For as long as Mailart 365 has been running, February has traditionally been "Alphabet month" and so this year, as we're in Hanoi and learning Vietnamese, I thought I'd do the Vietnamese alphabet. The Vietnamese alphabet has 29 letters in it, so I really should have done this 2 years ago as there are one [...]
Today was the first day of the Lunar New Year, also known as Tết here in Hanoi. Last night there were fireworks in the city at midnight and Elena and I watched them from our balcony. This year is the year of the horse, so we’ve been making horse images all day. [...]
One of the best things about travelling for me is the quirky cultural differences and points of view that people have in different countries. This is even more fascinating for me being in Hanoi at the moment, as my parents are Vietnamese, so the differences I see in the Vietnamese are a glimpse of what [...]
I wrote this card to one of our readers today. The image on the postcard shows Văn Miếu, known to Westerners as The Temple of Literature. The Temple of Literature is a Confucian temple, housing Vietnam’s first national university. Built nearly 1000 years ago in 1070, the temple served as the Imperial Academy until 1779, [...]
