CURRENT MISSION

My mission, if I am so willing to accept, is to travel the world and live in as many countries as possible, learning random bits of language from a barage of countries so as to continually confuse the origin of words. A grand goal but I'll make it happen.

ABOUT ME

A couple of crazy kids living abroad and learning all sorts of things as well as traveling as much as possible. Iwan is from Singapore but studied/worked in Australia for a looong time before we met in Shanghai ages back. He produces/writes music when not teaching if you're interested in that. He's also a soccer/football lover. As for me, I grew up in the midwest of the States, but have been bouncing between California, Shanghai, Istanbul, Suzhou, and now Hong Kong for the past 8 years. I'm also a movie and music fiend but not nearly as good at memory games as Iwan. We are both travel nuts and have been to zillions of places with many more on the To Do list.

PHILOSOPHY

Live life to complete goals, see as much as possible, learn as much as you can. This comes in bits and pieces, however slowly as we tend not to do long term backpacking, but wouldn't have life any other way and refuse to settle when there is so much more out there.

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

HOW I PARTICIPATE IN COUCHSURFING

We will do our best to offer guidance to others. If you want, we can show you around or go for a beer to discuss thoughts on life, music, love, etc, etc. If we are not too busy, you can crash in our living room too.

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE

Irawan hadn't done much couchsurfing before I took him roadtripping in the States. We did it a few times across the country. I've also surfed in Italy and Romania. As for hosting, I let some people stay at my flat in Istanbul, let LOADS stay with us in Suzhou, etc. In Turkey, they had a great couchsurfing community so we would always organize activities which were fun.

Interests

Our generally perpetual habits are reading, traveling, movies, eating out with friends, pubs, journals and creative writing, music constantly, and museums and performances occasionally. Oh, and on top of those things, Iwan can also talk sports as I'm fairly useless in that arena.

• writing
• beer
• pub crawls
• movies
• reading
• traveling
• eating out
• music
• backpacking
• sports
• soccer
• track and field
• tourism

Music, Movies, and Books

Glenda's Favs: I am absolutely obsessed with movies, music, and books. I hate this question generally as it is immensely difficult. Movies: Fifth Element, Sin City, Sixteen Candles, etc. Music: most reggae, hip hop, pop..basically everything but country...you should see my iTunes. Books: I am into Tom Robbins, Bill Bryson, Christopher Moore, Tim Cahill, Nick Hornby, Alain de Botton, Irvine Welsh, to name a few. I teach English lit. though so I am known to read anything as long as there are words on the page.

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

Glenda: Taken the bus into and out of Cambodia...seriously, this is a fascinating ride and I did it for 7 hours on a bumpy bus, sitting on luggage in the aisle, with no AC or backing. I stared at the Cambodian man, also on luggage, sitting directly in front of me, the entire way.

Teach, Learn, Share

Don't be afraid to try new things or be a bit more daring on your trips. The world is probably a lot safer than you think and with a bit of common sense, you can avoid danger. Don't forget, we get one life so do you really want to live without adventure?

For me personally, I want to learn how to get off the beaten track. I don't tend to do this as much as I'd like and I want to know how others have managed to get away from the norm of tourism.

Countries I’ve Visited

Cambodia, Canada, Chile, China, Ecuador, Egypt, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Indonesia, Ireland, Italy, Laos, Malaysia, Mexico, Netherlands, Peru, Philippines, Puerto Rico, Romania, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Switzerland, Thailand, Turkey, United Kingdom, Viet Nam

Countries I’ve Lived In

Australia, China, Singapore, Turkey, United States

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