Back to analogue

I've bought a new watch, and after about twenty years of digital watches (Casio F-91W and variants all the way) i have returned to analogue timepieces. A Swatch to be exact. In the late 1990s i did go through a phase of wearing Swatches but then when i was on holiday in Indonesia in 1999 i had cause to need to go to digital...

The hotel room in Malang i had was a bit strange. The window looked out on a sheer concrete wall, the window was locked i could not see the sky. The wall was also well lit when i arrived in the daytime. So on my first night there, and jet lagged of course, i went to sleep and woke up at 3. But was it 3am or 3pm? It could have been either, i thought maybe it was 3am but i honestly couldn't tell by looking at that wall, it looked exactly the same as it had earlier!

It was 3am but i decided then i needed a digital watch with 24 hour time display so i would not have this problem again. Now nearly twenty years later and with my current Casio watch showing its age (it was going orange) i decided it was time to get a new one... and return to Swatch. With mobile phones now there is no need to worry about the exact time so your watch can be more decorative. I chose the Tetris Swatch. I used to have the Space Invader one which lit up all green, i wished i still had that one too!

When i ran up a volcano

I recently found a couple of old photographs from my visit to Mount Bromo, an active volcano in East Java. I went there in 1999 back in my late 20s when i did a lot of travelling to Asia. The photos were taken with my PRAKTICA SLR camera, 35mm film of course. Back then when you took a photo you had no idea if it would turn out or not for days, weeks even months later when you got your photos developed! I do prefer the digital days to be honest.

I always remember approaching the volcano at dawn. There was a thick mist over the ash plain around the volcano cone and then a group of riders appeared out of the gloom. It was like being in a post-apocalypse movie! Later that day i actually ran up the cone of the volcano to the lip. I was a lot fitter in those days obviously.