Last week's trip to China/HK Part 2 > > > >

Ever since my friend opened the Hotel ICON in TST East as GM, I started staying there. It's always a wonderful experience and I always feel welcome and at home:

At breakfast:

The view from the 28th Floor Above & Beyond Lounge:

Happy Hour 28th Floor Above & Beyond Lounge:

View from my 22nd Floor room:

The 9th Floor pool deck:

It was now time to meet some friends at the Flagship Boutique at Heritage Plaza:

What can I say about this spectacular collection of watches that they showed us!!!!!!

I need to win the lottery soon, LOL!

Very elegant!

This is stunning in person, photos do not do it justice!

Trio of RG..........................

Felix's dream trio!

This is the "must have" of the bunch!

Shing & Felix:

Minute Repeater on White gator, nice...........

here's my "dream team" DFB duo................

Erwin and Gary joined us, with Karen the Flagship Assistant Manager:

(For those who don't know yet, Gary left IWC to join Roger Dubuis but stopped by to see us)

A "table shot" of sorts, LOL!!!!!!!!!

The Dragon Portuguese edition:

The Dragon design on the rotor:

Erwin's 3227 on strap:

Amazing Pilot's window display at the Flagship:

here we are at the "Michelin Star" St. Georges Restaurant for dinner:

Ronie from the Prince Building Boutique in Central joined us too:

The Menu:

The food......................

Here's Ronie talking one of her famous "food shots" and immediately uploading to Facebook, LOL!!!!!!!!!!!

The traditional "table shot".....................

It was a wonderful evening and I want to thank Shing once more time for organizing and his generous hospitality, thank you!

Night scenes in TST:

Time for me to leave and head back home, at HKG airport:

Waiting at the Lounge for the flight:

Heading to the gate:

At the gate;

On board...........

.......and settled in for the 15+ hour flight to YYZ!

If you've come this far, I want to thank you for your patience and for still reading this post, LOL!

See you soon on my next adventure which starts in ten (10) more sleeps, LOL!!!!!!

Thank you very much Nad, for the mouth-watering pictures of food and watches!

Kind regards,

Clemens

Great report as always Nad, looking forward to our next GTG!

Its very nice to "TRAVEL" with you Nad!
Great GTG and travelogue also.

as always nad, thanks for taking us along! great travelogue/gtg recap.

best wishes,
thang

Nad, another great report. Only one thing remains, what did you come home with? All those great choices and nothing to reveal?

Regards,
Kevin

Hi Kevin, I already mentioned that I picked up my DFB during my HK visit ;-))))

Great report, Nad! Beautiful shots (including a new style Nad shot!) and it is a pleasure to tag along with you!
Excellent choice of restaurant, also one of my favorites in HK.

Cheers!

Well, Guess my memory is more lost then I thought, congratulations and wear it in good health.

It was a great report, always like to see the GTGs.

Kevin

Nad u forgot the Ali too : )

Thanks for posting. Catch u soon...

Shing,

Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, more to come later!

I did mentioned something in RED on Part 1. :)

Cheers,
sc

PS: thanks again Shing for the wonderful dinner.

First of all, very nice travelogue!

However, I have always wondered, how does it exactly work with these boutique visits? Do you call in advance or just walk in there with a bunch of people/meet up there and ask to have a look at some watches?

My experience has taught me that, when walking in at a random AD about 50% of times I get "sized up" and treated accordingly. They pretty soon discover I won't be buying a watch today and lose interest. I actually stood in front of the boutique in the Bahnhofstrasse in Zurich a few weeks ago and felt pretty intimidated looking inside, which in the end made me walk along. Of course I immediately regretted my decision when driving back to Basel, but by then it was too late. I am asking because I am wondering if other people feel the same way. I am normally not a very shy person but just feel like the people at the boutique don't like to be bothered by the likes of me who obviously won't be buying but would just like a touch and feel.

I am also asking because this friday I will make a trip to Rheinfallen, the IWC museum and Zurich with my parents, so I will have a second chance to visit the (now updated) boutique.

Great pictures.Thanks for showing

Regards from Hamburg
Arne

@ Waimar
I used to feel like that. But if you walk in and flash your IWC they will surely recognize you are a potential customer, if not now, then perhaps in the future.
But it helps to be Nad. Force of personality basically takes over the store! LOL

Hi Waimar,

My wife and I will also be visiting the Rheinfallen and the IWC factory but only in early October and we are looking forward to our day-trip from GVA.

Well, I must admit that I've developed many friendships at the various Boutiques and AD's wherever I travel and I am always made to feel very welcome.

We can usually arrange with a few guys to meet randomly at the Boutique and there has never been any hesitation to show is anything that we request.

However, if I am walking into an AD where I am not known, it helps to break the ice by immediately asking to see a specific model (usually high-value) and that usually breaks the ice and opens the door for more discussion. Especially after removing my watch from my wrist to try on the the new watch, my watch usually promotes another discussion.

I also don't hesitate to ask if I can take a photo of the watch on my wrist so I can remember how it looks when I'm considering it later.

It's not an exact science but it seems to work for me ;-)

Have a great time at the Rheinfallen and your visit.

Nad. Rally like that Minute Repeater on white gator strap. I think that is a trend-setting combination. Thanks once again for sharing all of these...and the cuisine photos....

Nad -

Great report as usual. You invented the watch travelogue!

• Tracy

Great stuff Nad ! I missed the white gold PPC as it was not available during my recent visit to the HK boutique.

Vishal.