When 
First of all, Hive bags. I've been to three fests. The first one was in Bangkok in 2019. It was still called Steemfest back them. As much as we dislike the name, it is what it was and to be honest, I can't see anyone organising a Steemfest now. You can buy a chain, but you can't buy the community 👎. My second HiveFest was in Amsterdam in 2022.
The next batch of tote bags are country based. Many people get confused when they see my username because it's pretty long. If you break it down it's Living-UK-Taiwan. That's me living in two countries, or used to. Of course I have tote bags from both countries. This one is probably my favourite tote bag of all of them. The Union Jack (that's what the British flag is called) is white, blue and red. Here, they've replaced the red with pink which I think adds a very nice dimension to it. Another reason I like this is because the bag is quite thick. Quite often tote bags are very flimsy and loses it shape when you have many small items inside.
I don't use this London bag much... I'm not sure why, to be honest. But I like the graphics a lot, very iconic.
Moving to Taiwan. This is called a Gaji bag and was first made by farmers and was very practical for every day use. In recent years it's made a comeback and become a kind of trendy nostalgic item. This bag is made of nylon and I use it to hold all my tote bags.
Everything Japanese are always so pretty as are these tote bags. I bought them on one of my many trips to Japan over the years.
I call these my His and Her bags. These were a gift from a fashion magazine that I used to buy every month. They're designed by young British fashion designers. I use them to hold small items like underwear and socks when I go travelling. One for him one for me.
I can't remember how I got these bags. I definitely wouldn't have bought them because, one I don't like advertising for stores, and two, well, they're not exactly pretty!! However, they're very good quality, bigger than normal and very sturdy. I hardly use them because they're quite heavy.
This one is from Boots, a UK national pharmacy chain. They sell a lot of beauty products as well hence the Gorgeous message.
And this one is from John Lewis, a quality high street department store.
Many years ago we used to order the Times newspaper every day, and we'd get tickets to some of the events they organise. This bag was a freebie from one of those events.
I call this my YouTube tote. A few years ago when I was building my YouTube channel, I was invited to do affiliate marketing with a Swedish bag company. In return for shilling their product, I got to choose up to £200 worth of their products. I choose a very nice backpack and this tote bag to make up the £200.
I couldn't complete my tote bag collection without something from my other collection, Little Twin Star. Sadly the handles broke some years ago and I had to cut them off.
Last and not the least, at the beginning of my post I mentioned I found a surprise tote bag.
These fold away reusable bags are very common nowadays. But when I bought this in Japan, over 20 years ago they weren't very common because the non plastic / bring your own bag concept wasn't a big thing back in those days. I've been using this bag for years and years for my daily shopping and it shows. The plastic clip on the outer bag is broken, and when it isn't, you can clip it onto a loop on the actual bag so you don't lose it. That's the black bit you see hanging in the middle, the loop is broken as well.
Anyway, I don't know from when, I noticed I couldn't find my bag. I searched everywhere but to no avail. Until today when I pulled out all these tote bags, I found my missing yellow shopping bag inside the John Lewis bag!!! What a lovely surprise and I'm so glad I did this tote bag collection post.
