Intermezzo #58: G-Shock Shopping - A visit to Ace Trends, Amsterdam.

I was in Amsterdam with my family about a month ago, so I planned to visit Ace Trends at the end of the afternoon after a day shopping around. Of course, Amsterdam is one of the nicest towns to visit for sniffing history and shopping. 

While we were getting close to the Leidsestraat, I saw this very nice building at the Koningsplein. I noticed the word "Ace".

It's the Ace and Spyer shop, where you can buy more exclusive mechanical watches. The shop is specialized in exclusive Breitling models. We needed to go a little further to the Leidsestraat.

There it is, Ace Trends, between other brand fashion stores. The perfect location.

Almost lost Eva in the Palladium store on the left.

There is a wide choice of G-Shocks. Also they sell exclusive made models with metal bezels with diamonds (put on it by hand one by one).

Dimer and Dale of Ace Trends help Bram very friendly and patiently, as he had seen an interesting watch and has a patent on asking tough questins. It's not a G-Shock though.

As they were not used to special visitors in the store, they had arranged a delicious cake for us. We had a nice chat about watches and G-Shocks in general, but also talked about plans and working together for a G-Shock party with sneaker store Acht Amsterdam.

One of the fun pieces at the office is this custom made "Zebra G-Shock", made from a DW-6900WW.

After the visit we concluded the day with a ride with the Metro back to the car. 

Score of or Amsterdam trip: A Star Wars mini battle ship (ask Bram what it is, I have no clue EDIT: Bram says: "Venator-class  Republic Attack Cruiser"), a very funny red Lucky Cat and Bram's new calculator watch (DBC-611E-1EF). It had been a long time I had been visiting Amsterdam. A little voice inside my head said, I should visit more often. 

Intermezzo #47: G-Shock shopping in Barcelona, part 2, visiting 24 Kilates

Last Thursday (February 23) we went shopping in the old city. I had already figured out how to get at 24 Kilates. First we went strolling and shopping through the old city.

After visiting several small shops and boutiques Bram started complaining that we were only visiting shops that were only interesting for Eva or me.

We hardly heard his complaint, because we saw these great Japanese lantern hanging outside a shop. While Eva and I were looking through the shop window, Bram walked inside. It was a Japanese shop selling lucky cats and other Japanese utensils. While Eva and I had seen the shop, Bram stayed in much longer, finally coming out of the shop with a pair of beautiful decorated chop sticks.

After a short break at the Starbucks, we went in the direction of a market, which was close to Carrer del Commerç 29.

Near the Starbucks I saw this shop selling G-Shocks.

It was the first time I saw a new G-9300 Mudman live (€199,95). But I couldn't stayin the shop. Eva and Bram headed before a large group of teenage students, while I was enclosed in that group. I tried to call them, but my voice did by far not compete to the squeaking voices of 13 - 14 year olds.  Anyway, this shop was not on my "To do" list.

Finally, there it was. The name of the shop was written in relative small letters on their facade. It was like stepping into another reality. The shop owners (Rickard and Pol) were greeting me when we came in. I immediately saw the great Patta shirts, while dozens of sneakers were showed on racks and displays. In the back of the store you could find a quite cool collection of skateboard literature, which I think was cool. While peeking through a rack of T-Shirts, I found a great Stüssy shirt.  To my surprise, also in my size (XL). They also have a large collection of Rockwell shirts (by Parra). It surprised me that they had a lot of shirts in XL, as this is not a usual size in Spain.

Of course I went for G-Shocks. 24 Kilates has a small, but nice collection of G-Shocks.

 When I showed my interest in one of the G-Shocks, I already got a €30.- discount as it was their last one in stock. We got talking a bit about G-Shocks. I was told 24 Kilates had sold totally 50 of the seconds Dee & Ricky G-Shock. It took just over a week to sell the first 30, and in about one month they had sold two other batches of 10 watches. One of the sellers was in Japan, buying 15 at one time. This story quite let me think the 2nd Dee & Ricky was not rare at all (about 10000 pieces worldwide), but made rare by speculators trying to sell them for about 3x the retail price. I hope the next Dee & Ricky release will be more relaxed than this one.

There was this cool display of Rockwell items. I still like those long legged cherries. I knew there was a Tee with that print, but I never got one. Unfortunately Parra makes almost only white Tees. Not quite practical at my work.

And what would a sneaker store be without the inevitable Adidas Supersars, complete with matching Run DMC glasses and headphone. The shop owners made me a good price on my G-Shock and Stüssy shirt. Well, I will keep it a little secret which G-Shock I bought for now, but it will probably show up here on 50 Gs soon.

With a big smile on my face I left the shop with my 24 Kilates bag. Although early spring, the temperatures were rising quickly. A good occasion to spend some time in the harbor of Barcelona.

Intermezzo #46: G-Shock shopping in Barcelona, part 1

I've been to Barcelona a week ago for a short vacation. Both me and Eva have been there apart before, but Bram wanted to see the city too, so we went with the family together this time. Our hotel was located near the centre with Casa Mila and Casa Batllo. There were a lot of interesting restaurants and bars in the neighborhood, but this 24 hour bakery nearby was frequently visited by us too.

Bram had chosen the spots to visit, while I tried to see if it was possible to find some G-Shock stores. A main goal was to find the 24 Kilates store, which is near the harbor. Two years ago I had been very close, but have missed the store, before I went to the 2009 Shock The World in Barcelona. It is also near to a very good place where you can eat delicious Spanish ham (Pernil in Catalan, Jamon in Spanish).

At the second evening Bram wanted to go to the Egyptian Museum. Well, we are in Spain, so I didn't feel for going to that museum. We agreed to rendez vous at the hotel at 19:00. It was only 17:15, so I thought I had oceans of time. So, while Eva and Bram went to the museum, I went to a mall called "L'Illa de Diagonal".

My actually goal was to find a scarf, as it appeared to be cold after sunset in Barcelona, though it was very nice and sunny during daytime. From the Casio website of Spain I learned there must be a shop called "Neus Cubells Agramunt" selling Casio G-Shocks too. After a good 20 minute walk from our hotel, I arrived at this mall. It was quite bigger than what I expected.

First I went to the Decathlon. I had never visited a Decathlon before, as I live far from bigger cities, so these kind of big stores are not near where I live. To my surprise I found G-Shocks in the outdoor watches department, but only a G-7900 and a G-2900. A scarf was much harder to find, but finally I found where I was looking for. Just in time, because the sun was going to set already.

There were many, many shops, spread over three floors. Carefully I have looked on every floor. I saw many interesting shops. Above was a small Happy Pills store to lighten up your day. It sells candy in shape of medicine in plastic emergency cases and pots. Very funny concept.

A small Swatch store had these Kid Robots on display. I love those toys. At the ground floor there was an exhibition of Porsche cars. A friend of me drove one 20 years ago. Of course I took a little look at those cars.

When I reached the other side of the mall, I went to the Corte Inglés department store and found another interesting scarf. I couldn't resist to buy that one too as it looked even warmer than the one I bought (for €2.-) at the Decathlon.

After searching about every corner on every floor of the mall, I still had not found the Neus Cubells Agramunt store. when I passed the Super Dry store for about the third time, I could not take my eyes of this shirt (again) and dropped in to buy it. Spanish XXL. That's a little tight XL in The Netherlands, LOL. I saw a X-Large hoody in Japan several times in a similar color setting, but, off course not in XL (why then that store name?). Good thing is I could pay with my Dutch bank card. I still can't see why some Dutch people shout loud they want the Dutch Guilder back. One currency in European countries make this possible!

It appears Super Dry is actually a UK based brand, though they had me fooled for a while... They had nice headphone too. I have to look into that too. Would be cool to rotate with my magenta WESC headphone.

Well, I had made a little miscalculation with the time. I expected that L'Illa was only about 5 to 10 shops. It happened to be more like 100. As it was already 18:35, the sun was setting. It was time to rush back to the hotel.

I noticed this bike. Someone stole the front wheel. I remember Adan told me this was typical Spanish. Well, I can tell you you have to put a lock on both your wheels in the bigger cities in The Netherlands too. Somewhere in this city, there is a front wheel hanging in a bike stand...

I think this Gin shop has to upgrade to OS X Lion, Snow Leopard is so 2009. When I arrived at the hotel (17:50), Eva and Bram were already in the hotel room. The hotel lady had let them in already. After a short rest, we went into town for some tapas and a drink down town BCN.