Watches

2025-05-xx

Uspenski Cathedral, 2019

I started wearing watches habitually in college with a "Ducati Corse Silicon" that my uncle gave me. However, I also did rock a Casio AE-1000W during the equivlenat of the JROTC where I did high school. By the time I did an internship at a recruiting firm, my father bought me this quartz watch from Seiko (not sure the model but it looked similiar to this.) Eventually I naturally ended up liking watches. I have a small collection that I treasure and hope it'll be all that I ever need. While they're neat, I'm apprehensive to go down a rabbit hole of buying watch winders, obsessing over lug to lug measurements, or knowing the differences between all Japanese Miyota and Swiss movements.

Owned

Casio F-91W

• The Thinkpad of watches. Cheap, can take a beating, and may garner strange looks if used out at a cafe or a date.
• With it proven to be faithful on a summit to Kilimanjaro, this is probably the only watch you would ever need.
• My only personal issues with this watch is that the gap between the band and watch sometimes makes a squeaky noise every now and then. People online say that it's caused by grime, and solutions are to either lubricate it, or to live with it. Thankfully, from my experience, the noise eventually disappears. But when it gets to a point where I cannot ignore it, I swap to my other watches for the next few days.

Casio MQ-24

• The need for this watch came for situations such as taking the JLPT where only analog watches, not digital, are permitted. Casio being the king of cheap quartz watches, I ultimately settled on this after seeing Pope Francis using it. That, and a close friend of mine swears by it.

Citizen NY4050-62A

• My first automatic watch and the newest watch to my collection. I got it for a deal where I ended up saving 10,000+ yen. Multifunctional for it to serve both as an everyday and even dress watch. Also accompanies me daily to work as a salaryman.

Casio AQ-230A-7AMQYJF

• Latest watch to my collection. Has both an analog (minus seconds) and digital display. Compact, tiny, and stylish to wear with a suit.

Other

Apple Watch Series 5 (and smart watches in general)

• I got this as a graduation present from my cousin. It's extremely useful for custom jogging workouts and more detailed data for my hikes, but it has lost my favor. For it to work for me, I'd basically have to neuter it; all notifications switched off. Having constant pings or vibrations makes me instinctivly pull my arm up like I'm the Lone Wanderer checking my Pip-Boy 3000. And considering that I want to focus on a more privacy-respecting relationship with technology, the tracking done by an Apple Watch is contrary to what I am trying to achieve. However, I will say that it has faired me better than a Fitbit that I owned a few years ago which got water damaged after a few laps at the pool. That being said, I can't see myself further utilizing a smart watch. I can't seem to think of any benefits from its "conveniences." Though, Garmin watches seem popular among hikers, but I can honestly make do with the Casio F-91W.