I teach Japanese at a high school in Canada. I studied abroad in Fukui decades ago. I’ve been pretty lucky to get to over half of the prefectures in Japan in the past 20+ years on multiple trips, and since 2016 I’ve been collecting ご土地フォームカード (local area postcards) from each prefecture I visit. You can buy them from the post office, sometimes behind the counter, and there’s usually about a half dozen shapes for each prefecture.
So imagine my disappointment in learning that they are being discontinued as of March 31st. As much as not collecting the places I’ve yet to visit annoys me, I’m more upset about the ones I was unable to get either because I was there on a weekend when the post office was closed or I only went before they existed. Tokushima, Gifu, Aichi, Nara. The single card available in Ehime and Shimane. If I had the means I’d try to speed run them but it’s just not happening.
There’s something about the physical souvenir of local culture that I’ll really miss.
by seoulless