CURRENT MISSION

learn a new language

ABOUT ME

Seattleite. My hobbies in include travelling, rock climbing, swimming, yoga, film photography, and hiking. In January 2012 I quit my job and went travelling in Asia to pursue those interest. During that time, I ran out of pages in my passport, trekked and taught English in the rural Nepal, bike toured from Thailand to Malaysia, worked and lived in Shanghai, studied mediation at a Monastery in Vietnam, and stuff. It was fun and challenging, a lot can happen in two years.

I love listening to people sharing their stories, its always amazing what can be communicated through broken English, hand-waving, and laughter. I prefer walking and taking local transport, it is fun being the only foreigner on a long distance bus. During my travels, my skin became very dark and it helped me blend in.

I came back to Seattle this January 2014 flat broke and have been focusing on building my professional career. Being a workaholic does not allow much time to socialize and I am working on finding a better balance.

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

HOW I PARTICIPATE IN COUCHSURFING

I first heard about cs from a traveler, I surfed in Europe, then hosted in Seattle.

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE

I have meet some of the most wonderful people through CS.

Interests

i love biking and reading. If I lost my ability to bike, I wouldn't know what to do with myself. Recently I've been reading lots of books about traveling, but I love poetry the best. I started rock climbing in 2011 and think its great exercise. one of these days I'm going to buy a season pass and learn to ski or snowboard. I would love to learn how to sail.

• books
• poetry
• photography
• perfumes
• exercise
• yoga
• walking
• reading
• traveling
• socializing
• cycling
• hiking
• sailing
• skiing
• snowboarding
• rock climbing
• swimming
• beaches

Music, Movies, and Books

I like listening to Indie, EDM, Blues, R&B, Soul, Hip-Hop, Jazz, World, and Classical Music.

Recently these Artists: Bela Fleck, Grant Green, Keith Jarrett, Mogwai, The Roots, Avcii, Kaskade, Steve Aoki, The Avett Brothers, Mstislav Rostropovich, Arvo Part, Daniel Hope, Henryk Górecki, Arthur Rubinstein, Glenn Gould, Mischa Maisky, Martha Argerich, Caetano Veloso, Chopin's Nocturnes, Bach's Goldberg Variations...

Fiction Books: The Alchemist, Norwegian Wood, Snow, Season of Migration to the North, Le Petit Prince, A Heart So White, Sea of Poppies, The Emigrants, One Hundred Years of Solitude, Blood Meridian, Disgrace...

Non Fiction Books: Development as Freedom, The Places In Between, A Walk in the Woods, Country Driving, The Power of Habit, The One-Straw Revolution, The Rest Is Noise, Freakonomics...

English Movies: Children of Men, Inglourious Basterds, Lawrence of Arabia, The Bourne Trilogy, The Princess Bridge, The Exorcist, Barry Lyndon, Blazing Saddles, Harold and Kumar, Anchorman, Pulp Fiction...

Foreign Movies: Z, Im Juli, Triad Elections, Oldboy, Trois couleurs Triology, The Hunt, City of God, The Motorcycle Diaries, Headhunters, 3 Idtiots, Elite Squad, Tampopo...

TV Shows: How I Met Your Mother, New Girl, Strike Back, The Wire, House MD, Doctor Who, The West Wing, The Newsroom, Cosmos, Sherlock Holmes, Veep, Game of Thrones, House of Cards, Archer, The IT Crowd...

I like reading poetry and some of favorite poets are Neruda, Szymborska, Darwish, Brecht, Forché, and the list goes on...

I miss eating the spicy street food in South East Asia, the hot pot/banquets in China, and doner kebabs.

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

Lived in provincial Dali, Yunnan for three months
Skinny dipping in YellowStone Lake while it snowed
Trekking in Idaho's Wilderness Reserve with bears and elks as neighbors
Biking from Seattle to Portland in one day on a fixed gear (180 mi. = 289.681 km)
Motorbike Toured from Vietnam to Laos, then Cambodia.
Bike along the beaches of Thailand to Malaysia
Study Aboard and Lived in Berlin

Teach, Learn, Share

On of my favorite poems.

Ihaka by C.P. Cavafy
Translated by Edmund Keeley/Philip Sherrard

As you set out for Ithaka
hope the voyage is a long one,
full of adventure, full of discovery.
Laistrygonians and Cyclops,
angry Poseidon—don’t be afraid of them:
you’ll never find things like that on your way
as long as you keep your thoughts raised high,
as long as a rare excitement
stirs your spirit and your body.
Laistrygonians and Cyclops,
wild Poseidon—you won’t encounter them
unless you bring them along inside your soul,
unless your soul sets them up in front of you.

Hope the voyage is a long one.
May there be many a summer morning when,
with what pleasure, what joy,
you come into harbors seen for the first time;
may you stop at Phoenician trading stations
to buy fine things,
mother of pearl and coral, amber and ebony,
sensual perfume of every kind—
as many sensual perfumes as you can;
and may you visit many Egyptian cities
to gather stores of knowledge from their scholars.

Keep Ithaka always in your mind.
Arriving there is what you are destined for.
But do not hurry the journey at all.
Better if it lasts for years,
so you are old by the time you reach the island,
wealthy with all you have gained on the way,
not expecting Ithaka to make you rich.

Ithaka gave you the marvelous journey.
Without her you would not have set out.
She has nothing left to give you now.

And if you find her poor, Ithaka won’t have fooled you.
Wise as you will have become, so full of experience,
you will have understood by then what these Ithakas mean.

Countries I’ve Visited

Austria, Cambodia, Canada, China, Czech Republic, Germany, Laos, Malaysia, Nepal, Singapore, Thailand

Countries I’ve Lived In

China, Germany, United States, Viet Nam

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