I’ve been a designer and carpenter for 40+ years and have constructed or remodeled just about everything from chicken houses to restaurants. For me, the challenge of building is figuring out how to create something in an efficient, practical way, while making it esthetically pleasing. This blog will highlight a lot of techniques and/or designs that I have come up with or observed over the years.

The photo above is me working on my 80 foot long suspension bridge. I created a “cable locking system” for this design (U.S. Patent No. 7,866,909), and I published a book:

Building a Small Cable Suspension Bridge With the Cable Locking System: http://www.wildcatman.com.

Thanks for stopping by! I’ll be posting more soon.

How

Why: Old Street and lots of good food

I got to Daxi and stopped in front of the old street.  The bus will go through a gate and next to the gate is the old street.  The gate is technically a sky bridge.

和平老街

Daxi is actually the earliest developed area in Taoyuan thanks to the creek that connects the area to Danshui.

The ‘Peace’ old street 和平老街 looks like a lot of other “old streets” (i.e. Sanxia) , as its architecture derives from the Japanese era.  In terms of food, it is famous for dried bean curds.  There are some very popular restaurants including 百年油飯 (a place that has been selling a form of sticky rice and sausages for 4 generations addy:  No. 17號, Mínquán Rd), 江家花生糖 (a hundred year old peanut candy shop Addy: No. 186號, Zhōngyāng Rd,), and 賴媽媽豆花 (桃園縣大溪鎮登龍路22號).  It is so because the line up was was very very long, I only lined up for the stick rice and that was more than 15 minutes (very good tho, love the sausage).  Foreigners are often baffled by the line ups but it’s the idea that if the line up is long, it must be good, and “we can’t miss out”.

月眉古道

The old street also has a small historical pathway called YueWeiGuDao 月眉古道, which links YueWei area to the old street and is more than 140 years old.  It was built by the Lee Family who wanted a more convenient way to get to the old street from their house.  The entire route is about 5 minutes long … but its quite interesting because it goes from the bustling commercial district straight to the quiet farm land.  The entrance is between No. 38-40 on the old street 和平路… it’s small and easy to miss.

The end of the old street is the park, 中正公園, a grassy area with a play area for kids, as well as restaurant and a former outdoor sumo ring.  The end of the park sits an artists village, which was once a small building that held political meetings 大溪公會堂.  Next to it is the 蔣公記念堂, a memorial for Chiang Kai Shek and was once one of his  many living quarters.  However, it seems like it just has a restaurant with a little souvenir stores that sells goods related to Taiwan and the former president.

daxi bridge

The park also has an entrance to the Daxi Bridge.  The bridge is a pedestrian bridge that has been reinforced and rebuilt numerous times since Qing Dynasty.  The other side is a parking lot but the bridge has at least 3 street performers including an elderly man who plays music with just a leaf.

The final stop was a second and much smaller old street of 中山老街 Zhongshan old street.  A smaller version of the 和平老街, similar in architecture but much of it is abandoned; some of the homes only have a front and peering beyond its broken windows is a field of wild grass.

the other old street

A bit down is the Daxi Bus Station, I didn’t realize it before but there are buses leaving Daxi to not only Zhongli and Taoyuan but to Pinglin, Yingge, and Taipei (but to go to Taipei from there will costs at least 120NT .. the cheapest based on price and distance is to go Taoyuan at 49NT.  Bus comes about 20 minutes and the most frequent bus is to Zhongli.

There are lots of cheap eats around Daxi Bus Station and there is a cake shop  I found called “杏芳食品” that has delicious frozen cakes and cupcakes … Addy: 桃園縣大溪鎮中央路127號.

After four days in Taipei area, I packed and got ready for my first trip to Yilan County!

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The LONG runs have officially started!

Welcome to post 1 of 6, where I plan to document how the training is going/not going, detail the various locations I visit over the coming weekends and rate the run routes (and run buddies) I have chosen….

I shall try and keep them short and sweet, highlighting only the salient moments (although I shall probably fail) because, let’s be honest, essentially it’s just going to be a hell of a lot of pavement pounding, and who wants to read about that? It’s repetitive enough doing it!

So, Saturday 23^rd February arrives and having risen unsociably early (for the weekend) and driven the 100 odd miles from London to Bristol for a prompt 10am start, I am met at the door by my run buddy, who positively reeks of booze. Eyes bloodshot, unstable on his feet and almost inaudible I gather that he is just out for some pain killers and will be ready to run shortly.

My first thought – GREAT! I now have a chance of keeping up! One man’s pain is another girl’s gain and all that…

A few hours later, having consumed the best part of a family sized pack of Haribo, a coffee, two teas and a couple pints of water (and that was just me), we set off to RUN BRISTOL.

Bristol, if you’re not familiar, is notoriously hilly. I’m not talking long, slow inclines like Battersea Rise or Putney high street, I’m talking steep, proper steep, windy roads, that rise out of nowhere and then drop away again, as if the whole city was built on a particularly active fault line, just minus the earthquakes.

My friend’s new flat, our starting point, is situated just off the top of Granby Hill – I’ll leave you to guess the terrain. Due to its elevated position, setting off was relatively easy (but you can bet it was heart-attack-inducing on the return).

That aside, the route I had chosen for us was to run (along the Portway out to Avonmouth and back), was all rather flat. It does however mean running 6 miles in a straight line in one direction and then turning around and running the same route back. My run buddy, who lives in Newcastle, has promised me a run route that takes in woodland, beaches and more, when I go to visit at the end of March, by which point we should be on 20 miles + – EEEEEEEK!!!!!

So anyway, we ran, we talked. I only stopped twice to wee in some field (that’s quite a triumph, for me). Severely hungover run buddy didn’t puke (#winning). We didn’t get mugged or ever fear that was even a possibility. It snowed a bit. We ran along side the Avon Gorge and under the Clifton Suspension Bridge… being both a thing of architectural beauty and a suicide hot spot I’m not sure whether to rate that particular aspect of the run positively or not?

The highlight of the run though was most definitely having a run buddy. Oh and a medically trained one at that! I certainly felt reassured running with Dr Dave because I don’t think the idea of me collapsing and possibly dying is that far-fetched. The slightest incline and I cannot breathe. Not to mention my knees, which from around mile 7, feel like they are just going to give in at any given second.

One major bonus of having a run buddy of course is that you can talk whilst running and this greatly helps to pass the time, not to mention motivating. The majority of our conversations were centred around the food we were going to reward ourselves with upon our return.

We had it all planned out to the point of salivating as we made our way back up the killer Granby Hill. We wanted chicken, a whole (half in my case) roast chicken. We wanted mash and lashings of gravy (run buddy is Northern – can you tell?!). Followed by a warm, chocolate gateaux, ideally oozing chocolate ganache and served with vanilla ice cream.

We decided, whilst running, to forego a shower on our return and instead prioritse the devouring of our dream meal.

Sadly, despite our best efforts, Bristol failed us.

We visited the Avon Gorge Hotel (yes, in our running attire) where I think it is reasonable to expect a roast to be on the menu. It was not. Luckily they had pies on the menu that were served with both mash and gravy. These pies were being promoted all around the restaurant. We decided to cut our chicken losses and go for these instead. They had none left. In the end, run buddy went for a burger and I for the chilli con carne. Neither involved any chicken, mash or gravy. We were greatly disappointed. We consoled ourselves by whole-heartedly believing the saving grace of the place was surely going to be the dessert menu. WHAT DECENT RESTAURANT DOESN’T HAVE CHOCOLATE GATEAUX ON THEIR DESSERT MENU?

Guesss what? The Avon Gorge doesn’t! Coffee cake or Lemon cake. Eurgh. We left without pudding, feeling greatly unrewarded.

So, Runners! To summarise, Bristol scores highly for safety, unexpectedly for flatness, medium high for available-places-to-wee-without-being-spotted/arrested, score for sights is variable and dependent on one’s frame of mind but when it comes to post-run reward meal – it failed, dismally.

Up Next…

14 miles to be run next week in Birmingham. – F.U.N.

Tree Trunk Stepping Stones

A Giant Ant

The Tree Top Bridge

View to one side

… and the other side

Clouded Monitor Lizard which jumped off a tree next to me!

Pretty ferns along the stream

Male monkey which charged at my husband when we tried to pass – scary!

There were a lot of hills and steps on this walk, surprisingly I’m not aching as I write this, maybe I’m fitter than I think!  I was a bit wobbly on the actual bridge though, I’m not good with heights and clung on to the side whenever I looked down.  A great two hour walk with lots of interesting things to see.

Happy Walking!

Anchors: Anchors are what are situated at each end of the suspension bridge. They are what suspend the cables up towards the tower, and undergo tension from the cables. They are made out of several hundred feet of concrete. Concrete is strong and durable, so strong that they can withstand earthquakes and natural disasters, and do not get affected by moisture etc. It is cheap, affordable and is made all around the world and is local to you. It’s important to be friendly to the environment when building. A famous monument made out of concrete is the Standard Insurance Centre, Oregon USA, 1968 – it is made out of reinforced concrete and it the tallest of them in the world.

Cables: If it wasn’t for the huge cables to suspend the bridge, the bridge would sag. They undergo a lot of tension and compressive forces, and for this they need to be extremely strong. The material used in these cables is steel, it is an alloy of iron, manganese and tungsten, which make it extremely strong, durable and hard. Also tungsten gives it a rather high boiling point too. Steel is also ductile, which means that it can be made into different shapes and made into wires. In fact, the cables are made up of hundreds of many steel cables, that are bound together to create one huge cable.

Towers: The towers are yet another important component of a suspension bridge. They help keep the cables suspended, and convert the heaviness from the cables into pressure that forces the towers into the ground. They can be made out of iron/steel just like the cables or sometimes stone. For example the Clifton Suspension Bridge towers are made out of Pennant Stone. It is originated from England, Bristol and Wales, and is hard and heavy. It has aesthetic properties as it can be smoothed down to look nice, and has nice colouring. It is resistant to fire and weather and has been used for many centuries.

http://www.wbcsdcement.org/index.php/key-issues/sustainability-with-concrete/properties-of-concrete

http://www.cliftonbridge.org.uk/faqs/what_materials

http://www.ehow.com/info_12018665_materials-need-build-model-bridge-suspension.html

http://www.bluescopesteel.com/go/about-bluescope-steel/student-information/properties-of-steel/properties-of-steel

http://www.schoolsliaison.org.uk/kids/aston/science/materials/stone_prop.htm

This suspension bridge is 80 feet above the rocky bottom of Tallulah Gorge in Rabun County in Northeast Georgia.  The gorge is one of the most spectacular canyons in the southeastern United States and is 1,000 feet deep and two miles long.  Carved by the Tallulah River, the gorge features a series of six waterfalls, known collectively as Tallulah Falls.  There are several Cherokee legends associated with the gorge and the falls, including the legend that the gorge was inhabited by a race of little people who lived in the rock crevices and caves under the falls.

John A. Roebling and Son of New York designed the 475-foot structure, one of the longest suspension bridges in the world at that time.  Waco’s bridge served as the prototype for Roebling’s much-longer Brooklyn Bridge completed in 1883.

The fledgling Waco company ran into problems from the beginning.  Work started in the fall of 1868 with costs, originally estimated at $40,000, growing to $140,000 as the investors continued to issue new stock offerings.  The nearest railroad stopped at Millican, over 100 miles away, which meant that coils of wire and cable, steel trusses, and custom-made bolts and nuts had to be hauled to Waco by ox wagon over rutted, sandy roads.  The contractor floated cedar trees down the Brazos for shoring up the foundation in the unstable riverbed.  Local businesses made the woodwork and the bricks.

The bridge opened to traffic in January 1870 with tolls of ten cents for each animal and rider; loose animals and foot passengers crossed for five cents each; and sheep, hogs, or goats crossed for three cents each.  It was not long until residents on the far side of the river began complaining about the tolls.  Businessmen who used the facility joined them in their protests.

Landowners along the river began allowing cattlemen, travelers, and local citizens to cut across their property to reach the fords on the river.  The uproar increased for the next nineteen years, until September 1889, when the Waco Bridge Company sold the structure to McLennan County for $75,000 and the county gave the bridge to the city.

Vehicles continued using the bridge, without paying a toll, until 1971 when it was converted to a pedestrian crossing.  Today lovely, shaded parkland edges both sides of the river and the bridge enjoys a listing on the National Register of Historic Places and designation by a Texas Historical marker.  

Some hdr shots taken down by the Create Centre in Bristol yesterday afternoon along the side of the New Cut; the river which was dug out by hand in 1809 to create the floating harbour in the centre of Bristol.

It was said that the main engineer involved fell ill during the three year period of construction, and only visited the bridge three times. The engineer was one of the most respected, called Theodore Cooper; and before any building began, he lengthened the bridge from 1600ft to 1800ft; he also made modifications which also changed the stresses and Young’s Modulus throughout the bridge – and all of these things were altered without even testing and validating it first. So really the fault here is down to the engineers, and sufficient checks should be carried out through construction anyway. 74 people were killed in this accident.

Quebec Bridge Collapse 1907

The second collapse was quite different from the previous; yes it is the same bridge however it happened in 1916 when it was being reconstructed. The design was completely recalculated but even more extravagant. However when they were raising the central span into its position, meanwhile it fell into the water and took 13 builders along with it. Accidents can happen and unfortunately this one was tragic.

Quebec Bridge 1916

This bridge was to allow commuters to travel across the Saint Lawrence River, it included a pedestrian pathway, three lanes of motor way and a streetcar line. In the third attempt to construct the bridge, everything went to plan, and the bridge opened in August 1919. This is what the bridge looks like now:

Quebec Bridge Recent

Here is a tragic example of a manufacturing defect that caused the collapse of the Silver Bridge over the Ohio River in 1967. The bridge connected Point Pleasant in West Virginia and Kanauga in Ohio; the 15th December around 5 pm a sudden, boisterous cracking sound was heard due to a main tower falling and twisting, taking down three spans of the bridge and all of the vehicles with it. In total, 46 people died, and many others were left injured; especially at a time around Christmas, just like the tragic shooting in Newtown 2012, is a time dedicated for family and must have been a hard time for those families of those deceased.

The Silver Bridge was of an eye bar Suspension bridge design. It is suited to be cost effective, lightweight and had been built successfully before in the USA and Brasil. It was said that the eye in the eye bar had fractured, which meant that it could not carry its designated load of weight. Especially as it was rush hour, and there was traffic on the bridge, many vehicles were weighing the bridge down at the time. Due to this overload and increasing pressure on the structure, the eye split. This isn’t the fault of the engineers and construction workers; at the time they would have had no idea that the eye bar was faulty, it just happened rupture under excessive weight. There are two fractures on the eye:

Eye Fracture in Eyebar

Some would say that the straight fracture may have been the manufacturing defect as the brittle one was said to be caused by the overload of weight. But sometimes you cannot see the manufacturing defect until it’s under any force and pressure. This defect caused the eye to be weaker than it should have been, which produced the other brittle fracture. You can see that the eye bar hadn’t been tampered with; there were no signs of stretching, or deformation before the eye bar was used in construction. When the eye bar became faulty and fractured, the pin fell out of it completely unattaching the suspension chain; then the opposite tower became unbalanced and it twisted and fell down, creating a domino effect, taking down the East Tower and West Tower. When the towers fell, the decks folded on top of the vehicles, causing multiple deaths and casualties. If there is an imbalance in the bridge, if there is a missing link, r ingredient, then the bridge is only as strong as its weakest point.

Eyebar Suspension Bridge Design

Before bridges are even built, they are ill-fated before they have even been portrayed on the blueprint. Sometimes, even when construction and materials are just fine, the design is just not going to keep the bridge from falling down. There was a tragic collapse in Kansas City Hyatt Regency hotel, in Kansas City in 1978; what happened was that the second and fourth floor walkways collapsed killing 114 people who were gathered in the atrium for a dance contest.

Before the hotel was even open, the roof of the Atrium fell, and not only did the design of the roof have to be completely re-thought, they had to do a thorough safety check, and it was assured by the G.C.E that all the steel connections in the atrium had been safety checked. When everything had been built and reconstructed, the walkway designs had also been altered. The fourth floor walkway was said to endure up to 90 kN of weight, however, but the completion of the project, it had to undertake 181 kN of weight, which was more than double its originally appointed weight. The BOX BEAMS were welded horizontally meaning that they weren’t actually supporting the weight. Eventually the walkway came crashing down onto the second floor walkway and then onto the dance competition.

If the design had been thought through thoroughly, this could have been prevented. 114 people were killed and many more were injured. For a lot of the people there it really was their last dance. Before considering a blueprint, it has to be tested and checked intensely for any places that it could go wrong. The whole project of the walkways were doomed the minute they decided to build that blueprint, this is such a tragic story.

kansas city hyatt regency hotel walkway collapse

Another example is of poor maintenance. It’s all well said and done when the projects construction went well and the bridge is standing, however after a while the bridge needs to be maintained to ensure that all of the materials are in top shape and in the right condition. Many factors can change a material. Metal can rust due to weather conditions for example and this is highly important in the case I am going to study.

In 1983 the Mianus River Bridge in Connecticut USA collapsed due to poor maintenance one day in June. The deck fell into the water as the pin and hammer technique used to keep the deck standing had failed. Little did they know that the pins made out of iron had been damaged due to rust, and rust expands a material as its structure and mass is a lot bigger than that of iron. When the pin and hammer expanded it pushed the other components away making it unstable. This would increase the pressure in all the other pin and hammers used throughout the decking. As each pin started to fail, the deck grew weaker. Rust is the oxidization of iron, and it makes the metal weaker and also less conductive.

When one side became completely unstable and detached, it increased the pressure on the other sides, which at the time were probably rusting too. Eventually due to the vehicle traffic and ongoing pressure from cars and vans, the deck fell into the river killing three people and injuring others. If the bridge had been maintained and checked, which is what is usually carried out to most other bridges, this could have been prevented by a retrofitting or replacement pin and hammer.

Once this happened the whole decking had to be re-mastered and instead of using pin and hammer technique, the engineers decided to use and ‘gusset plate’. These are solid sheets of steel that are used to connect girder and beams to truss members and columns. Steel can be subjective to rust, but it is more visible to the eye using a gusset plate, and also the engineering team have learned from their mistake; not to neglect their bridges.

Mianus River Bridge Collapse

So a bridge can fail before, during or after it has actually been made; no matter what during the construction of a bridge, there is always reason to check and revise when building, and it’s critical to assure that all measure have been taken to assure to the people using the bridge that its safe.

http://museum.nist.gov/exhibits/silverbridge/index.htm

http://science.howstuffworks.com/engineering/structural/10-reasons-why-bridges-collapse.htm#page=8

http://antoine.frostburg.edu/phys/invention/case_studies/disasters/kansas_city_walkway.html

The Golden Gate Bridge is one of most recognized symbols of San Francisco, California. It is 11^th longest suspension bridge in the world which named one of Wonders of the Modern World by the American Society of Civil Engineers.

The Frommer’s travel guide considers the Golden Gate Bridge “possibly the most beautiful, certainly the most photographed bridge in the world”.

Like I’ve mentioned before in a previous post, sometimes the only way you can learn is through trial and error; engineers learned a lot from the Schoharie Creek Bridge Disaster. Back in 1987 in New York, the New York State Thruway Bridge collapsed after a record rainfall, causing the bridge to collapse.

When designing a bridge that would be surrounded by water, you’d consider major factors that can damage the foundations of the piers, for example, a critical issue with bridges and water is scour. It’s the erosion of materials due to water, this being the actual foundations and structure itself, or the pressure from the tides eroding the earth that the piers are built in, making it unstable and weak. It has been said that 60% of bridge failure is due to scour, so it must be an issue that has been around for a long time but hard to resolve.

Also, the angle to which the river is flowing can have a major impact on the piers too; rivers carry rubbish, debris and rock that can slowly pick away and erode the material, especially something like concrete. The materials used for bridges like this is vital and a lot of research has gone into it to prevent this from happening. The type of rock that flows in the river can affect how quickly or if the bridge will even erode. You can see by the picture that the debris and scour created a hole around the foundation pillars, making them unstable and not strong enough. The hole is probably deeper in reality than what it looks like in the picture.

This case happened a while ago, back in January 1987, and due to the lack of understanding about bridges, there was rip-rap rocks surrounding the bottom of the piers to stop erosion and scour. It was a small coating for the piers but it mustn’t have been enough. The piers one by one collapsed, and a few hours later, so did another bridge that was further down the river. Either the two bridges were from a similar construction or the debris and rocks in the river show that this is what caused the scour effect.

In 1889, the Johnstown flood happened and the Conemaugh viaduct collapsed as debris and rubbish collected around the feet of the pillars, and after seven minutes into the flood, the viaduct collapsed due to the pressure. Not only this, but like the previous example, there was probably a hole created by the rubbish which would contain elements of metal, rock and maybe even tree trunks. Eventually it will wear away from the concrete, as it hasn’t had a protective coat applied or re-applied in a while. It’s important to look into the molecular structures of a material to determine how they can be broken down and how strong they are.

http://35wbridge.pbworks.com/w/page/900747/Schoharie%20Creek%20Thruway%20Bridge%20Collapse

http://ma.water.usgs.gov/publications/ofr/scour.htm

http://science.howstuffworks.com/engineering/structural/10-reasons-why-bridges-collapse.htm

http://wikimapia.org/12894024/Conemaugh-Viaduct-Destroyed-Rebuilt-1889

bagua

Second day consists of a lot of time in the car, as we headed south and up the mountains.

The drive took almost 1.5 hours, as my friend carefully navigated the single-winding lane road up mountain to the first attraction 軟鞍八卦茶園, Bagua Tea Garden.  Some of the roads that we passed were really, really winding and the closer we got to the tea garden, the narrower it got.  I would think the roads are prone to landslides too, as they are built right next to the mountain side … there was one road that had rocks fallen onto it (luckily it wasn’t one of the roads we had to travel on).  Car is probably the best way to go but you can take bus 6724 from Zhushan there to but it will only go up to a certain point and a taxi must be called (or you can walk, there were lots of people hiking up to the tea bushes).

Bagua Tea

There are many tea plantations along the road to Bagua Tea Garden but the latter has a part that is planted in a manner that looks like the eight trigrams used in Taoist cosmology.  Some parts are very steep and there are carts on rails within the tea farm that aid farmers to go into those area to pluck and bring back the tea leaves.  In a tea plantation we passed by, tea cultivators need to tie a rope to themselves when venturing down these steep slopes, as a safety measure.

These tea bushes belongs to Hong-Yi Tea Making Factory and there really isn’t much there aside from a parking lot, a restaurant serving tea and a restroom.  It’s a nice place for a picnic, as there is a pavilion and some benches near the parking lot.  The area apparently also have some rare birds, as per a bird watcher who waited with his binoculars and tripod.  (Addy: 南投縣竹山鎮大鞍里竹寮巷12-1號)

the Sky Ladder

The next stop was Tianti 天梯, which is just a short drive away.  There are more visitors here than the tea garden and there is limited spaces for parking so many cars choose to park on the roadside and hope  1) it doesn’t slip off the side and 2) no oncoming cars would smash into it.  Admission for this place is 100NT.  I didn’t read the itinerary set out by my friend and didn’t see the word “tianti” … it means the sky’s stairs and refers to the suspension bridge that first goes a bit vertical before stretching out across Tai Ji canyon太集峽谷.  The estimated distance to go from end to end is 75 minutes and that is just going down these stairs.  Granted, I believe they included ‘photography time’ in those 75 minutes.  I think almost 40% of the people just goes across and that is it.  Others would make their way to other hiking paths and attractions.  Due to time constraint  we couldn’t go to everyone one of them and decided to just go to two, the Qinglong Waterfall 青龍瀑布 and another suspension bridge, Yufu 玉福吊橋.  The former is a waterfall that spills out aqua coloured water.  Some people were playing with in the water while others had a small picnic there. The Yufu bridge is a smaller suspension bridge with metallic towers on both sides.  The end of this bridge is a small restaurant, a washroom, and taxi service to bring you back to the top (500NT per person).  The walk up was unpleasant and I think I was walking too fast.  On the other hand, a middle aged man actually fell sideways in front of me, but he got up and laughed it off.  There is quite a lot of people because it was the weekend …

Returning to the car, my friend drove down the mountain .. and I fell asleep.  When I woke, we were at Zhushan City for lunch.  There is a famous noodle place called MiaoXiang Oyster Noodles 妙香蚵仔麵線.  They are known for their Oyster noodles and stinky tofu.  竹山鎮集山路三段913號

Qinglong Waterfall

The next stop was back to Yuanlin because our wonderful driver …. was late for work! *gulp* On the way back, we got to see the leaning electrical pole at Mingjian, which is a reminder of the earthquake in 1995.

Lastly, I took a train North from Yuanlin to Taichung to take a bus back to Kaohsiung.  I had dinner and dessert in Taichung.  Dessert was at “Meet Fresh”, a restaurant that sells shaved ice with taro balls and pearls (there are other choices like pudding too).  There were a few in Sydney and they sold a bowl for 150NT .. here, it’s only 50NT … ah memories

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The one that stretched over a 200-meter gorge?!

And was strung with prayer flags so the Nepalese people would dare cross it?!

In case you need a refresher:

See the bridge in the distance?  That gorge is pretty deep, huh.

Sure glad we have those prayer flags.

For the record, I crossed this bridge on my first attempt.

Okay, well I spent this past December in New Zealand, where my Dad joined me for a 16-day, >3,000 kilometer road trip.  At one point, we stopped at a teeny-weeny little swing bridge.  And this is what happened:

NZ Swing Bridge Crossing

►

After the tape stopped rolling, things got even funnier.  A guy behind me, who was waiting to get on the bridge,  asked me what was going on.  Of course, I helpfully was like, “Oh sorry, my Dad is just scared of the bridge.  This is his third attempted crossing.  I’m hoping he makes it by Christmas.”

To which my Dad puffs up his chest, looks him straight in the eyeballs, and gruffly — and entirely seriously – snarls at him: ”I was a fighter pilot, okay?!”

Ahahahahahahahhahhahahahhahahahahaha.

I then fell overboard.

Proof that my Dad was a fighter pilot, okay.

Additional proof from Desert Storm.  The blue note on the chalkboard, left by “Carbo” says: “Do not eat any ham slice MRE. No Good.”  Sounds like an important part of the mission brief.

P.S. As I’m writing this post, I mention it to my Dad across the room.  He is now ranting about the consequences if I “skewer [him] as some farcical character in [my] stupid-dog-ass blog.”  Oops.

(St. Johns Resident)

Suspension bridge, kaladan, kolodyne, chhimtuipui

There’s a ferry crossing for vehicles over here.

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It was wet the day I was attacked. The rain fell hard the night before and the forest smelled beautiful as a result. The moss glistened with the abundant moisture and insects were scurrying about over everything. The majesty of the forest was unforgettable, even it you wanted to. Already, only thirty minutes into my hike, my shoes were damp and my toes wiggled roughly as they began to prune form the water. I should have known better, but they were just so comfy. The rainforest surrounded me as I entered it and I welcomed it.
I first noticed my attacker shortly after the halfway point to the bridge. He was hard to seen through the foliage, I’m fairly sure he was counting on it. But by luck or fate I picked him out. When I saw him he froze, a hundred yards out. I almost mistook him for a fallen tree with bark torn away revealing the golden brown rings beneath. The trees here were so large a group of ten holding hands might not be able to reach completely around. I am glad I looked longer at him else he might have had me that day. I don’t know that I would have been given another warning. Mountain lions are known for their stealth.
The next twenty minutes were the longest of my life. I could feel the time passing slowly, my mind racing through the possible eventualities that lay before me. I knew I could not fight a mountain lion, I had no weapons whatsoever. I knew if I ran he could and would outrun me. I knew he was looking for fear. And so for twenty minutes I walked tall, never taking my eyes off him. He paced me the whole time, he knew I had spotted him. I may not be as easy of a target now, but he was hungry, and I was there. Alone.
My heart skipped a beat when he changed direction. The entire time I was walking until then he maintained his distance. His course change now angled inward, putting us on an inevitable rendezvous. I was running out of time.
To my left I could hear the Carbon River. It wasn’t too large at this point, only a few feet deep and littered with large rocks, but it was large enough that if I had to I could jump in and get away. I was unfortunately twenty or thirty feet above the river though, so a jump would most likely break some part of me, and while that was preferable to death it was still not something I welcomed. And so I kept walking.
After a couple minutes I knew I would need to make a decision soon. The mountain lion was now only fifty yards or so away and with his speed I didn’t have much time left to escape. I looked with the corner of my eye toward the river and saw the water reflecting light through the foliage. I prepared to run when I saw the bend ahead.
Stretching across the river was a cable suspension bridge. It was long and it shook if you stomped or ran across it. Toward the middle it dipped down close to the river. That would be a good place to jump. If I could make it. I picked up a fist sized rock as I walked and looked to my stalker. I could see his eyes now he was so close. I said a silent prayer and mentally thanked my parents for making me play baseball. With a practiced motion I gallop threw the rock at the mountain lion. It hit him square in the ribs. It jumped back and turned around and I ran.
I heard a snarl behind me as I ran. Time seemed to run even slower now, something I hadn’t thought possible. I heard the brush crash as he ran too. Ahead of me the bridge closed in. Not fast enough I thought. Another crash sounded much closer and I knew he was going to get me. And then everything sped up. I made it to the bridge and heard a yowl from behind me. I ran another ten paces and when I didn’t hear or feel the bridge moving behind me I turned around. The mountain lion stood at the end of the bridge staring at me and panting almost as hard as I was. It paced back and forth for a while, getting close to the bridge and then backing away, afraid to cross it. I couldn’t believe my luck. I stood there a few minutes longer until it turned around and went back into the trees.
I made it to the glacier twenty minutes later and was glad to see there were others as well taking in the sights. I made small talk about the weather and attached myself to one of the groups as they returned. Strength in numbers. I didn’t tell them about the mountain lion though. It wouldn’t do to cause a panic. But I watched the trees the whole way back. I didn’t see him, but I am fairly certain he saw me.

‘Over the Bridge’

Most times I feel
Like I don’t have a partner
Most times I feel
Like my only friend
Is the woman I live for
Descended of Angels
Lonely as I am
Together we cry

I thrive on her feeds
‘Cause she’s my companion
I breathe for her dreams
‘Cause she knows who I am
She sees my good deeds and
She keeps me at distance
I never worry
Now that is a lie

I don’t ever wanna feel
Like I did that day
Take me to a place we love
Take me all the way
I don’t ever want to feel
Like I did that day
Take me to a place we love
Take me all that way (yeah yeah yeah)

It’s hard to believe
That there’s nobody out there
It’s hard to believe
That I’m all alone
I wish I had her love
Afraid, does she love me?
Lonely as I am
Together we cry

I don’t ever wanna feel
Like I did that day
Take me to a place we love
Take me all the way
I don’t ever want to feel
Like I did that day
Take me to a place we  love
Take me all the way (yeah yeah yeah)
Ooh no (no no yeah yeah)
Love me I say yeah yeah

Over the bridge downtown
Is where I drove and stood
Over the bridge “
This life just feels too much
Over the bridge “
Forgot about my love
Over the bridge “
I made my choice to stay (yeah yeah yeah)
Ooh no (no no yeah yeah)
Here I stay yeah yeah

Here I stay…

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• Over the Bridge (brandonbored.wordpress.com)

On the 17th October 1989, the Loma Prieta Earthquake hit San Francisco Bay Area with a Richter scale of 6.9 for moment magnitude and 7.1 for surface wave magnitude. It only lasted for 15 to 20 seconds, however there was a death toll of 62 and an average of 3757 people injured. Not only this, but the earthquake left a median of 7500 people homeless due to damage to housing and buildings in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Not only this, but the Oakland Bay Bridge suffered from the quake – the upper deck of the eastern truss collapsed causing it to block the lower deck. Unfortunately, this caused an unlucky car to drive off the bridge, resulting in death. As a result of the damage, the bridge was closed only for a month to repair the damage and make changes to the structure to ensure the safety of commuters. However, the bridge is extremely popular as it allows city workers to commute from the suburbs into San Francisco.

The Oakland Bay Bridge was built in 1971, and was also modified in case of the occurrence of an earthquake in the mid 70′s. Nonetheless, the section that did collapse during the earthquake had not been reinforced during the modification, so this explains this happening. The bridge underwent a Seismic Retrofit, meaning that the bridge was modified to withstand an earthquake in the future.

What reinforcements were made during the retrofitting?
The Oakland Bay Bridge was built before the standards of bridges in the San Francisco Bay Area were altered. This meant that the bridge needed to be strengthened anyway and to prevent deck separation. The section of the bridge that collapsed was renowned for it’s overall strength and stiffness throughout the whole bridge, yet became the only deck throughout the bridge to collapse. The bridge was already designed and modified to withstand the shocks from the earthquake and absorb the energy. Moreover, the bolts that reinforced the span of the bridge to the deck of the pier broke due to the horizontal activity, ending in a collapse.

-  The interim retrofit included the replacement of rivets with stiffer bolts, the addition of concrete collars surrounding the areas where the bridge was effected the most; all of this occurred in the East Span of the bridge reinforcing the critical areas throughout.
- On the west side of Oakland Bay Bridge, there were modifications made to the ramps at the Transbay Transit terminal. It also included the regeneration of the mainline interstate 80.
- The anchorage between Yerba Buena Island and San Francisco were strengthened as well as the towers and piers; this took place in the West Span.
- Lastly the West Viaduct’s pier structures were also strengthened due to high strength steel rods, concrete jackets, pier pedestals and anchor rods.

The conclusion made from the Oakland Bay Bridge Collapse is not to dismiss any area of a bridge; to make sure that there are dampers or a device to absorb the energy from the earthquake; make sure that materials used have a high strength to withstand jolting movements and that areas holding up the bridge are reinforced, and objects so small as bolts are prevented from falling out.

Another great example of a bridge collapse due to an earthquake is the Kobe Bridge Collapse in Japan due to the Great Hanshin Earthquake in January 1995. Similar to the Loma Prieta Earthquake, it measured 6.8 on the Richter scale and lasted approximately 20 seconds.  This earthquake resulted in more deaths and a lot more damage than the previous example.

The bridge I will be referring to is the Hanshin Expressway Bridge. On the 17th January 1995, the lives and ground was shaken by a powerful and destructive earthquake that caused around 5,500 deaths, and 26000 people injured. The reasons for its severity is because the area in which the earthquake hit Japan hard was just on top of the Nojima fault - tectonic plates were pushed underneath another due to their moving closer together. Japans location is where the Pacific, Philippine Sea and Eurasian plates meet. But this is not the only area in the world that has a possibility of intense earthquakes; take San Andreas Fault in California – the population there is also under a great threat of earthquakes. Nevertheless, this means that building must undergo specific structural rules and guidelines so that if an earthquake were to occur, no or minor damage would occur, because the buildings and bridges would have a way of absorbing and withstanding the energy from the earthquake.

Why did the bridge suffer such a violent collapse?
Well, the bridge, or expressway as it is named, was 630 metres long and high loads, (lots of cars, Lorries and heavy duty vehicles), were enforced on the bridge. The expressway linked Kobe and Osaka, like the Oakland Bay Bridge, for commuters mostly, and during the earthquake, twisted sideways due to the shaking of the earthquake, and then resulted in it collapsing on its side in five places throughout the bridge. There was also a collapse of a 550 foot section of the expressway bridge and was said to be due to a shortage of steel reinforcements; there was an observation in that places throughout the bridge that lacked steel reinforcements and was mainly concrete collapse and suffered severe damage, whereas places with reinforcements endured the earthquake and remained unblemished. Moreover, the reinforced concrete columns fell due to the energy from the earthquake where the bridge ended up in premature shear failure.

So, making my own observation and comparing both cases – they both lacked reinforcements mainly. This means that materials and structure had to be revised due to the heavy loads it was undertaking so that if another earthquake were to occur, it would endure the earthquake or suffer minor destruction.

Damage to the Hanshin Expressway Bridge:
- There was damage to the steel bearings, that were used to keep the bridge stiff and withhold heavy weight.
- The bridge fell to the side when the reinforced concrete columns collapsed due to ‘insufficient confinement’.
- The steel piers failed soon after the collapse of the columns, as the steel buckled, (bending and kinking of an object resulting in it snapping or breaking); this damaged the foundations and the expressway fell in its side.

Changes Made to the Hanshin Expressway Bridge:
- Steel bearings were replaced with stronger beams called elastomeric beams.
- The Reinforced concrete beams were reinforced even more with a completely different structure so that they are stiffer with a high Young’s Modulus.
- The columns are also slender compared to their previous appearance.
- Places where there was mostly concrete was replaced with reinforced concrete and elastomeric beams.

So overall, bridges and buildings have to be constructed with stiff materials that can withstand and absorb the energy from powerful earthquakes. Materials such as concrete appear weak during seismic activity due to its brittleness. If the foundations are made from a material that is weak during seismic activity, then the structure is more likely to collapse. A structure is only as strong as its foundations. The structure must be reinforced in all places to prevent any failures or destruction.
We can never tell when an earthquake is going to occur, so it is better to prepare for the worst. And in places like San Francisco and Japan, maybe the aesthetics of a bridge doesn’t matter and it’s all about its durability and reliability.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/october/17/newsid_2491000/2491211.stm

http://earthquake.usgs.gov/regional/nca/1989/

http://failures.wikispaces.com/Oakland+Bay+Bridge+Eyebar+Failure

http://www.dot.ca.gov/baybridge/seismic_retrofit_program_reports/

http://www.jpri.org/publications/occasionalpapers/op2.html

http://www.iitk.ac.in/nicee/wcee/article/2616.pdf

http://www.hanshin-exp.co.jp/english/operation/seismic/index.html