Postal Heritage Walking Tour - Part One: at the Post Office

"Held every 3rd Sunday of the month, this free-guided tour caters to students, cultural hoppers, philatelists and people from all walks of life.  It's (sic) has the full support of the Intramuros Administration, Philpost and the City of Manila."

--from the Filipinas Stamp Collectors' Club's Postal Heritage Walking Tour brochure

Thanks to Analog Nation and the Filipinas Stamp Collectors' Club for an awesome (and educational) photowalk!

We met up at Liwasang Bonifacio.  It was fun to see so many cameras being fed film, examined, poked, buffed, and generally admired.

 Mr. Lawrence Chan (at left, holding a mini megaphone) was our tour guide.  He gave an orientation about the tour before leading us to the post office lobby.

It was sweltering outside but inside it was cool, thanks to the post office's architecture.

 There's an ongoing poster exhibit on World War II.

 I wonder if I have mail here.

  Taking a break slash photo op:

Beside the post office is a smaller building that houses the Postal Museum & Philatelic Library.

I would like to have a drop box like this :)

Behind these lovely ladies are storage boxes that contain philatelic bulletins--papers that contain information about the different stamps issued by the post office.  You can have them for free!  :)

Before continuing with our tour, the Filipinas Stamp Collectors' Club gave a lecture on the history of Manila structures using old, hand-tinted postcards.  They also gave away starter kits and a Philpost pencil!

At the end of the lecture was a raffle.  They gave out cute "post-valentine" items (stuffed little bears), commemorative coins and stamps, and rare vintage stamps.  I was hoping I'd win something, but as the items were given out to lucky winners and only one remained, I busied myself with looking at Lorna's stamps, which she bought.  Then I heard my name.  Whee!

So happy!

I'm glad I listened to them so I can tell you about this set.  This is the only set of stamps issued during the Japanese occupation.  Dated 1944, it has Jose P. Laurel as design, and the cover has a woman planting rice.  :) 

When I was around eight, I tried to collect stamps, but I did it wrong--I tried to peel the stamps off their envelopes!  Thinking I failed, I abandoned it.  Now stamp-collecting is coming back to my life in the form of these vintage stamps.  (Even through Postcrossing, I didn't examine stamps very much.)  [Oh, and hey I do have those UST@400 commemorative stamps.  Then I found out my mom also collected stamps when she was younger (I used to think every kid in the States collected stamps, heheh).]

Anyway, I find myself too lazy to write more words here--I keep thinking bah, someone else can write it better.  The information is available elsewhere.  And I am really just lazy.

I can't wait to have my film rolls developed so I can post more photos.  Next up is our tour of the Metropolitan Theater--will write about this is in my next post.

--------

The Postal Heritage Walking Tour

Contact Person: Mr. Lawrence Chan

Mobile/Email: +63 919 390 1671, l_rence_2003@yahoo.com