Watches, Old and New

I purchased a new watch: a Seiko Alpinist with a green dial. I know from many watch enthusiast friends that Seiko is a really good brand and a friend told me many years ago about how the Alpinist is a really good Seiko watch. He shared a sample photo of one with a green dial and I really liked it. Since then, it's been on my radar. In each of the last two years, Alpinist watches became available in the Seiko store near me but it is an expensive watch so I didn't buy it back then. Still, I noticed that in both those years, the Alpinists were sold out quite quickly. Clearly, this watch was really popular which proved what my friend said that it is a good watch. When it appeared in the Seiko store for the third year in a row, I realized that I was still thinking of getting it 5 years after seeing its photo so I decided to finally get it. It's my most expensive watch to date but I did get it at 20% off, making it a bit more affordable. I also really love looking at it when I wear it.

My new Seiko Alpinist watch

I also "sorted out" a couple of my older watches. The first one had a damaged strap. I really liked its strap so I didn't want to replace it and I hoped that I could have it repaired instead.

Damanged strap of my watch

Another friend at work is an avid watch fan so I asked him if he knew a place where I could have a watch strap repaired and he suggested Hunter Tradition. They have four branches and I visited their branch in Century City Mall. I'm happy I did because the guy there was able to repair my watch strap quite quickly using a combination of adhesive and stitching. I think their stock in trade is selling custom leather watch straps. If you need a new leather strap or you need strap repair, I highly recommend Hunter Tradition.

Hunter Tradition at Century City Mall

The other watch I sorted out was my G-Shock, which ran out of batteries a really long time ago. The thing is, most places that replace watch batteries don't seem to be able to replace the batteries of a G-Shock. I visited a G-Shock store and they told me that the service center is located in One Corporate Center at the corner of Meralco Avenue and Julia Vargas in Ortigas, which is not the most convenient place to visit. Still, I really wanted to finally use my G-shock again so during a trip to the Ortigas area, I decided to swing by One Corporate Center to have the batteries replaced. The unfortunate thing is that they couldn't replace the batteries immediately and told me I had to come back after about a week. It was such a hassle but at least now my G-Shock is working again.

Finally replaced the batteries of my G-Shock

I'm happy that I have a new watch that I really like and that I can finally wear two of my watches that I hadn't been able to use in a while.