Vintage Seiko Chariot 2220-0180

I had been looking for a nice Seiko Chariot after the first acquisition wasn't as nice aesthetically as I wanted my watches to be. I mean I don't mind scratches and patina, even wear or corrosion. That earlier acquisition though looked "dirty" and unkempt rather than aged. And so I chanced upon this elegant piece with the linen dial from one of my suki in Japan. It helped again that few seemed to fancy this model so I got it again for relatively cheap even considering the shipping cost via EMS.

The watch features a linen-textured dial with no day or date complications. There is also no second hand for this watch.

Side view showing the crown, which is unsigned.

The other side view showing the blemishes on the dial

The case back shows the model number and the serial number. The serial number indicates that this watch was manufactured in March 1978.

Close-up of the textured dial - this is a linen texture

Wrist shot the first time I used the watch

The watch is powered by a Cal. 2220 movement that runs at 28,800 beats per hour (hi-beat). The movement is said to have been originally made for women's watches due to its size but eventually found its way to slim men's watches. I have not opened the watch to see the movement in action but this is definitely one of those Seiko models that seem to be under the radar considering most people would probably be collecting the GS, KS, chronographs, divers and others that can tend to be overpriced.

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Bento box by Yabu

I miss eating out at our favorite restaurants. Lunch at the office is either a packed meal or delivered food via Grab (we haven't tried Lala Food or Panda for our lunch orders yet). Scrolling my Grab Food selections, I tried to remember what restaurants were located at the UP Town Center. Suddenly remembering that there was a Yabu there, I quickly browsed their menu and decided to order a bento (lunchbox) from them. Yabu, of course, is the very popular Japanese restaurant chain that specializes in katsu or breaded cutlets, mainly pork. I have not eaten there for quite some time (maybe over a year?) so I was a bit excited about their bento box.

The set included a serving of hire katsu (breaded lean pork cutlet), rice, shredded cabbage and miso shiru (soup). The salad dressing was roasted sesame.

Close-up of the katsu set

The soup came in a sealed thick plastic pack and was delivered warm

I was very pleased with this lunch and wondered why I didn't think about this before. Perhaps I just didn't assume that Yabu made the adjustments post-ECQ and made this bento box for their customers to be able to continue enjoying really good bento (lunchboxes)? I will certainly try other lunchboxes in the future.

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The Empress Dimsum Platter

The wife was one of 8 winners in a raffle their office held during one of their meeting a couple of weeks ago. The prizes for the winners were dimsum platters from their company's popular Chinese restaurant at Bonifacio Global City (BGC). However, they platters had to be delivered and at first, the wife was going to give away her platter as we lived out of Metro Manila and typical establishments from BGC would not deliver to our location, which was more than 15 kilometers away. Her office insisted though and said it won't be a problem. And so we got the dimsum platter late afternoon last Sunday and we're glad she didn't pass up the prize.

The Empress Dimsum platter

Hakao or shrimp dumplings are among our favorites

Vegetable dimsum and seafood siomai with fish egg toppings

Pork siomai and vegetable dimsum

Pork rolls

The dimsum was excellent and the quantity generous. We thought that if it weren't for the pandemic, we would be going to The Empress quite often or perhaps take out this and other items on their menu (they also have our favorite xiao long bao). We'll have to wait then and for now maybe find a way to have another or two platters delivered to our home. :)

Happy Sunday!

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Seiko 5 Sports Speedtimer 7015-8000

This is a popular variant of Seiko 5 Sports. It is their Speed Timer line, which are chronographs. I have many chronographs including my favorite Seiko, Baume and Omega chronos but these vintage chronographs are hard to resist.

The watch has day and date features. The day feature is in English or Kanji.

Side view showing the crown and timer buttons. The quick sets work well with the date set with the first pull of the crown and the day setting changed when the crown is pushed towards the case after returning it to the initial position. The timer hand resets to zero.

The other side view

The case back shows the model and the serial number. The serial number indicates this watch to have been manufactured in October 1972 - by birth year.

Close-up of the dial showing the correct dial/model number at the bottom. Note that for many Seiko watches, the dial number may be different from the model number (the one usually at the case back) due to the many variants that came out with certain mode watches (e.g., international releases may have different dial numbers with their JDM counterparts though they may have the same model number inidcated on the case back).

 

 

This watch is powered by a Cal. 7015 movement that runs at 21,600 A/h with a potential reserve of 43 hours when used regularly. The watch came with the original bracelet and was just right for my wrist. As with my other watches that have a kanji day feature, I use that to indicate the days of the week. The photo above shows the Japanese kanji for Tuesday - Kayobi.

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Atis in season!

 My favorite fruit will always be the Atis or sweetsop. I have enjoyed the fruits the past 3 weeks as apparently they are in season now. I seem to recall that these fruits were usually in season during the dry months of April and May (summer as we refer to these months in the Philippines) but somehow the seasonality of many fruits seem to have moved. Perhaps this is due to climate change?

Box of atis delivered to my suking fruit vendor last week. She allowed me to have the first picks from the box and I got the largest fruits. I usually go to the market early and have that sort of luxury of getting our fruits and vegetables from our suking vendors before the larger crowds come in to shop.

A close second would be the kaimito or star apple but others like bananas, mangoes, kiwi and canteloupe melon will not be far behind. I got more atis this morning at the market and I'm glad I can still enjoy this fruit. We actually have a couple of trees at home. They are located at the back corners of our lot. They haven't been prolific though and what few fruits have been infested by ants and aphids so we were not able to enjoy these as much as the mangoes from our tree that yielded a generous harvest last April and May.

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Crocodile sausages at Hero sausages

The wife and I had to go out to get a couple of documents we needed for a case that's been lingering since 2015. It was close to impossible to park our vehicle near the government offices where we had to get the docs so we decided to park at the big hardware store nearby and take a trike to the offices. Actually, I dropped off the wife at one of the offices and parked and took the trike. 

After securing the documents, we took one trike each to the hardware store and went in to get a few items for our home. After getting our stuff, we saw this sausage stand at the ground floor and decided to get a couple of sandwiches to take home. As their specialty was crocodile meat sausages, we got a couple of their Croc Dundees instead of Hungarians as we originally planned.

Nice tagline for Hero sausages. They seem to serve not only sausages but burgers and silog meals as well.

The stand at the ground floor of Wilcon Depot along the Circumferential Road in Antipolo City follows the health protocols set for the pandemic.

They have a pretty good menu for a sausage stand

I was not able to take photos of the Croc Dundee sandwiches. The wife ate here as we drove home (I was driving) while I quickly wolfed mine when we got home. I thought they were a bit on the spicy side and our daughter agreed as she took a bit into my sandwich and passed on the experience of eating a crocodile meat sausage. She is not a fan of spicy food like I am. :) I assume that the spiciness was sort of an attempt to cloak the real taste of the meat? Or perhaps to make it taste like the usual sausages people eat (Hungarians, kielbasas, bockwurst, etc.). I'll probably try one again the next time I'm at this branch of Wilcon.

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Kewpie salad dressings

In order to enhance the taste of our salads, I decided to get a few bottles of Kewpie dressing. I first encountered these when I first traveled to Japan in the 1990s. My friends introduced me to the different dressings I could buy in the supermarket so I can make salads at my home at the International Center of the university hosting me. At restaurants, they also had these dressings for the usual salad side dishes served with your main order. Since we planted lettuce and other greens during the lock-down, we've been reaping the benefits of the decision to do some "home farming" and now have the greens for daily consumption, which is good for our health. The dressings help to have different tastes for our salads. Hindi ka masusuya o magsasawa.

Among our favorites is this Roasted Sesame dressing that we also enjoy pouring over our shredded cabbage that comes as a side dish to katsu, karaage and other Japanese dishes we order at restaurants.

Their Caesar salad dressing is okay but I am not a fan of this dressing as it still tastes like mayo to me.

There are two other variants of the dressing that I am aware of including a vinaigrette that I prefer over the Roasted Sesame as it is lighter on the salads. Here is a shot of the bottles at the imported goods section of the supermarket.

Kewpie salad dressings among other condiments on the supermarket shelf

I remember taking a photo of the vinaigrette and will post that soon. Perhaps I will take a photo of a salad with the dressings on them?

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The Tipulo tree and others around our village

Our morning walk permits us to see a lot of the flora in our village. The diversity is quite impressive to us considering that we live in a subdivision. Yet, unlike others, ours have a lot of open spaces and lots that have been 'reclaimed' by nature. The result is a diversity not only of plants and trees but animals and insects as well. Here are a couple of species along our walking route.

Lipstick tree (Scientific name- Bixa orellana) is a shrub native to northern South America and Mexico. There's a big one at the corner of our main street and the main access road to the a big part of our village on the Taytay side.

The Tipulo tree from which our city's name was supposed to have been derived. My plant app identifes this as Breadfruit (Scientific name: Artocarpus altilis); belonging to the mulberry and jackfruit family.

There are many large Tipulo trees in our village but there are two or three standouts we've seen along our walking route. I say standout from the size of the tree as well as its form. These were probably growing in those lots and the residents decided against cutting the trees as they build their houses.

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Vintage 1965 Kienzle watch

 I have this 1965 Kienzle that I got from Germany. It's a nice, simple watch with a black dial. I like the sub-dial that gives it its vintage look. It is a vintage watch considering it is 55 years old.

The watch features a second sub-dial and Hindu-Arabic hour markers

Side view showing the worn crown

The other side view

Case back

Close-up of the dial showing the watch to be Made in Germany. There's also a statement there of it being anti-magnetic. The lumes are also shown on the watch hands.

Kienzle Cal. 051a53 that runs at 18,000 A/h with a storage of 34h. The movement actually dates to 1960 and you can check out this link for details: http://www.ranfft.de/cgi-bin/bidfun-db.cgi?10&ranfft&a&2uswk&Kienzle_051a53

The watch on a grey nato strap

Wrist shot

This is a relatively small watch; measuring 32mm wide excluding the crown. It came with a stretchable strap that I decided to remove and replace with a variety of nato straps instead. The 18mm lugs also allow me to use 20mm straps for this watch.

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Vintage Rodania Data Sport Aquaseal 333

I wrote about an old Rodania watch that I still have. It is among the most reliable of my vintage watches. I recently acquired another one and this one's in even better condition with a navy blue dial and a date complication. It is said that Rodania's are popular in the Netherlands and I brought my other Rodania when I was there a few years ago. Unfortunately, I couldn't pick up another vintage watch during that trip.

Navy blue dial showing the date feature of the watch

Side view showing the signed crown

The other side view

Case back bearing a serial number, and model name

Close-up of the dial showing the watch in very good condition

I have not had the chance to open the watch to see the movement for myself. This photo came from the seller as I requested for one to see the movement. It is not a signed movement, which is more desirable. But it is a Swiss movement, which is not so uncommon for these watches. I have yet to determine the caliber of the movement to learn more about its specs.

Wrist shot during the first time I wore the watch

I think this is supposed to be my watch of the month of September as I rotated it with my usual choices for the week. The power reserve is good and I estimate this to be more than 40 hours when fully wound. For October, I think I will park it for a while.

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