About Time (Part One)

Anyone who knows anything about me at all knows that I am an Apple Fan Boy. From my first Macintosh Plus computer in 1987 (purchased with our wedding money) to running an all Mac office in the 90s, when the earth’s axis was tilting seemingly inexorably toward IBM compatibles, to 2010 when I was voted by my colleagues, “Most likely to run into a burning building to save his iPhone.”

But what you may not know is that I am also somewhat of a watch buff. I have worn (or carried) a watch every day of my life since I got my first one for my 8th birthday from the G.E.M. store (like an 1960s version of Costco) on Rt. 40 in Baltimore. And I have owned countless mechanical, quartz, and digital timepieces over the years. I even built a mechanical clock from a kit that, sadly, never ran very well.

A curious piece. This self-winding mechanical watch has one hand that goes around the dial once in 24 hours. The time currently reads approximately 3:36 pm

I am not a serious collector in any way, mind you, but I have a few mechanical pieces that I wore regularly, until one fine May day in 2015. That was the day my first Apple Watch (later called the Series 0) arrived.

I had been working at the Apple Store when the first Apple Watch was introduced, and the store manager allowed us to come in at 3 am to order from behind the store firewall so that we could get it with our employee discount (half off) the moment the thing went on sale.

Even so, it was weeks before it arrived. During that time, I used my access to the floor models to learn all I could about Apple’s latest life changing device. When mine arrived, I put it on and rarely wore my other watches again except on dressy occasions or holidays like Yom Kippur, when an electronic device feels out of keeping with the spirit of the day.

My first watch. Still runs when wound up.

The gamification of filling the three fitness rings (exercise, move, stand) is what hooked me initially, next was the convenience of having certain tools always handy on my wrist. A timer, the outdoor temperature, a second time zone. And Apple Pay, being able to pay for things or enter a subway system without having to take out a wallet or even a phone from a pocket. Tracking a workout like a run or a walk felt like another “must have” with incredible accuracy in record distance, route, and heart rate. The final lock in was the knowledge that the Apple Watch has saved lives for people in crashes, health crises, or lost in the backcountry.

Can’t disappoint Tim. Must fill Apple Watch rings every day.

A few years ago, sleep tracking was introduced to the Apple Watch, and since I started using that, I have barely taken it off except to charge it, which takes about half an hour per day. The Apple Watch had become a nearly inextricable part of my life — as embedded as an artificial hip.

Then in 2025, I became intrigued with the idea of a more minimal tech life. I saw some videos from people who had simplified their tech devices, even swapping their smart phones for flip phones or the so called “dumb phones,” which do only a few basic things like make phone calls, text, and keep a calendar and contact list. I loved the idea but didn’t think it made sense to spend money on a new device that did less than my old one. Besides, I could make my iPhone as simple as I wanted just by removing apps and turning off features.

So I did.

The first thing I did was to remove from my phone anything that was remotely entertaining or engaging. I had already quit Meta (Facebook and Instagram) back in 2020 and deleted my Twitter account the day that the Musk Rat took over, but I still had the Apple News app and YouTube on my phone. Delete. I left only the music app (for driving) and the podcast app (walking) but neither is tempting or distracting.

Home Screen Before…

…and after.

Then I removed all but eight apps from the home screen with four more in the bar at the bottom. I kept utilities such as banking or flight tracking apps on the phone, but I have to go to the app library to use them. I blocked all calls from people who are not in my contact list. (If they really want to talk to me they’ll leave a message.)

Finally, I turned off notifications for almost everything except calendar events (I tend to forget appointments without them) and missed calls or voice mails, and I set ‘Do Not Disturb’ focus to activate automatically from 9:30 pm to 7:30 am.

The few notifications that I did get came through silently on my Apple Watch with a gentle tap on the wrist.

Then, during our last week in Japan, we visited the Seiko Watch and Timekeeping museum, and my love of analog watches beckoned to me like a voice from a bygone era. Thus the idea of a week without Apple Watch was hatched.

So last Friday, I slipped off my Apple Watch Ultra 2 and replaced it with a new Seiko Field Mechanical (because any proper experiment requires the right equipment). In order to ensure against backsliding, I unpaired my Apple Watch from my phone and set it up for Barbara to try.

The house Kintarō Hattori built. Tokyo, Japan.

Barb’s Apple Watch is an older model and showing signs of age (like me). Unlike me, B is a true athlete and can actually use the myriad features of the Apple Watch Ultra. But the Ultra is larger and heavier than other Apple Watches (about 68 grams vs. 38 grams), so it made sense for her to try it out on her petite wrist to make sure that it is comfortable before getting her own.

So that’s the start of my week without an Apple Watch for the first time in more than 10 years. How will it go? Tune for part two next week to find out.

The world’s a narrow bridge; fear nothing.

Gravity

And just like that 7 weeks pass and early one morning you find yourself on the Tokyo subway headed to the Haneda Airport. The line for security wraps around the terminal, but because this is Japan it takes less than 30 minutes to go through passport control, check luggage, and go through security, allowing plenty of time for a coffee and a bun in the airport lounge.

A quick nap on the plane and you step out into the arrivals area at Dulles airport, where, because this is the United States, you spend the next two hours creeping toward one of just five border agents serving four plane loads of passengers. Upon reaching him, he languidly inquires if you have any plants or more than $10,000 in negotiable instruments and, upon hearing the negative, waves you through.

After Japan, public transportation in the United State seems decrepit and filthy. The metro is single tracking between West and East Falls Church Stations (because of course it is) and the bus stop at Shady Grove Station is strewn with litter and unsavory characters. Still, we don’t wait long for a bus and a few minutes later we are walking the final 500 meters from the bus stop to home. Arriving, we observe that we have traveled from home to all over Japan and back again having only used public transportation. No Ubers, no cabs, no private vehicles. It feels like a little victory.

It is strange to be home. Adding to the disorientation is the fact that we left Japan at 10:15 on Sunday morning and arrived in Washington at 9:15 Sunday morning, thanks to a transit of the international date line.

Once the water and the cooking gas are turned back on, it soon feels like we never left. There is the mail to retrieve, bills to pay, and the larder to restock — the ordinariness of life comes rushing back.

People ask, “How was your trip? Tell me about it!” But where do you start to talk with a trip of seven weeks? So I usually say, “It was great!” and am rarely pressed for more details. One’s journey is one’s own. No one is really interested, to be honest.

So much of the experience was just the day-to-day living. Going to the grocery store. Riding the trains. Navigating the subway and buses. The quiet of the woods of a mountain hike. An unexpected glimpse of the full moon of Kislev rising over the lake. But there are a few things that stand out and that I will probably remember for longer than say, where I left my keys.

A beautiful fish and veg curry in Nagano.

• We had a simple and beautiful meal at a curry restaurant in Nagano. It was a one man show with the owner and cook preparing and serving our dish while we sat in front of him at the counter at the tiny establishment. The place had seats for perhaps 12 people, and the food was simple and delicious with a fresh baked naan that he made for our order.

• We biked a route called the Shimanami Kaido. An island to island ride that takes one over stunning bridges. We stopped at a 7 Eleven for a snack and I left my iPhone sitting on a bench. When I noticed it was gone and biked back for it, this being Japan, it was still sitting right outside the store where I had left it half an hour earlier. The day culminated with a visit to a colorful ancient temple above which was a massive, modern creation made out of Carrara marble imported from Italy and made by an Italian sculptor.

• We signed up for a bicycle tour of Fukuoka and turned out to be the only participants. Harata, the delightful young man who led the tour, took us to beautiful spots we wouldn’t have seen on our own including a quiet Buddhist temple with a magical courtyard that included an honest to God golden calf. Rub its head for good fortune. The courtyard was empty and silent in this teeming city.

• In the same town, we waited at a bus stop while a Sumo wrestler in his robes and sandals waited with us. The annual tournament was being held in this city and, as we learned, the wrestlers are required by tradition to wear their thin robes at all times, even while waiting for a bus in the cold, winter wind.

• One day in Sapporo we stayed in our hotel room all day while the rain and wind whipped the city streets. We ate breakfast at the hotel buffet and worked on our blogs until evening when we ventured out and found a sushi restaurant where the staff was super friendly and the fish was delicious and fresh. When you spend seven weeks in a place, you can take a day off and just chill.

• On a train platform in Kanazawa, we ran into three couples that we knew from home. Their kids grew up with ours. They were getting off the train and we were getting on. It was surreal.

• A lovely Japanese garden where they pumped in fake fog once an hour so that visitors can take magical photos.

Fake fog for your photographic pleasure.

Everyone, everywhere bows. The man directing traffic. The conductor on the train. The cashier at the grocery store. The hotel clerks. It is as if to say, “I see the image of God in you.” It feels affirming to receive a bow and to bow back, and it happens dozens if not hundreds of times a day.

Before we left home, I wrote a post in which I confessed that I didn’t really like to travel but that I felt it was good for me. Like fish we are oblivious to the water we swim in until we are out of it for a while. Unlike fish, however, we can adapt to other atmospheres. I adapted to life on the road, even enjoyed it and never wanted for anything beyond the 10kg of kit I’d brought with me. Except for, well, maybe another English language book after I finished “Slow Horses.” English books were hard to come by in Japan.

By the time we were heading home, it felt that I at least had a sense of what it might be like to live in Japan. Some of the most notable things were not what we saw but what we rarely or never saw.

You virtually never see:

• Litter

• Someone talking on their cell phone while walking

• People smoking in public

• A dirty car

• Something broken

• Graffiti

• A train running late

• People behaving inconsiderately or rudely

• Dog poop

• Stray cats

• Traffic jams

• People walking and eating

• Homeless people or people asking for money

• Tattoos

• Men with beards

• Benches to sit upon

• A public park, train station, or convenience store without an immaculate toilet that is free to use.

Things are just messier in the United States. And don’t get me wrong, messiness can have its charm, but it is irritating too. Wondering if your bus will show up, trying to find a public toilet before you burst, wondering if your bike will still be there when you get back. Japan removes all these worries and abrasions and replaces them all with a single anxiety: “Am I bothering anyone?”

But in spite of its messiness and other abrasions, my life, my friends, my family are here. Those things exert a force like gravity that holds one in place. One may visit the International Space Station from time to time but as pleasant as it may be to float weightless one must return to earth and stay a while before ones muscles start to atrophy.

Ok, that’s long enough. When’s the next rocket out of here?

The world’s a narrow bridge; fear nothing.

Idiosyncratic Japan

There are many things in Japan that work staggeringly well. And a few that are bafflingly frustrating. Here are my observations after nearly five weeks in the Land of the Rising Sun.

IC Cards

So not Nationwide Interoperable then.

Japan has what is called the “Nationwide Interoperable Fare Card System.” There are dozens of different branded refillable fare cards called “IC Cards.” You can buy a physical card or you can have it stored in your virtual wallet on an iPhone or Apple Watch. (Sorry, Android not supported.) No matter which brand you have, it works on local trains and busses all over Japan (not on long distance trains, however) or so I thought until very recently. We are currently in Kanazawa and our Apple Watch IC cards, which have worked on every local bus and subway in Japan, don’t work here. Why not? No one knows. You can still pay with a phone or watch but you need to enable Express Transit for one of your credit cards. No big deal but we were unprepared the first time we rode the busses here and ended up needing to pay cash when we got off the bus. I didn’t have exact change and the fare box doesn’t make change. However, next to the fare box is a change machine, so no worries. 

To make it even more confusing, the IC cards DO work on some of the busses in Kanazawa, those run by the Japan Railroad (JR) but not the regular local buses.

Public Transport

Public Transit goes everywhere.

Public transport is reliable, cheap, and frequent here. We have yet to find a place we want to go where there wasn’t a train, bus, or streetcar leaving in the next 10 minutes. We’ve never even considered taking a taxi or ride-share here. Every one of these runs on a posted timetable and leaves at the appointed time on the dot. Just once, a train we were taking was three minutes late. People were looking up and down the track as if the world was coming to an end. The loud speaker on the platform blared out an apology and then, the train pulled in.

Trains

The intercity trains in particular are a joy to ride. Clean, fast, and virtually always on time.

What doesn’t work so well is online booking of tickets. It is pretty easy to book train tickets from a machine in the station but I like to book online where I can study all the options and add the tickets to our IC cards and avoid having to deal with paper tickets. However, there are multiple train companies in Japan, which operate different lines and if you are traveling across lines, you can’t book your tickets on a single site. If you book using multiple sites it costs more than booking all at once in the station. But if you book at the machine in the station, you can’t put the tickets on your IC Card, you are stuck fumbling with paper tickets. We’ve had as many last three tickets each for one trip and each of those ticket has to be fed into the fare gate and fetched out again on the other side of the gate.

Snacking

If you haven’t had your servings of fruit today, try a fruit and whipped cream sandwich — part of a nutritious breakfast!

It seems you can barely go 100 meters here without seeing a convenience store (combi). Combi are great places to find kosher snacks like egg or tuna salad sandwiches, rice balls filled with salmon or pickled plums, and ice cream.

But good luck finding a place to eat.

Eating while walking is a big no no. It is considered very rude and ill mannered. However, there is rarely anywhere to sit down. Almost no benches or seats anywhere. Eating or drinking on public transport is prohibited, though you can eat on long-distance trains.

You might sit on the ground but that is also considered very uncouth. So you might be reduced to huddling in the door way of a 7-Eleven and eating standing there. Somehow, that is ok. And make sure to always carry a bag with you for your trash. There are no trash cans  anywhere. Notwithstanding, the streets are immaculately clean. We have had pretty good luck looking for a green square on the map and finding a tiny park. Often there will be a bench there and sometimes it will be available to sit on.

Washing Machines

Most hotels have a laundry room and machines that wash and dry all in one. The cost is often around $4.00 to wash and dry, and that includes soap. However, the cycle is around two hours, at the end of which the clothes are still wet. It takes an extra hour of drying time (an extra $1.50) to get the clothes to just a bit damp. On the positive side, you don’t need to worry about heat damaging your clothes. There isn’t much heat.

The Five Yen Shopping Bag

Every time you buy anything here they ask you if you want a bag. If you say yes, there is a five yen charge (about 3 cents). The idea is to reduce waste. Great! Yet every food item and everything else comes wrapped in layers of plastic. A meal from the grocery store results in mountains of plastic waste. I have no idea where it all goes.

Public Toilets

Wash room signage is absolutely uniform throughout Japan. The lady is always red and the gent is always blue.

There are toilets everywhere. They are capacious, sparkling clean, and free. There are public restrooms in train stations, parks, subway stations, and randomly on various streets. Your bladder enjoys Japan stress free. But as with other amenities in Japan there are quirks. Many restrooms have no soap for washing your hands, and almost none have towels or any way to dry your hands. Fortunately, I brought a bottle of Dr. Bronner’s and a small hand towel, both of which I keep in my day bag. As a side note, I can report that some Japanese men, like Americans, aren’t always assiduous about washing their hands after using the powder room.

Easy Money

It is easy to pay for things in Japan. Almost every shop, restaurant, train, or bus, takes cash, credit card, or an IC Transit Card. And they take every credit card or debit card you can think of.  Many shops have machines you can insert your bank notes or coins into to pay and they give you back change. Many of these machine take every coin all the way down to 1 yen. So it’s easy to get rid of the small nearly worthless coins. Every once in a while there is an establishment like a temple or a small restaurant that only takes cash but we’ve found that to be very rare. Every convenience store has an ATM so you don’t need to worry about running out of cash. Needless to say, at every check out there is just one line for all registers so you never have to guess which line will move the fastest. First in, first out. It just makes sense.

Walking

Japan is super walkable. Buses go everywhere but we rarely need them unless we are carrying our luggage or going more than a few kilometers. Cars here drive on the left side of the road so you’d think that walkers and bicyclers would stay to the left as well. You’d be wrong. People seem to walk or bike on every side of the sidewalk with little rhyme or reason. Some of it is western tourists who gravitate to the right but not always. Japanese people, who seem so methodical about other public behaviors, walk on either side indiscriminately. When the sidewalk is crowded, which it often is, there are a lot of near misses. Bicyclists are also often on the sidewalks and they weave in and out among pedestrians. Still, I haven’t seen a single collision.

Less than 2% of Japan’s population is Christian yet Christmas trees (and Christmas music) are everywhere.

But on the whole, Japan functions incredibly well. I have often found myself thinking, “Why don’t we want our country to work this way? Fast trains, clean streets, walkable cities, toilets when you need one — who wouldn’t want that? I guess we have our reasons:

“Liberty, son, liberty.”

The world’s a narrow bridge; fear nothing.