Turku Castle

Further to my earlier post on Turku Castle dated  Wednesday, May 09, 2012 I am posting another nice picture of the famous Turku Castle which is a monument of Finnish history situated in the city of Turku in Finland. Together with Turku Cathedral, the castle is one of the oldest buildings still in use in Finland. Turku Castle is the largest surviving medieval building in Finland. It stands as a national monument, on the banks of the Aura River, as it has done since the 14th century. My friend Barbara sent this nice card to me.

The Red Rock on Reineke Island

This Red Rock which looks like a sculptor’s masteroiece is situated on the  the small Reineke Island, which is located south-west of the Sea of Okhotsk between Shantarsky island and the Sakhalin Island, 5 km to the north of the mainland continent. Administratively it is part of the Nikolaev District of Khabarovsk Territory.

The island is the natural border between Udsky and Sakhalin bays. Both the island and the bay are named after the famous Russian hydrographer, vice-admiral and director of the Hydrographic Department Michail Reineke. And yes, this lovely card was given to me by Sveta from Khabarovsk.

The spotted seal

Sorry My Friend for disturbing you during your well earned siesta!

The spotted seal, also known as the larga or largha seal is considered a "true seal". It inhabits ice floes and waters of the North Pacific Ocean and adjacent seas. It is primarily found along the continental shelf of the Beaufort, Chukchi, Bering and Okhotsk Seas and south to the northern Yellow Sea and it migrates south as far as northern Huanghai and the western Sea of Japan. It is also found in Alaska from the southeastern Bristol Bay to Demarcation Point during the ice-free seasons of summer and autumn when spotted seals mate and have pups. Smaller numbers are found in the Beaufort Sea. It is sometimes mistaken for the harbor seal to which it is closely related and spotted seals and harbor seals often mingle together in areas where their habitats overlap.

The reduction in arctic ice floes due to global warming led to concerns that the spotted seal was threatened with extinction. Studies were conducted on its population numbers, with the conclusion, as of October 15, 2009, that the spotted seal population in Alaskan waters is not currently to be listed as endangered by NOAA.

Thank you Dear Sveta from Khabarovsk who has sent more than a dozen such beautiful cards of the Primorye, which I will be posting from time to time.

Fishing Boats

An extremely pretty card showing fishing boats from a coastal village in Malaysia. Thank you Li Foong for this nice card.

The MGB

This is that famous MG model The MGB. Launched in September 1962 (precisely 50 years ago) the MGB had an unprecedented level of comfort for a sport's car. It became the fastest selling MG of all time. Thank you Riitta for this nice card.

Chinese Junk

A junk is an ancient Chinese sailing vessel design still in use today. Junks may have developed from very early bamboo rafts which had a high stern. Cromagnon cave paintings on the Indo China coast show junk shaped doublehull vessels. Junks were developed during the Han Dynasty (206 BC–220 AD) and were used as sea-going vessels as early as the 2nd century AD. They evolved in the later dynasties, and were used throughout Asia for extensive ocean voyages. They were found, and in lesser numbers are still found, throughout South-East Asia and India, but primarily in China, perhaps most famously inHong Kong. Found more broadly today is a growing number of modern recreational junk-rigged sailboats.

The term junk may be used to cover many kinds of boat—ocean-going, cargo-carrying, pleasure boats, live-aboards. They vary greatly in size and there are significant regional variations in the type of rig. To Western eyes, however, they all appear to resemble one another due to their most significant shared feature, their fully battened sails. My friend Iris sent me this wonderful card from Hong Kong. Besides the junk you can see the Victoria Peak on the Hong Kong Island and on the other side the commercial District of Kowloon on the mainland.

The Polar Bear

The polar bear is a bear native largely within the Arctic Circle encompassing the Arctic Ocean, its surrounding seas and surrounding land masses. It is the world's largest land carnivore and also the largest bear, together with the omnivorous Kodiak Bear, which is approximately the same size. A boar (adult male) weighs around 350–680 kg (770–1,500 lb), while a sow (adult female) is about half that size. Although it is closely related to the brown bear, it has evolved to occupy a narrower ecological niche, with many body characteristics adapted for cold temperatures, for moving across snow, ice, and open water, and for hunting the seals which make up most of its diet. Although most polar bears are born on land, they spend most of their time at sea. Their scientific name means "maritime bear", and derives from this fact. Polar bears can hunt their preferred food of seals from the edge of sea ice, often living off fat reserves when no sea ice is present.

The polar bear is classified as a vulnerable species, with eight of the nineteen polar bear subpopulations in decline  For decades, large scale hunting raised international concern for the future of the species but populations rebounded after controls and quotas began to take effect  For thousands of years, the polar bear has been a key figure in the material, spiritual, and cultural life of Arctic indigenous peoples, and polar bears remain important in their cultures. Thank you Xavier (from Montreal) for this lovely card, which shows a Polar Bear mother relaxing with her cubs.