Vietnam, Taiwan, and Japan: What we brought home.

I still have to organize what I brought home from Dragoncon, before posting about the final day.  I also still have to upload more videos before linking to them.  I've been lazy and holding off on this post for too long, so here it goes.  Some of the descriptions will be ahead of the pictures and some of them will be in caption format.  Also, the pictures are not in any particular order, so where they came from will be all scrambled.

On our second day in Vietnam, we picked up a few pieces of art, on our biking tour of a nearby island.  25 year old shells were flattened and cut into designs and sketched on over wood.

On the right is another shell piece, this one for my mother.  On the left is half of a coconut shell, with art on it, from Hoi An.

The wooden knife is from the biking island artist as well.  The snake is a glass piece that Stephanie bought for Miles in Jiufen.  The little hot air balloon was something I bought for Miles in Pingxi.

A handcrafted wooden comb, an oroku, picked up in Narai.

Moldable tin, picked up on Naoshima Island.

A detective Conan decorative piece, from Nakano broadway.  Three bears from the bear museum gift shop, one of which is a bear version of the sarubobo.

A glass that I bought from the art museum on the outskirts of Takayama.  Bottom left is a washi paper painted gassho house.  Dice with "I am sorry" on three sides and "You are sorry" on the other three, to be rolled in a relationship when at a crossroads.  A recycled seatbelt, now to be used to carry a hot cup of coffee.  A decorative hand painted cat item, the use of which I have forgotten.

Another washi paper painted piece.  A small traditional child's doll handmade from Takayama.  A pair of chopsticks resting on a glass chopstick holder, bought in the same art museum on the outskirts of Takayama.

All from Kanazawa.  Gold leaf pieces.

The two stuffed animals are from Vietnam.  Water buffalos because we saw them all of Vietnam and a cat because we like cats.  The little colorful lemur looking creature on the bottom right was from Hoi An, for Miles.  The two bottom cats were from the cat trail in Onimichi, for Stephanie.

A Japanese book from the 1930s, that I picked up in Tokyo, in the used bookstore part of town.

These were made out of old kimonos.

Picked up in the art museum.

Wooden deer made in Naru.

Bizen pottery, made in Kirashiki.  This type of pottery absorbs alcohol, which makes it shine.  It is a popular type of pottery for sake glasses.

From kyoto, this is art made from the material used for roof tiles.

A cute piece made of bamboo, from the Iya Valley area, of people dancing.

A roofing tile, picked up in the Himeji Castle gift shop, with the symbol of the ruling house.

The remaining pieces were bought from three different shops in Takayama.  Ichii Ittobori, wood carvings, whose style dates back 150 years to the Edo period of Japan.