When I visit a new city, I want to do things in that city that are unique to the area. I’ve traveled so much at this point that I’ve been to a ton of zoos, aquariums, science museums, and other tourist attractions that are not local-specific, so nowadays, I try to avoid those kinds of activities and instead do something that I can’t do anywhere else.

One of my favorite things about Tokyo that I found out during my two-week trip there was how many unique museums there were in the metropolis. Some of it is because flagship retail stores in Tokyo are so large and well-organized that they seem like museums of their own (I mention this in my two already-published miscellaneous photo dump blog posts in the sections where I talk about the Yamaha and Fender stores), but some of them are just actual dedicated museums on very specific topics.

One of these specialty hobbyist museums was セイコーミュージアム銀座, which is the Seiko Museum Ginza. There were Seiko stores elsewhere in Ginza, but this wasn’t a hybrid store-museum—this was literally just a museum dedicated to watches and timekeeping.

It had free admission, which I guess makes sense because it acts as a marketing initiative to bring awareness to the Seiko brand, raise its reputation, and encourage people to purchase Seiko watches. However, I thought it was still generous to let everyone enter for free and provide such warm and welcoming service to patrons, especially considering the surprisingly large group of staff members who were on duty and actively performing maintenance on the displays.

 
I started my self-guided tour in the basement, which was called “Extreme Times.” This floor was dedicated to showcasing timekeeping as it pertains to sports, and how extremely tiny increments of time can mean the difference between a world record and second place.

The first floor was called “The Beginnings of Time.” This was the entrance, so there wasn’t quite as much on this floor as there was on other floors. The front desk was on this floor where staff members greeted you and explained the layout of the museum. There was also a short introductory film playing on a screen.

The second floor was titled “Always One Step Ahead of the Rest.” The exhibits on this floor showed the history of Seiko and how it was always ahead of its competitors, even though catastrophic events like destructive earthquakes.

The third floor was named “From Time Indicated by Nature, to Human-Made Time.” This was another floor that covered the history of timekeeping, but this one focused more broadly on how time was kept prior to the availability of modern-day clocks, rather than focusing specifically on Seiko.

The fourth floor was called “Precise Time.” This floor focused on the evolution of timekeeping and how it turned into the modern-day clocks and watches that we know of today. This floor also provided a bit of insight on the mechanisms and technology behind how Seiko products are so precise in timekeeping.

The fifth floor was “A Variety of Times.” On display here was a demonstration of how different clocks and watches can look while still serving the same purpose of timekeeping. This floor also had a continuation of showcasing some of the technology behind how these devices actually work.

I believe this was designed and intended to be the “fun” floor. There was a short movie playing (though I didn’t watch it because it was in Japanese and I couldn’t understand it), and this was the floor that showcased some of the fun collaborative clocks that used popular intellectual property like Pokémon and Hello Kitty.

And finally, the sixth and highest floor of the museum was the Grand Seiko Museum, a mini-museum inside the main museum. As you were probably able to guess by the name, this floor was dedicated specifically to showcasing Grand Seiko, the luxury brand under Seiko. Seiko is often known for its practicality, functionality, and reliability; Grand Seiko focuses more on hand-crafted artisanship, elegance, and proprietary movement mechanisms.

I’m not much of a watch enthusiast, and I know very little about watches, so it was an enlightening learning experience to check out the Seiko Museum. It took me right around an hour and a half to get through everything, and that’s with me reading a majority of the text that was written in English, as well as taking a short break to have a quick chat with some fellow English-speaking tourists.

If you’re in Ginza and have a bit of free time, I think the Seiko Museum is very much worth the visit. Even if you’re not a watch enthusiast, you can spend a quick half hour just looking at things and still have it be an insightful and educating experience.

 
I know people who collect luxury watches and like to make a statement with their collection, but all the watches I own are simply ones that have some kind of significance or meaning to me, or have just piqued my curiosity and interest.

I’ve been told by my blog’s readers that they like learning about me, so for the sake of sharing something about myself that I otherwise don’t really foresee having relevant context in which to disclose in the future, I figured this is a decent opportunity to reveal what my personal watch collection consists of… if you can even call it a collection:

• Fitbit Blaze. This was one of my first fitness trackers, which I purchased prior to Google’s acquisition of Fitbit. I usually give away my used electronics to friends and family members for whom my old devices would be an upgrade, but I never ended up finding someone who wanted a Fitbit Blaze, so I just kept it in my watch case.

• Google Pixel Watch. After a few years, my Fitbit Blaze’s battery wasn’t able to retain much of a charge and it wouldn’t last even half a day. For a while, I just dealt with it by only using it when I was going on hikes, but eventually, I upgraded to a Pixel Watch so that I could continue getting fitness tracking all day. Unfortunately, the Google Pixel Watch also had a bit of a battery issue where it would only last one day on a full charge, so I upgraded to the Google Pixel Watch 3, and then recently, the Google Pixel Watch 4 for the extra health tracking technology.

• Luminox Bear Grylls Survival XB.3749. If I was a watch, I would probably be this watch—well-prepared, well-planned, and well-stocked with all the resources needed to tackle any situation, but chaotic and adventurous enough to get myself into wild situations in which I would actually need to use a survival tool.

• Diesel Mr. Daddy 2.0 DZ7313. One of the main reasons I have historically been uninterested in watches is because I always use fitness-tracking watches, so I would always wear those instead of a regular watch. Then, one of my friends introduced me to the idea of wearing a regular watch on my left wrist and my fitness tracker on my right wrist. That seemed like just quite enough of a goofy idea that I was on board. I’m the type of person to wear a skinny tie and quilted leather biker jacket to formal events where everyone else wears a normal suit; in those scenarios, I think this black leather watch with silver hardware fits very well with my outfit.

• Casio DBC-32-1A Multi-Lingual Data Bank. When I was in elementary school, I wore a digital Casio watch. I remember this not because I remember checking the time frequently or anything, but because I remember having a watch-shaped tan line on my left wrist all the time. I don’t remember exactly what model of Casio watch I used to wear back then, but as a throwback to my youth, I bought the nerdiest-looking watch I could find that basically looks like an entire calculator integrated into a wristwatch.

• Seiko Coutura SNE506. This is another “throwback” watch similar to the Casio one above. I don’t remember doing this, but apparently, one of the very first major presents that I had gifted to my dad was a Seiko watch. Again, I don’t remember exactly what model it was, but I figured this was close enough to act as a keepsake for the nostalgia. Side note, my parents were a victim of burglary, and the watch I allegedly gifted him was part of the thieves’ loot, so my dad doesn’t have it anymore.

• Victorinox I.N.O.X. Chrono and Victorinox Journey 1884. I like the Victorinox brand—it is the maker of the original Swiss army knife, and they’re often synonymous with utility and practicality, which I think aligns with my personality pretty well. I already own two of their luggages, and now I also have two of their watches. I use my Victorinox luggage for road trips a lot now, but … I haven’t quite started wearing these Victorinox watches yet. Maybe someday.

• Timex UFC Pro World Champion Edition and Timex UFC Beast. These are both limited-edition watches that I got because I’m a fan of UFC and I thought these watches were wild and absurd. This is definitely more of a fun purchase than a serious investment, but maybe they will eventually appreciate in price someday.

I imagine anyone who knows even a little bit about watches will look at this senseless mumbo-jumbo of a watch collection and be incredibly confused, but there is the latest drop of Adam Parkzer lore.