Update ^3: We now live in Vienna, Austria, where Nathaniel lived as a kid. We will edit the profile more fully soon.

Update ^2: We made it back to Toronto! And
now live in a vegan co-op house. We're going on a two week Central/Eastern Europe trip at the beginning of January 2018. The itinerary is mad-cap jam packed - "like a Chinese tour group schedule" as a friend put it - and it's going to be awesome! [Berlin - Prague - Warsaw - Budapest - Bratislava - Vienna] Jiayi's never been to Europe and is psyched af
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Update: We have been evacuated on July 31st from where we were living in the North Cascade mountains due to the Wolverine Creek wildfire and are currently looking for places to stay in Portland until we can get back (hopefully at the end of August).
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We are Jiayi and Nathaniel and we have been on the road since the end of March and will be moving to the mountains in Washington State this summer (where we may be able to host people come winter 2015/2016). We are currently traveling through Jiangsu and Anhui provinces in China, after having visited Jiayi's relatives and participated in one of her cousins' wedding.

N: I am a bookish fellow who is trying to keep his eyes up from the page and on experiences happening around me. I enjoy discussing history, religion, political economy, and playing and watching games, particularly board games, RPGs, and soccer/football. I would like to learn about places from those who are living in them, rather than trusting the aforementioned books.

J: I like old people, old places, old souls, or brand-spanking-new ones! *definitions of old and new may vary
Ole Golly (from Harriet the Spy) says There are as many ways to live as there are people on earth. I am interested in sharing a little bit of yours and mine.

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

We really enjoy communal cooperative living, and couchsurfing is a small slice of that.

Interests

Chinese garage sales (旧货市场), civic empowerment, theory, technology, sharing, permaculture, religion/liturgy, linux, fandom, narrative tension, dated futurism, science fiction and fantasy, Soviet-Era apartment buildings, the internet, solidarity and revolution!

• books
• chocolate
• technology
• trivia
• board games
• traveling
• garage sales
• soccer
• history
• religion
• science
• mountains

Music, Movies, and Books

Bo Hansson, Nicki Minaj, Phil Ochs, Belle and Sebastian, One Direction, KTV style arena pop, commie songs, orthodox Christian (and probably other liturgical) chant-based music, early/baroque music, Spaghetti Western soundtracks, '70s British folk rock (think Steel Eyed Span, etc.)

J: Goodbye Lenin!, The History Boys, Apollo 13, Platform, The X-Files, Avatar: The Last Airbender
N: Guns of Navarone, The Silent Star, Perceval le Gallois, Pride, Princess Mononoke, Let the Bullets Fly, Wolf Hall

The God of Small Things, Microserfs, The Last Samurai, Harriet the Spy, From the Holy Mountain, Reconstruction, Kage Baker, Elizabeth Knox, Diana Wynne Jones, Lois McMaster Bujold, The Four Chinese Classic Novels, Icelandic Sagas, the internet

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

N: Being part of the huge crowd of people following Faisal Husseini's funeral procession through East Jerusalem into the Old City to the Haram a-Sharif (Temple Mount)

J: I can wiggle my ears.

Also one time when I was nine I slept in a car overnight by the ocean to catch the waters going out at sunrise and walked out onto the Cape Cod mudflats during lowtide.

Teach, Learn, Share

Learn: more about the city you're living in!

What I Can Share with Hosts

Computer help, German language translation, trivia, a willing ear, and tchotchkes from our travels =D

Countries I’ve Visited

Cyprus, Czech Republic, Egypt, Finland, France, Hungary, Italy, Jordan, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Slovakia, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, United Kingdom

Countries I’ve Lived In

Austria, Canada, China, Germany, Palestine, United States

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