When I was in elementary school, I had a number of friends move away from the Bay Area. I believe the farthest move was to Hong Kong, where my friend Michael lived for a few years. During that time we were honest-to-goodness pen pals.

Before the days of email and IM and Facebook and whatnot, Michael and I wrote each other letters, and boy was it exciting to receive fancy international mail. I don't know if I still have those letters, but if so I'm sure the correspondence between two male 5th-graders would be riveting to read now. I believe at some point he also sent me a tea pot shaped like a leaf, with a (ceramic) caterpillar for a handle.