The World Shelf

One of the things my mom loves the most is traveling and sometimes I go with her but I'm not much of a traveler. Less than a day in and I'll start to complain about how I want to go home.

But whenever I look back at the places I've seen I feel very lucky. Over the years I've developed a small (I say small because of my Tolkien bookcases) collection from my travels as well as my mom's. I keep everything, aside from bags, on a shelf, I call it my world shelf. 

Pens are small and inexpensive items to collect from different countries, and there's almost always a place to buy a pen. My pen/pencil containers are from different places as well, Philippines, Egypt, Senegal and China. When my mom travels I make sure to remind her to bring me back a pen.

Cat figures are the other main thing I collect. I don't remember exactly how it started. I think it was when I was in Mexico a long time ago and begged my mom for this cat statue. It's so interesting to see how different cultures interpret the same animal.
There are cats from Egypt, Laos, China, Mexico, Turkey, Italy and other countries. I really should label them somehow.

I have other trinkets such as jewelry (mostly bracelets), key chains and small containers. I have a lot of necklace/bracelet sets that I got from Boracay in the Philippines. I was around 8-10 I think. They're the ones in the biggest circle shown below and in the rectangular case.

 The last photo shows some masks, a couple mirrors, a vase from Peru and two small bags my mom bought while she was in China. The pink mask and the cat ones are from Venice, Italy. The small smiling one is from Palawan, Philippines an I think the other is from Senegal. Not sure.
Both mirrors are from Morocco.

I talked about the places I traveled before and you can read about it here. My mom has been to so many places, I can't even remember all of them.
I hope this collection will grow a lot as the years go by.