A Postcard A Day - Tuesday 23 April 2024 - T for Chinese wisdom and Spanish architecture

 Hello lovely peeps,

How are you all?  It's Monday and I'm recovering from a busy sightseeing weekend in Úbeda and Baeza. More about that later. Let me show you my postcard, which comes to me from Hongkong:

It is mural number 103 in the Mogao grotto in Dunhuang.

The Epoch Times writes:

Dunhuang （敦煌）was the gateway to the Silk Road and located in the deserts of Gansu Province in China, far away from the bustling cities of the coast. It made a prefecture in 117 BC by Emperor Hanwu (漢武帝), and was a major point of interchange between China and the outside world during the Han and Tang dynasties.

The caves that Dunhuang are famous for are filled with one of the most extensive and exquisite collection of Buddhist paintings and sculptures in the world. They hold more than two thousand painted statues. The most famous cave in Dunhuang is called Mogao Grottoes. It contains priceless paintings, sculptures, some 50,000 Buddhist scriptures, historical documents, textiles, and other relics that first stunned the world in the early 1900s. The walls of the Mogao Caves include murals that together cover more than 45,000 square meters.

This particular one depicts Vimalakirti.

Vimalakirti was an enlightened lay disciple of the Buddha who, according to an early Mahayanist sutra named after him, once engaged in an equal debate with Manjusri, the Bodhisattva of Wisdom. Here he is shown holding a fan, and leaning forward confidently in the debate.

The line drawing in this painting is painstaking, showing even the individual hairs of his beard, yet vigorous and full of character.

My postcard was posted way back in 2021 and must have fallen out the the ordered pile. It doesn't matter. 

The stamps are cute:

The stamp on the right represents 200 years YWCA.

From ywca.org.hk website: 2020 Marks the centenary of HKYWCA. Hongkong Post will issue the“Centenary of Hong Kong Young Women’s Christian Association” Commemorative Stamps, a set of 4 stamps, tomorrow (10 March), on the founding day of the Association to mark the momentous occasion.

The set of four stamps uses image of females at different ages to represent four main services of the Association, including women and family services, youth and community services, education and employment services, and elderly services. HKYWCA focused on serving women in need in its early days, and has now developed into a diversified social service organisation. Other than women-centred projects, the Association also offers a wide range of services for people at different ages and of different genders.

The left-hand stamp:

Info from the Paleophilatelie.eu website: Hong Kong is an international metropolis of skyscrapers. On the outskirts of this bustling city, however, there lies a great expanse of countryside with opulent bio-diversity and a charming natural environment. Apart from providing habitats for our myriad wildlife, this verdant countryside is also rich in rare rock formations and world-class geological landscapes. Having exceptional geological environments and a wide variety of rocks, Hong Kong enjoys spectacular terrain with high conservation and appreciation value.

To deepen public understanding of the landscape features of Hong Kong and the importance of geo-conservation, Hongkong Post issues the Hong Kong Definitive Stamps 2014, a new set of definitive stamps showcasing the distinctive landforms and landscape of Hong Kong Global Geopark of China. There are altogether 16 denominations, namely:

My stamp features Lan Kwo Shui, which is located in the Tung Ping Chau Geo-Area, and is composed mainly of sedimentary rocks dating back some 55 million years. After continuous erosion by destructive waves, the base of the vertical sea cliff gradually receded, leaving behind a narrow flat area, gently sloping and extending into the sea, called a “wave-cut platform”, which is covered in water at high tide but exposed at low tide, allowing it to be reached by foot. Lan Kwo Shui is so named because it is difficult to reach much of the time.

Enough of that! 

This weekend I joined some members of the photo club (we were 14) for an outing to Úbeda and Baeza, two historic towns a couple of hours drive north from here.

On Saturday afternoon (after a copious lunch) we visited Baeza with a hired a private guide. 

It rained!

Here are a few photos:

This sign told us that there was a protected cat community. A group of authorised volunteers feed them. They get captured, neutered and returned to the colony. In red letters is the warning (you get fined) not to feed them without authorisation, and not mistreat the animals or abandon cats into the colony. 

Most of us climbed this tower:

The views would have been lovely but for the rain.

This is Isabel, our guide. She was very nice and very knowledgable. (I am a sucker for old doors).

We had lodgings right in the centre. This was my room:

My travel companion (I drove) had the room next to me which has a connecting door.  He surprised me as I was consulting the map. 

No, no hanky panky. We're just friends and the door got locked after that.

I nearly forgot a drink for the T-Party:

Here I am with my friends having supper after a rainy day in Baeza. 

More photos on Friday. I will leave it at that for today. I have to do some shopping now as my fridge is empty.

 Happy T-Day all,

Lisca