Hello Mr Postman!

When was the last time you had been to the post office? Even then, chances are that it was to run an errand, collecting your online shopping and not sending mail. For quite sometime now, Internet banking has replaced sending of cheques, letters has been replaced by emails, stamps can be bought from 7-11 or SAM machine, etc.

Last week, I had to go to the post office to send off cards which I am unsure if they would ever arrive at their final destination. For greeting cards, nothing beats one that comes with an envelope and stamp. So, I decided to put my faith in the local postal system and sent of a few cards (to minimise loss). 
First challenge now is to locate the post office but luckily, the landlord's driver took me there else I would have never found it.

The one nearest to me is located inside the Department of Irrigation and the building reminds me of a primary school that had never been maintained. The driver pointed to me what looks like a classroom door with a Western Union signage and left. The room had a musty smell and the tables were seriously the old school type.

After I bought my stamps, I asked where can I glue them and he points to this round table. That table was covered with many scrapes of paper and torn stamps that probably got stuck by senders who were careless or didn't know how to use the glue/ water. Looking at the rusty four pots on the table, I figured that the miserable amount of liquid in the bottom of those pots must either be glue or water but no way was I going to put my fingers in there!

But I really am not keen to make a trip here again just because I cannot affix the stamps! What do you think are my other options? Yes, the next thought was to use my tongue to make it work but I have no idea how the stamps had been kept or what it had come into contact with before, so the idea totally turned me off. Suddenly, I remembered that because I was going to the gym, I had my bottle with me that I just washed. Maybe, hopefully, thankfully, there was a bit of water in there.

Systematically, I stuck the stamps telling myself that the water is very precious because it looked like it was just enough for me to do the needed. I couldn't help beaming at myself too for the stroke of genius. Ha.
As I handed over the letters to the guy behind the counter, he handed it to the guy sitting behind him who handed over to another guy who brought it into the back room. Talk about job creation, a lesson or two can be learnt from India.

That night, I was still thinking of my post office experience and how I had taken the postal system back home for granted. I can only trust that if the Indians have made an art out of delivering tiffin lunches across different localities, they should be able to do the same with mail.

Too bad I could not take pictures to share with you as I didn't want to attract more attention to myself as the only fair skin Chinese woman around. Oops, it had just crossed my mind now that I did not ask if it was going to be air mail! Well, I guess I will find out soon with time.

Update: Seemed like only 3 of my 6 cards arrived. Where are the others??? Oh, I received a Christmas Card on 7-Jan-2011!