Early in 2014 we did a Blog entry about Taiwan, and if you’ve been with us from the beginning, you know we rarely repeat a topic.  Well, miracles happen.  Here’s more about Taiwan, giving credit to postcard creativity we don’t usually see from other countries, definitely not around Asia.  Japan has Gotochi; Australia has Maximum Cards; Macau has ancient art; but Taiwan has so many novelty choices we couldn’t buy them all.

What prompts this second entry was our long-delayed chance to return to Taiwan for a reason other than work.  We’ve been to Taipei many times, and worked there briefly, but never got any farther out of town than a port city now known as Tamsui, north of Taipei.  This time, with the High-Speed Rail station just across from the hotel, it made perfect sense to go on down to Kaohsiung, see our friend Lin-Lee, and see a completely different type of city.  But don’t worry, this is a postcard blog and not a travelogue, so we’ll spare you all the side visits to night markets and an astonishing Buddha Memorial Center known as Fo Guang Shan.

The FunTaiwan series of postcards still represents Taiwan’s mainstream best:  high-quality and a good range of typical topics.  They make the type of cards that make us want to go right into the photo.  But apart from those, we found aluminum postcards in the design of car number plates; Maximum Cards made right on the spot for us at the post office; wooden cards that looked like Christmas tree ornaments; and (are you ready?) a card with an electronic chip in it that would let you record your own message to the recipient before mailing.

We have to tell you, all this puts Hong Kong to shame.

One great place to find all these is the ground-floor shopping arcade at Taipei 101, once the world’s tallest building but still impressive in its own right.  Another place, maybe less well-known, is the tiny bookshop of National Kaohsiung Normal University.  Or another place, at least after we get everything scanned and entered, is Global Postcard Sales.  For that, you won’t need to leave your chair.

Until next time …