99.9.9-9

It's been a very busy week. Several training days, aikido, aikido club meeting... and I'm not sure how much I'll be able to relax this weekend, either :( Tomorrow I'm going to a friend's birthday party, though, that should be fun!

I've received lots of very nice postcards in the past two weeks and there are so many I want to post about here. I thought I'd start with this very cool card from Taiwan, I won it in a lottery on the postcrossing forum (and yes, I'll organise my own lottery when I have more time).



This is what the sender, Shu-i, explained about the card and the cancellations:

2010 is the 99th year of the Republic of China Era. As it is September, 9th today, we will get a postmark dated as 99.9.9-9. The last 9 refers to postmark made around 9:00 a.m. In Chinese, 9 pronounced the same as (jiou) which means "lasting for a long time." In this way, people here think it's quite a good number to express their love (some people choose to get married today !) or see it as a lucky number for healthy, friendship, happiness..etc.

The words on the front side mean "Happy Teacher's Day!" The Teacher's Day is on September 28th in Taiwan, which is also Confucius' (a Chinese thinker and social philosopher of the Spring and Autumn Period) birthday.



..and here's the special cancellation. :)