Send me postcards from Suzhou, signed with love forevermore

There is this café in the shopping centre (XinTianDi Style) near where I live called the Postcard Café. There are rows upon rows of postcards and cute household stuff – the kind of shop where I have to buy something everytime I go in.  Hence I’ve avoided going in.  Turns out that the original café is located in Suzhou and when Ming Ming and I had some free time on a recent work trip, we took a walk to the café.  Where the one in XinTianDi is airy and bright and located in a hip mall, this Suzhou one is located in a row of preserved shophouses in Pin Jiang (平江) road.  In the café, there are people chilling, some chatting but most are writing furiously on postcards.  The shop posts the cards on the date you want it to, up to five years later. Isn’t that amazing?

Pin Jiang - another old quaint street in the Jiangsu area.

Intense discussions on who deserves the trouble of a postcard going on in the Postcard Cafe.

We have all heard musings about how people don’t write anymore and how even when we do, short texts, emoticons and acronyms have replaced the romance of the hand-written word.  Maybe a postcard is all that is needed to get us started on writing to each other again? Oh, the anticipation of receiving something in the mailbox too!

So I got started, wrote to my mum and dad, wrote to the girls in China (Ming Ming who was seated next to me while I wrote her the love note, Valerie and Grace) and dropped one to Edwin for his birthday.  Maximum of 3 lines because the postcard is er, small, and because I can’t essay on short notice, and also because the pencils were blunt – difficult to write eloquently when the markings are fat and unsightly.  

The airwell inside the building. More people writing love notes.

Stairway up to postcard heaven.

Mezzanine level where we settled down to write our postcards from Suzhou, signed with love forevermore (sung to the tune of Joshua Kadison's Picture Postcards from L.A.)

I did think about writing to myself in 3 years' time, just as I am about to leave this posting to China. But what would I say? I am not sure if it is any different from how I have been living my life anyways which is basically to just have fun and try to do some work along the way (this was determined after a long watsapp discussion with Chew Wee and we also decided on the engraving on my tombstone along the same lines but that's another morbid discussion altogether).

Pick from hundreds of designs - like cats? Sure! How about cute sayings?

Buy a stamp, choose a date for the delivery of the love-note, put the lovely hand-written note in and a surprise will be in the postbox soon.

As of today (one week later), I’m still not sure whether my parents in Singapore got theirs and my postcard to Edwin (posted to my place in Shanghai) has not arrived. ARRGGGGGGHHHH…. But Grace got hers!  I am still waiting for mine from Mings because I emotionally blackmailed her into sending me one, ha ha…But I am sure when I get it in the mailbox, it will jump out amongst all the bills and flyers and it will be very treasured. 

Maybe I should start dropping my girlies in Singapore a posty once in a while just so they know I’m thinking of them.  Sounds so incredibly romantic … when I have time la!

Ceramic brooches - had to buy them of course!

Xoxo,

Tracy

Btw, I drafted the above post about 3 weeks ago. And so far, my parents have received theirs all the way in Singapore, but Ming Ming and I have not gotten each others! Girls in Singapore, looks like got chance!

Pretty birds drawn by our driver, Mr Zhang,
while waiting for us to complete our love-notes