POSTCARD N.57 - Japan

Postcrossing postcard sent on the 30th December; received on the 12th January
Postcard image: night street scene in  Asahikava, Hokkaido
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How irritating it is to not be able to read  a foreign language.. even in these days of  computer assisted translations.. but I could not find a way of writing the Japanese characters into Deepl, so I went on presuming that the night scene gracing the postcard I thank Ikue for, was a depiction of somewhere in one of the cities of the Island of Hokkaido. But then I examined the post mark with a magnifying glass and  I was able to confirm that the card had been sent from the city Asahikava. A quick search and bang! I found a picture of the exact same place depicted in the picture on te card... so Asahikava it is!

Asahikawa is located in the centre West of the Island of Hokkaido and in 2008 registered a total population of  about 356.000. 

Stamps (left to right top to bottom) :

63 Yen stamp, part of a minisheet of 10 same price stamps, dedicated to the Pokemon videogame and TV series. I have to confess this is really not my cup of tea, but the success of the games first issued in 1996 and whose several iterations have sold hundreds of thousands of copies, not only in Japan, but all over the world, has warranted  the little monsters icon status.

1 Yen stamp depicting Posukuma, the Mascot of the Japanese Post, issued on 14APR2121 as part of a 2 stamp set (1YEN; 84 Yen).

The 5 Yen Stamp depicts a Japanese Macaque (Macaca Fuscata). The stamp is part of a 12 stamps definitive emission, issued on 02FEB2015.