easy Penpals

Film: Mary and Max

admin — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 11:24:39 +0000

Mary and Max, is a film created with claymation, its main characters speak with adorable accents, and funny-looking animals are involved – but mostly, we love how the storyline is intertwined between two international pen pals.

The story relates the pen-pal friendship between Mary, an awkward and ungainly 8-year-old who lives in Australia and Max, an obese 44 year old Jewish man who lives in New York. The film does not contain much plot, and relies mostly on the letters shared between the two pen pals over a period of 18 years to reveal the details and mundane happenings of their lives.

It’s an unusual film, in the best sense of the word.

http://www.maryandmax.com/

Message In A Bottle, Now We’re Penpals

admin — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 20:10:54 +0000

A Sacramento County, California woman gained a remarkable pen pal by throwing a message in a bottle into the ocean.

It’s really wonderful how the simple things in life bring people together. Delores set the bottle afloat nine years ago during a cruise between Boston Harbor and Quebec, Canada. Three months later, it washed up onto the shore of a small fishing village on the southwestern tip of Nova Scotia.

Read the whole story: Message In A Bottle Leads To Long Distance Friendship

Penpal, Letter writing blogs

admin — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 18:50:31 +0000

Looking for letter writing inspiration, or just interested in seeing what others are writing about? Here’s a small sample list of penpal, postcard and letter writing blogs on the internet:

Review: Hi! Penpal!

admin — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 05:12:04 +0000

Hi! Penpal! is a wonderful penpal finding site based in Japan and assisting penpals internationally (but in particular, a focus on the Asian community).

The sign up process for Hi! Penpal! is simple and easy although IDs (nicknames) are limited to 8 characters (which might be limiting if you have a favorite nickname that you prefer using). Although many of the profiles are in different languages, there is a nice little integrated Google and Microsoft translation tool!

Penpals: 30,000 +
Activity: Hard to tell…
Hidden email address: Yes
Internal messaging: Yes (with a spam filtering system!)
Profile pictures: Yes
Block penpals from contacting you: No
Ability to hide/pause account: Yes

Pros: There are strong warnings against using the site as a dating site and it seems to be heavily moderated. If you are looking for a Japanese or other Asian language penpal, this is the place to be!

Cons: IDs are limited to 8 characters (which might be limiting if you have a favorite nickname that you prefer using).

Hi! Penpal!: http://www.hipenpal.com/

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International penpal-ing tip

admin — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 15:04:51 +0000

One of the hardest aspects of an international penpal exchange is often the language barrier.

Here’s a tip: You can get instant translation of a web page by adding the following javascript to your web browser bookmark bar:

javascript:void(location.href=’http://translate.google.com/translate?u=’+location.href)

In Firefox, bookmark the current page and choose ‘Bookmarks Toolbar’ as the destination. Next, go to ‘Organize bookmarks’, choose the just saved bookmark and in the location field copy and paste the above javascript code. Now change the title of the bookmark to ‘Translate’ (or something familiar). Finally, when you are on a page which is in another language, simply click on this bookmark and it will translate the page!

Now encourage your penpal to add this to their browser and then you can easily share links, etc. Happy penpal-ing!

Unanswered letters

admin — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 19:44:56 +0000

An article about a penpal exchange and disruption since the devastating earthquake in Haiti.

Dani has been writing letters for the past five years, and it was something she really enjoyed. But in January, after the devastating earthquake in Haiti, Dani’s pen pal dream became a nightmare. Her pen pal is Jeadlyne Petit-Homme, a 13-year old girl from Haiti, and since the earthquake, officials have so far been unable to find the girl or her family.

Read: No response to local girl’s messages to Haitian pen pal after earthquake

Penpal site reviews

admin — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 19:23:26 +0000

Have you found a penpal site or do you moderate one and want it reviewed?

Please add a comment with the URL and we will review it soon. We’re currently updating some of our current penpal site reviews so check back often.

Post Offices Worldwide

admin — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 15:40:09 +0000

Going Postal?

Sending a traditional penpal letter by international mail is a wonderful experience as much for you as your recipient. For reference, here’s a small list of worldwide postal offices on Wikipedia.

An Post (Ireland)
Australia Post (Australia)
Bulgarian Posts (Bulgaria)
Canada Post (Canada)
China Post, 中国邮政 (People’s Republic of China)
Chunghwa Post, 中華郵政 (Republic of China)
Correos (Spain)
Correos de Costa Rica SA (Costa Rica)
Correios (Brazil)
CTT (Portugal)
Deutsche Post (Germany)
De Post, La Poste, Die Post or The Post (Belgium)
Hongkong Post (Hong Kong)
Indian Postal Service (India)
Indonesian Post – Pos Indonesia (Indonesia)
I.R.I Post (Iran)
Íslandspóstur (Iceland)
Israel Post, דואר ישראל (Israel) (Formerly Israeli Postal Authority, רשות הדואר)
Japan Post (Japan)
Jersey Post, (Jersey)
La Poste (France)
Magyar Posta (Hungary)
New Zealand Post (New Zealand)
PhilPost-Philippine Postal Corporation (Philippines)
Poczta Polska (Poland)
Post Danmark (Denmark)
Poste Italiane (Italy)
Posten (Norway)
Posten (Sweden)
Pošta Srbije (Serbia)
Poşta Română (Romania)
Postverk Føroya (Faroe Islands)
PTT (Turkey)
Royal Mail (United Kingdom)
Russian Post (Russian: Почта России) (Russian Federation)
Sociedad Estatal Correos y Telégrafos (Spain)
Suomen Posti (Finland)
Swiss Post (Switzerland)
TPG Post, formerly PTT (The Netherlands)
United States Postal Service (USA)
Česká pošta (Czech Republic)

Comment if you have additions that I may have missed.

Review: Penpal-Gate

admin — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 14:45:01 +0000

Penpal-Gate is a penpal finding site with a focus on international language exchanges.

Penpal-Gate includes a forum where you can practice a language with native speakers and an excellent translation tool which should assist you when corresponding with these international penpals. This penpal finding site has 2 modes, a free basic mode which limits you to 4 messages per day or a VIP mode (which you pay for) that provides you with unlimited access.

Penpals: 13,500 +
Activity: 20-30 new penpals everyday
Hidden email address: Yes
Internal messaging: Yes (Limited to 4 messages per day unless you upgrade to VIP. Messages are sent to your email address but you respond via their messaging system)
Profile pictures: Yes
Block penpals from contacting you: No
Ability to hide/pause account: Yes

Pros: Well moderated, language forums are very active. Translation tool is a great addition and should help to promote correspondence across languages.

Cons: No ability to block penpals from contacting you. Limit of 4 messages per day.

Penpal-Gate: http://www.penpal-gate.net/

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Review: Penpal Post

admin — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 05:01:55 +0000

Penpal Post (more than just hello)

A relatively new penpal finding service with almost 2,000 registered members. The service is completely free to join (advertising supported) and appears to be fairly well moderated.

Penpal Post has a section called ‘Articles’ where penpal seekers can find educational information on 419 email scams, Nigerian advance fee fraud, or other internet scams. In this regard, it appears that Penpal Post cares to ensure quality exchanges. There’s also a section called ‘Support’ which includes an FAQ.

Penpals: 1,900 +
Activity: Relatively new
Hidden email address: Yes
Internal messaging: Yes
Profile pictures: Yes (up to 5!)
Block penpals from contacting you: Yes
Ability to hide/pause account: Yes

Pros: Well moderated, provides good educational information for Penpal seekers.

Cons: Fairly new with not much traffic (yet).

Penpal Post: http://www.penpalpost.com/

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