I wish this was my bike...

Dutch people love their bicycles. So do the Japanese. Yasu and I enjoyed biking through Osaka a lot, we did it every day and in the weekend we spend hours on our bikes exploring the city. We had great bikes in Japan, not expensive, sturdy, and with incredibly handy baskets. We loved our bikes.

So, one of the first things we went looking for when we arrived in the States were new bikes. Biking isn't nearly as common as in the Netherlands and Japan, and decent bicycles are really expensive. They sell cheap bikes too, but they're cheap for a reason. Trying to be frugal we bought two cheaper bicycles, but what a waste of money. Yasu's bike literally fell apart after just a few uses, so we left it to be stolen to get rid of it. My bike isn't much better with it's non-functional brakes and a dangerously loose steer.

We considered getting better bikes after our pigs in a poke, but better bikes are really pricey and bikes are stolen way too easily here, so we've decided to give up our cycling ways, for now. But that doesn't stop me from wishing I had a nice and user-friendly bicycle at my disposal.

Like one of these typical Dutch Granny Bikes. These bicycles aren't very fancy, but they're really strong and easy to use. And look at these awesome colors! I usually pick pink but in this case I might go for the yellow one, it makes me feel happy.

This Granny bike may not be new anymore, but I'd still like to have it because I love the flowers and I really would love to have that basket on the front of my bicycle! I've gotten so used to a bike basket in Japan, I don't want to go without one anymore.

Or how about a personalized bike? Wouldn't it be awesome to have your name in the frame like that? This bike also looks really strong, and I could easily bring a passenger on the back.

And I definitely want a saddle cover like this one, love it.

These kinds of cargo bicycles seem to very popular in my country these days. I would use this bicycle for transporting my weekly groceries from the supermarket and the laundry to the laundromat. It's also incredibly useful for moving kids, pets, large instruments and even christmas trees.

Another handy bicycle for when going places with children. And if you're lucky your kids will contribute to the peddling and you'll get where you want to go even quicker.

I don't really want this bicycle, but isn't this picture cute? Not sure how comfortable it is to bike with someone that near you, though.