The Old Travel Bug

The travel bug has been playing with my mind today and so I thought it might be a good idea to travel the world in this blog, explore some of our favourite places and the unique and handmade items that we found there and just get a bit of a travel fix.  Starting in brilliant Japan:

Above is the ridiculously, amazing shop where we found this gorgeous, handmade children's chopstick set:

Our favourite laneway in Kyoto.

And the food, YUM!

Then off to Canada:

Among the tulips in Vancouver (sigh).

This handcrafted wooden pendant was found in Granville Island, Vancouver.

 Where we also met Jack The Bear...

And later when we were in Jasper, we found this beautiful, original painting on slate: 

Even though David was prepared for bears... (yes, we find interesting ways to amuse ourselves while we are travelling)...

...we still got extremely excited when a big, brown bear crossed the road in front of our car (no photos of this bear because by the time we had got over our excitement the bear had disappeared into the woods!). 
From Canada, it's only a hop, skip and a jump from Canada to the USA.

Chillin' on the banks of the Cumberland in Nashville.

I fell head over heels in love with this unique, handpainted bag (painted by the talented Cindy Wunsch) which we found in the lovely, arty, neighborhood of Hillsboro Village in Nashville.  We also found this cool painted wood block in a local Nashville gallery:

And later I had to drag David away from Studio B where Elvis recorded so many of his songs.  This is one of Presley's favourite pianos that he used in the studio:

The local Mexican restaurant...

Where we enjoyed dinner with the lovely Feasters.

Well, that has taken care of the travel bug for the moment.  So many fantastic memories. Next time, we'll take a tour through Europe to continue the trip down memory lane.