So, while stopping on the landing just a few steps above where this gentlemen is, I stopped to take the picture of the ad in this post. I was on the same side of the stairwell as this man, though close to the middle of the landing.

I started to move to my right (toward the left side of the landing as you see it here), to get a better angle for the picture, when out of the corner of my eye I saw an object moving very rapidly toward me from the top of the stairs.

It was someone on a mountain bike, x-riding his way toward the beach. I literally had to jump out of the way and I still just barely avoided being hit by this jackass.

I had my iPhone earbuds in my ears, but with no sound playing. Nevertheless, I never heard the clanking or banging of his tires as he shot down the stairs. My knee-jerk reaction was to yell "Asshole!" at him as he made the sharp turn right (and I truly was hoping for a spill, which looked like it almost happened).

Getting hit by a speeding bicycle is no picnic. At UCI bikes weren't allowed on Ring Road for years because one cyclist coasting at high speed down the hill from Physical Sciences to Humanities careened into a pedestrian, putting him into a coma from which he never recovered.

Sorry for the rant, but this pissed me off pretty badly, and it put me into one of those Hawaii-hating days. Between constant harassment by skateboarders who nearly run down pedestrians or practice their jumps in parking lots near your dorm, rampant potholes, sidewalks that suddenly feed into busy streets, drivers running down senior citizens in crosswalks, etc., I almost miss the mean streets of Seoul.

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