Mug Shots: Starbucks Thailand - You Are Here Collection

One of the countries we loved to visit was Thailand. We had our honeymoon in Bangkok back in 2002. At the time, I was also in Bangkok at least once a year for about 5 years as part of my involvement in an ASEAN university network supported by the Japanese government.

The mug features many of the typical attractions in Thailand. You can see the tuktuk here.

This part shows the Royal Palace and the beaches in Thailand.

I am not familiar with this attraction.

Non-decorated handle

The mug is Made in Thailand and is microwave and dishwasher safe. This is another unused mug from one of our trips there as evidenced by the sticker.

This is perhaps one of the most colorful mugs we have at home and one that brings back a lot of memories of trips to Thailand.

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Mug shots: Belfast Starbucks Mug

Most of the mugs in my/our collection has a story about it. This one's from an unlikely travel by the wife a few years ago. She didn't expect to go to Belfast to help her former office set-up there. This was supposed to have been a back-up to their Manila office but eventually overtook Manila in the pecking order.

This Belfast mug only had a fish on it but the fish had this mosaic-like design.

The fish's tail extends to the front of the mug.

The other side of the mug was quite plain. This was unlike most of our other Starbucks mugs.

I was pleasantly surprised to see that the mug was 'Made in Thailand' rather than the usual that is 'Made in China'. The information at the bottom of the mug also states it to be microwave and dishwasher safe.

More on our mug collection in future posts!

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Mug shots: Starbucks 'Been There Series' Virginia

We have a number of Starbucks mugs from our trips around the country and abroad. Here is a rather forgotten one. I say forgotten because we couldn't remember how we got this mug. Did we buy it or was it gifted to us as a 'pasalubong'? The reason for this is that both of us haven't been to this part of the US. We do have a very close friend who studied in Virginia Tech and who was there a few years ago to attend a workshop. Perhaps this was a pasalubong or souvenir from that trip?

The Starbucks Virgina mug has many items on the design. You see a crab, a racehorse and a ship as well as a beach umbrella.

The Pentagon is there and so are a certain specie of bird, deer and what appears as a peanut.

There's a stagecoach, a lake, a cup and a building labeled Monticello. There's also a slogan "Live Passionately".

Recently, I've learned that there are many sellers of Starbucks mugs online. That means you can easily collect these mugs and others as if you traveled to the cities and countries. That certainly takes away the element of travel, which to me totally ruins a collection. It's called 'Been There' for a reason.

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Mug shots: San Diego Zoo souvenir

We close the month of March with another mug - this time a souvenir from the San Diego Zoo when we traveled to San Diego, CA back in 2015. The mug is currently in use as a pen & pencil holder - one of many we use to hold our accumulated stuff at home.

The mug featured one of the baby Pandas at the time

San Diego Zoo printed on the mug

The same Panda on the other side of the mug

Handle

The price tag is still on the mug, which has never been used for drinks. We got this for 9.95 USD back in 2014 at one of their shops.

 

There are no more Pandas at San Diego Zoo as the last ones were returned to China in 2019. We were lucky to have seen the Pandas when we were there and hope to see them somewhere in our future travels.

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Mug shots: Blugre Coffee stoneware

I got this mug not in Davao, where Blugre Coffee was established and thriving, but it Taytay, Rizal where they have a branch at the building across the Municipal Hall. The buidling hosts the Regional Trial Court where we had more than a few visits for a case that had been filed back in 2015 but had only been resolved recently. Though I have been in Davao so many times, I have not gone to a Blugre there (or even other local coffee shops except going to a Bo's Coffee once).

The Blugre mug is a good example of finely made stoneware. It is also big so you can get a good amount of coffee, tea or hot chocolate in it. I also use it for taho and sometimes, soup.

The other side of the mug has the same design. I'm not sure how they were able to carve their logo on the mug. They must have had used some precision instruments and this could have involved a computer for a mass production.

 

The coffee and food was good here and they do have specialties with durian (one of Davao's signature fruits). I think there should be more of these around to promote local brews and home-grown businesses.

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Mug shots: Congress of the Republic of the Philippines

I received this mug as a gift from my wife who used to work at the House of Representatives. The mug was sold at the souvenir shop there but I'm not sure it's still there. The last time I was at the Batasan before the pandemic, they only had a coffee shop but no souvenir shop at the lobby.

The photo is of the old Congress Building, which also used to be the Senate Building and now houses the National Museum of the Philippines.

Side view showing the center/front facade of the building

The other side view showing the rest of the facade

Mug handle

The mug has never been used and is kept at my display cabinet at my office along with other mugs in my collection. I don't know how many mugs like this are around. I'm sure if one has a similar image of the building, it can be printed on a mug but then it is unlikely for people to want to have something like this for them to have one made.

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Mug shots: A Mug from Chiang Mai, Thailand

One mug that has much sentimental value is this last, remaining mug from our series of trips to Bangkok in the early 2000s.

The mug has somewhat unusual bumps

The mug and others like it featured a black bird perched on what appears like a water vessel.

The black bird is also featured on the other side of the mug. I have read very little about what this black bird was all about. It is likely not a crow as this bird is usually associated with bad luck among other negative things. There are many other black birds that may have been the inspiration for this. Perhaps I will ask my Thai friends what bird this is.

Mug handle

There is nothing printed or inscribed at the bottom of the mug

The mug on my work desk - I decided to take it and use the mug as a pen and pencil holder.

We got this mug at Chatuchak in Bangkok along with 3 other mugs. Those three were broken and were thrown away without my knowledge (whoever broke them probably thought I was going to be angry so they just made them disappear rather than be explaining what happened). I was a bit upset when I found out about this because all the mugs were still 'in use' at the time and I thought I could put them back and recycle them for other uses such as pencil or pen holders.

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Tea time: tea cup gift set from Japan

I brought back a few sets of glazed tea cups that I acquired while living in Japan. Among these are two that I most likely bought from one of the weekend bazaars I went to with friends in Tokyo or Yokohama.

What's left of the price tag is still on this cup

The cup has some elegant flower design with a glossy finish.

The bottom bears the stamp of the maker. This was probably a Japanese artisan, and they are famous for having many craftsmen make these and similar items.

I brought back a lot of things that have sentimental value from my time in Japan in the 1990s. I have yet to really account for many of these items aside from those that are conspicuously on display as well as those that I use. For example, I have a sake set at my parents' home in Cainta. I also have a rice bowl set that I left in our ancestral home in Cabatuan, Iloilo. I will try to document them and write about these items here.

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Mug Shots: Starbucks Singapore

The Starbucks part of our collection also includes this mug from Singapore. We lived there for almost 2 years so it was just fitting we also had a Starbucks mug aside from the other souvenir and novelty mugs from the city-state.

Landmarks such as the Singapore Flyer and the National Museum of Singapore are on the mug. 'Singapore' is also on the inside of the rim.

This won't be a Singapore souvenir without the Merlion. There is also the Singapore Flyer in the background.

Colorful buildings of Chinatown on this side of the mug

The handle does not have anything on it.

The price tag is still at the bottom of the mug (showing this to be unused). That's 22.90 SGD and not in USD. The mug is made in China and it is microwave and dishwasher safe.

 

I remember I still have one more Singapore mug in my collection that is in my office. It's a novelty mug about how Singapore is a 'fine' city.

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Mug shots: Landmark Tower

The tallest structure in Japan used to be the Landmark Tower located in the Minato Mirai 21 district in Yokohama. My first time to ride a high speed elevator was on the way to the view deck of the tower. The elevators also used to be the fastest in the world (there was a Guinness Book of World's Records plaque at the elevator lobby). A souvenir that I got from the tower's gift shop is this mug, which I used for my usual hot chocolate or tea at our laboratory at Yokohama Kokudai.

The mug bears a drawing of the Landmark Tower and a ship (Yokohama being a major port).

Mug handle

The other parts of the mug have no print

It's not mentioned if this was 'Made in Japan' but the art work is by a Japanese graphics company.

I brought this mug to our laboratory so I had my own mug for my drinks at the university. So this was in use for almost 3 years. It is currenly on display in my office. It is still in quite pristine condition for a 20+ year old mug that I used almost everyday during my stay in Yokohama.

 

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Mug shots: Singapore Sling Beer Mug

Another mug I got from Singapore is this souvenir from the airport that I think I got while on stopover between Manila and Colombo. It is a big mug that you probably would use for beer instead of your coffee or chocolate.

The recipe for the famous Singapore Sling is engraved/printed on the mug.

The handle

The rest of the mug was plain

The price tag is still on the mug. I got this for 16 SGD at the Discover Singapore store at Changi. Also indicated on the price tag is this being a beer mug.

I have other novelty mugs like this that I will also write about soon. There are those, however, that were gifted to me that I quickly got rid of (not re-gifted but thrown away) as they are either ugly or contained material or images that were not wholesome.

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Mug shots: Starbucks Reserve

Here is another Starbucks mug that we call "in-use" because it is regularly used for our daily dose of beverages. The wife loves coffee and cannot do without a mug to start her day. My preference is hot chocolate as a starter.

I like that it has this letter 'R' on the mug. Both my given and family names start with 'R'.

'R' is actually for 'Reserve'

Bottom of the mug showing this to be 'Made in China'

I also use this for taho, the occasional tea and ice cream. At times, I also use this for cereals and champorado (chocolate porridge). The Clairvoyant also uses this for her post-lunch coffee, which is less than her morning dose.

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Mug shots: Singapore Art Museum

We lived in Singapore for almost 2 years. Among the places we liked to visit were the museums there. The National Museum of Singapore had a collection that included artwork from Southeast Asian countries and they had some nice paintings from the Philippines. Another museum we liked to visit was the Singapore Art Museum, where we got this nice souvenir mug. There's a unique feature to the mug that I show in the following photos.

Floral art work on the mug

The design of the handle caught our attention and was among the reasons for getting this souvenir.

The mug and its handle looks like a face with a long nose from this view.

The other side view showing the form of the mug

Not much info here like whether the mug is microwave-safe or where it was manufactured.

More souvenir mugs from other museums or institutions in future posts!

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