Category: pretty things

souvenir stamps

one thing that gave me great joy in taiwan was a little unexpected: souvenir stamps! every metro station, national park or historical place seems to have at least one commemorative rubberstamp, but often more. we first stumbled on them on a metro station in taipei, and when i realized what they were, i was hooked!

i’ve loved this kind of rubberstamps ever since we discovered the concept while hiking in slovenia, where every mountain had its own stamp. i always carry a little notebook around with me, and the one for taiwan got a good 20% of it filled up with just stamps. i even used some on the postcards i was sending out, since they were so nice.

the ones in taipei’s MRT were especially well designed, while in kaohsiung they seemed more dull… except for a few special ones, which were done in collaboration with illustrators. collecting them turned into a kind of treasure hunt, always on the lookout for the next one. i know they also exist in japan, but i wish other countries adopted these too — they’re such a joy!

pretty things

…you know what i’m saying?

“When I am feeling dreary, annoyed and generally unimpressed by life, I imagine what it would be like to come back to this world for just a day after having been dead. I imagine how sentimental I would feel about the very things I once found stupid, hateful or mundane. Oh, there’s a light switch! I haven’t seen a light switch in so long! I didn’t realize how much I missed light switches! Oh! Oh! And look – the stairs up to our front porch are still completely cracked! Hello cracks! Let me get a good look at you. And there’s my neitghbor, standing there, fantastically alive, just the same, still punctuating her sentences with you know what I’m saying? Why did that bother me? It’s so… endearing.”

― Amy Krouse Rosenthal, Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life

stumbled on this quote the other day, and found the thought really moving. another book to add to the book pile!

pretty things

hobonichi 2023

new year, new hobonichi! this year, my friend jifeng (who always offers me one planner every christmas) picked a one-piece themed techo weeks for me, and even though i’ve never read the manga or seen the anime, the cute little embroideries just make me happy.

plus, this year is the first time ever that i have an hobo in english! the planner is easy enough to navigate even if one doesn’t speak japanese, but the novelty of actually being able to read it is something else. the quotes are inspiring and sometimes delightfully quirky!

i’ve copied some bullet journalers from instagram and decided to do a little habit planner on the free pages at the end.

ahah, looking at it, i need to make time for the back exercises, and also to go back to the swimming pool, once my ear unclogs and goes back to normal… 😅

in thailand postcards pretty things

a mailbox methaphor

there’s something fascinating about old mailboxes., their sturdiness and detail lending them a regal air that newer models seem to lack. you can tell that they were made with care, and to last a long time.

they’re almost like a metaphor: if only we could put this kind of effort and resources into all the things we do, to make sure they’re well done, perhaps they, too, would last longer.

just life pretty things

echeveria setosa

the setosa came to us unexpectedly (like most of our plants) when some neighbors about to move were looking for homes for their plants. we kept a few of their vases, and in one of them came this furry fellow.

we stuck it in our front garden between some rocks, and it’s been doing great ever since. as they go about reproducing and slowly dominating the patch of garden we gave them, the older leaves seem to dry out and drop, while the plants keep growing upwards.

i noticed it doesn’t need to shed leaves to propagate though: new “babies” just appear from the stem or the flower itself.

cute!