My third broken bicycle

Well it has been way to long since I have put a post up. Not much to say just a little thing called life and a PhD have been keeping me busy.

The good news is that yes I have finished my PhD work. The only thing left is to print out a bunch of copies of the thesis and get it bound. In another month or so I will be officially finished.

The primary reason for this post today, other than to say that yes I am still alive, I to talk about my bicycle. In a previous post I mentioned that I had bought a used bicycle from a friend who was leaving Japan. The bicycle was a nice big Trek bicycle that fit me. I was happy to have it because it made it easier and more enjoyable to go out for rides. See the previous post.

Over the past week or two I could here a new "creek" in the bicycle but I was not sure where it was from. On Wednesday I was on it again and the entire bicycle felt wobbly but the "creek" was gone. Looking over the bike and frame I found this where the center tube meets the down tube and the cranks for the pedals.


To say the least that is very bad and unsafe to ride on. I am going to see if I can get the frame replaced by Trek.

The other funny part about this story is that this is the third bike that I have "killed" while in Japan. The first was my eight year old mountain bike whose frame broke a few months after arriving in Japan.


The second was standard Japan bike that I showed in the previous post. That bike I was definitely too big for and probably too heavy for. That one died due to the spokes on one of the tires breaking and it was not worth fixing after only 21 months of riding.

My last bike only lasted one year. The next bike I get will be lucky to last 6 months.

Anyways here is a couple of pictures that I took while bicycling to the sea.

The touring day of Singapore.

So the group of us spent a day touring around some of the more famous spots around Singapore. I was sad that we could only spend one day but such is life.

The first up on that tour day was a trip to an island that had formerly been a gun emplacement for the British when Singapore was a colony. On this island there was a bunch of the standard tourist traps but there was also a bunch of good scenery.



This is the merlion, what I call the mascot of Singapore.

Then we went down to the beach and out onto a smaller island which according to the sign is the furthest southern point on the Asian continent. Which also makes it the furthest south that I have traveled (Surpassing Shreveport Louisiana).





While walking along the beach we found a coconut that had fallen from the tree. Some how I got the idea to break it open, whether it was someone else who suggested it or not I can't remember. So here is some of the pictures of me doing that and the results.




It would have probably been better to use a sharp machete but all I had was the corner of a concrete block embedded in the ground.

After this we took a gondola ride back to Singapore and then up to a mountain. Here are various shots of the harbor from inside the gondola. Mind you some of these pictures were taken through the plexi-glass of the gondola so the quality might not be that good.





For the last part of the trip we went to a botanical garden that had a dedicate orchid garden. So I used up a bunch of pictures on that. Here are some of the highlights.












Finally that night we went to little India for dinner. Here is a picture of dinner. mmmmm... mutton.



As always there many more pictures on flickr. For starters looks under Singapore.