…but there were plenty of other pretty options to choose from. (The red post box card above is from the post office…I should have bought more of those. The bird ones were from Itoya.) Once I finally collected enough cards, I sat down at Mister Donut on two separate mornings to get the job done. One of those mornings was especially perfect because Naoto had an errand to run. So it was just me, my postcards, my coffee and donuts…a nice way to spend a solo morning.
Since we found the post office right away, I bought stamps on the first day. I felt pressured to make a decision (which is silly, because Japan has the most patient and amazing customer service ever!) so I just snagged the first ones that caught my eye. They happened to be in celebration of Letter Writing Day. (Japan issues a stamp–or stamps?–for Letter Writing Day every year in July! I am disappointed that I never knew this before!) The stamps are pictured above (the 50yen ones…the 20 yens just help get those postcards across the ocean!) I originally chose them because of the old-time red mailbox stamp, but I also fell in love with the little boy writing a postcard and the others, too…I mean, isn’t that vegetable stamp wonderful?
The Letter Writing Day stamps have a lovely matte finish and they are the licking kind (technical term). It was fun to tear the perforation and lick ’em and stick ’em. I also appreciate the fact that the perforation goes all around the stamp. (I personally hate when there are only a couple of perforated sides on the stamp and the rest of the sides have straight edges. It happens on many stamps here in the US and I think it looks silly.) So, the stamps all around were quite pleasing to use. I have two other sheets of postage to share with you as soon as I am home and awake during daylight hours. (Jet lag is in full force around here!) 
The mailbox above was in my mother-in-law’s neighborhood. I love the red and the modern shape of the new boxes, but the traditional style will always be my favorite. This one makes sense for modern times–there is a slot for international mail and small packages and a slot for regular domestic mail–but really…who doesn’t love the old one? 
(Picture from our 2011 trip to Japan.)
kimberly ah 