Pokémon
- 9:00a: Depart Airbnb
- Take L5 and L4
- 9:40a: Arrive at Paella Cooking class
- Go to market with cooking class
- Make Paella, Spanish Omelette, Roasted vegetables for lunch in class
- Jamie enjoys the red wine
- Wrap up class enjoying Chicken and Shrimp Paella
- Get Tyler a crepe (he wasn’t into paella)
- Make way to Nomad Coffee Bar for delicious espresso and cappuccino
- Tammy and Mazie explore shops a bit
- Tyler and Jamie go to Gemeria to be there when they re-open at 4:30p to see about Pokémon cards
- Gameria is a complete bust but Arco TCG across the street is amazing
- Pokémon exploring, reconnect with Tammy and Mazie
- Take 210 bus many stops into suburbs of Barcelona (note: 210 bus is blue and our cards don’t work but we are allowed on the bus)
- Do Londium Escape Room — #7 in the world!
- Try to return on 210 bus but driver notes our cards don’t work and no go
- Jamie calls Taxi via Uber to get back to city
- 8:15p: Attempt to arrive early to Ali Ocakbaşı for 9p reservation, no go.
- Tyler gets a muffin at bakery that Mazie goes to by internship
- Walk to LearnLife to see where Mazie is interning
- Mazie and Tyler return visit to bakery
- 8:50p We all write up our Londium experience for Escaping Things
- 9:00p Dinner at Ali Ocakbaşı
- Return to Airbnb via L5
- Jamie goes in, Tammy, Mazie and Tyler decide to get a stuffed churro at 10:30p
- Sadly, stuffed churro place is closed. Everyone returns to Airbnb.
- Rest a bit in the morning in the Airbnb.
- Walk to crêpe stand on Champs-Élysées for breakfast
- Stop at Cojean for cappuccino on way to Metro
- 10:16a M9 from Miromesnil to Puerte St Cloud
- Walk to Parc des Princes
- Stadium tour of Paris Saint-Germaine
- Shopping at PSG Store: Tyler Jersey, Tammy Sweatshirt, Jamie scarf.
- 1:08p Take M10 Boulogne — Jean Jaurès to Mobillion
- 1:35p Burgers for lunch at Specimen
- Walk around neighborhood exploring
- Visit Notre Dame during day
- Stop at Merveilleux
- Coffee at Strada
- 3:31p M10 Cardinal Lemoine to escape room
- Galactic Mission Escape Room
- Saw super cool race car simulator place
- Walk to Gem La Patisserie for Macarons, but sadly they had closed early
- 6:08p Quatre-Septembre
- Visit Le Coin Des Barons — Pokémon shop in Paris!
- Cookie at Ben’s Cookies
- 7:13p M1 Hôtel de Ville to Arc de Triomphe
- Return to Airbnb
- 6:30a Alarm to start day to Brussels
- Walk to Amsterdam Central
- 7:22a M52 Zuid metro
- 8:04 Eurocity Direct to Brussels
- 10:08 Arrive in Brussels
- Walk to Grand-Place
- Brussels waffles at Maison Dandoy
- fancy waffle as Maison fancy
- Mok Studio
- Chocolate: ??, ??
- Get to escape room: M1 Stockel, M7 Vanderkinder
- 2:00p Botanist Manor escape room! Amazing. Ran long.
- Uber to next week event, no time.
- 4:30p Chocolate Making Workshup
- 6:30 speed walk to Pokémon card store
- 6:50 final minutes at Xx before they close
- Walk to bus to go to dinner
- Get on M89 bus going wrong way
- Recognize mistake, get of bus, request Uber
- Dinner at Wolf Food Hall. Tyler and I have smashburgers. Tammy has
- Uber to Brussels Zuid train station.
- Get last Leige waffles before leaving Brussels
- 8:49p Depart Eurocity train to Amsterdam Zuid
- 10:46p Arrive Amsterdam Zuid station
- taxi back to Hendricks Hotel
Pokémon afternoon at Minnesota Card Show!
Stop at Dashu for some Japanese Pokémon packs.
Escape in Europe — Day 13
Escape in Europe — Day 9
Escape in Europe — Day 4
It is time to officially celebrate Pokémon Day. Rip ‘em!
Miscut Perrserker
Tyler and I enjoy collecting Pokémon cards together and one of the cards I collect is Perrserker, the Viking Pokémon. In fact, I’ve collected all the English cards and am well on my way to having all the Japanese cards. Just today I discovered that Perrserker is now in Pokemon Pocket too.
We decided to go to Northfield today as an excuse to get some more driving time for Tyler, and also Tammy loves Content Bookstore there, Tyler and I both like Games n’ Geek, and if I’m in the area it only seems appropriate to stop at Little Joy Coffee for a delicious Flat White.
I had Perrserker on the brain because of this mornings Pocket discovery, and Tyler and I both knew that Games n Geek had a very unique card a few months ago — a miscut Perrserker. They were asking a lot for it back then and I was wondering if they still had it in the case. They did!
I gave the card a close inspection. I’ve never bought a miscut and this one is really cool. These are all 1-of-1 cards so the price is hard to figure out, but I felt good with where they were now. So now in addition to my full collection of Perrserker I have this cool miscut one. I’m debating sending it in to PSA to get it graded — thinking I will.
Pokémon Pocket Collection at 100 Days
In September I started playing with Pokémon Pocket as the First Anniversary celebration was coming up. Tyler had been collecting on Pocket since launch day. The anniversary celebration had a ton of promotions associated as well as the limited edition Deluxe Pack ex. I did some in-app purchasing to get Poke Gold and help catch up a bit, I’ve also subscribed to the Premium Pass. I’ve created a pretty complete collection in the first 100 days.
Tons of Pokémon cards in this kiosk at MSP Airport — and only 400% more expensive than it should be! 💸😬
Pokémon Card Shop Saturday
Tyler and I went on a drive around the cities yesterday to check out some Pokémon card shops in town. This was a similar trip to our Game Store Tour in February. This was focused solely on Pokémon!
Viral Card Games
Our first stop was Viral Card Games in Fridley. We both liked this shop a lot. It was likely the most organized and well structured card shop that we had been in. They had a several glass cases with graded and raw cards on display in a wide range of prices. They were super helpful pulling cards out to give them a closer look.
The big differentiator for Viral Card Games was their bulk management. Most card shops simply have dozens of boxes filled with thousands of cards grouped by their sets. The team at Viral has fully embraced the TCG Player system with two very large screen kiosks in the store so you can search their entire bulk collection with ease, add the cards you are looking for, and then they will bring those out for you. With a couple searches I was able to grab the first 3 of a 9 card illustration set that I’m looking for.
I also grabbed the final card for a 3-card illustration set.
This is also the only downside that Tyler and I had. The tradeoff of amazing bulk management is less fun flipping through binders and browsing different things. If Viral also had several binders to bridge the gap between the amazing bulk system they have and the singles under the counter it would be about perfect.
Ultimate Collectibles Warehouse Sale
Our second stop was a tip from my brother-in-law Max — Ultimate Collectibles was having their “Warehouse Sale” at the Hopkins VFW. We had no idea what to expect but were excited to head over and check it out. There was no real signage but the full parking lot on a Saturday afternoon was a sign we were in the right spot.
Ultimate has a lot of sports memorabilia and more than half of the sale was that, but if you watched the foot traffic the vast majority of that was there for the Pokémon sets they were selling. They had a huge collection on display and the prices were pretty good — above retail but not typical card shop pricing.
Ultimate is the more typical card shop experience with just piles of stuff and you need to dig around to find what you want. The warehouse sale was just piles of boxes on folding tables. They also had a good selection of singles on display but the focus for this event was moving large boxes.
It was awesome to check out and Tyler and I got our first Ultra-Premium Collection box ever here — snagging one of the last three left before they all were taken.
MN Poke Pulls
After a quick coffee stop in Hopkins, we made our way to MN Poke Pulls in Plymouth timed just after their pretty late 2:00 PM opening time. We had planned to start here until we realized they weren’t even open until much later. That is a pretty late starting time, especially given that they don’t host tournaments, but I suspect it is because of the origin of the store around Whatnot.
So a quick Whatnot detour if you, like me, have no idea what this is. The owner of this store started on Whatnot by streaming Pokémon boxes that viewers auction for in real-time. Once the auction is won, the box is immediately opened and they go through all the packs. The purchaser of the box then gets the cards that are valuable sent to them.
To me this seems strange as I would want to open the box and packs together at home. Tyler and I have fun doing that. But if you are a big collector and you have opened 10,000 packs already it is different. Here you get to outsource the opening part as well as the raw management of all the bulk that you get. You just get the stuff that you really want. Meanwhile the Whatnot viewers all get to share in the fun of opening and the “hits” when opening the packs.
With that backdrop this store had huge volume of packs as that is what they need to run the Whatnot events. They had a few cases with singles and graded cards, but not a ton. They didn’t have prices on anything which Tyler and I both dislike. They also have a giant messy pile of bulk cards for $0.10 each if you want to do that.
Overall a fun place to stop but it is like a warehouse inside and you wouldn’t spend a ton of time hanging out and browsing.
Lost Zone Cards
Our last stop was Lost Zone Cards in Bloomington. This ended up being the least Pokémon focused shop of the day, and unfortunately was even more so when we arrived and heard their Pokémon stuff was gone that day for a show in Wisconsin. The photo below you can see the left-most case is empty.
Overall this seemed like a great place for a variety of card games and they had a big area for tournaments — but was the least exciting of the day for Pokémon collectors.
We have a lot of fun exploring these places. On our list for shops to check out still are Krakenhits in Fridley and The Forge in Chaska.