I come from Melbourne Australia but I have also lived in Japan for 5 years (日本語をはなしましょう!). I studied in China in 2011 and in Sweden in 2012, and now I work in Germany in Düsseldorf.

I've never had a chance to host anyone, but I've been going to couchsurfing events since around 2011, and recently moved to a new place here in Germany which has a fold-out couch, so will soon offer hosting again.

About me, my "day

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

As a traveller I know that nothing replaces local knowledge when getting to know a place.

I mean, sure, there are some crazy discoveries when travelling alone, but to me nothing beats the times I met up with friends living in the city, leading me through alleyways to some bar or cool place I'd never find on my own.

Interests

So I'm in law now but I was actually a DJ and event manager for about 5 years before going back to university.

I started as a DJ in Tokyo circa 2004, where I started playing in some backwater bars before eventually, finally, getting to play in more central bars and getting my own parties up and running. Although I am a consultant now, I still DJ and run parties (currently DJing thursday nights in Dusseldorf), and always will.

Law-wise, for the few people that are interested, I'm now in a startup building intellectual property ontological algorithms to improve the registration, management and protection of intellectual property assets. My work is mostly theoretical now, focused on semantic and linguistic analysis of legal ontologies, which, despite the jargon, is driven by the desire to bring the law back to the hands of everyday people and not $450/hr lawyers who delegate all their work to paralegals anyway.

• photography
• beer
• hiking
• learning languages
• craft beer
• whiskey
• rum
• djing

Music, Movies, and Books

classic/garage house and detroit techno, old school hip hop, funk, soul, disco

for books, I really lost the time for some good quality reading in the last few years. However I recently started a reading project at: http://internationalbusinessresearch.wordpress.com/
where I try to read academic articles on various topics each week (to varying degrees of success). So far its been enriching, and I hope I can keep it up.

I also love retro games and new retro-style games and also have a blog for this at:
http://newretrogames.wordpress.com/

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

I still think being literally chased by prostitutes in Shanghai will never be topped. We had to dramatically leap into an open taxi and try to close the door while the horde stuck their arms through the gap, eager to force the door open like straight outta a zombie movie.

Aside from that, probably leaving my hometown, finally, after 23 years of trying/hoping/wanting - and never looking back.

Teach, Learn, Share

I've done some semi-professional photography (i.e. I'm not a pro but I've been paid for my work) so if you are learning to use a DSLR, I can definitely teach you the basics about the settings, aperture, white balance, and composition - and how to do that light trick on a busy street at night so all the cars look like a long streak of light (good excuse for a camera walk too!)

I also teach DJ lessons here in Düsseldorf, and it's quite easy to learn the basics.. although you will need some turntables - if you somehow happen to have that, I can teach you.

I know a fair bit (but still nowhere near enough) about craft beer (an article I wrote: http://thecitylane.com/craft-beer-in-germany-at-trinkhalle-bochum/) and always up for exchanging knowledge and trying out brews!

Countries I’ve Visited

Belgium, China, Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Italy, Malaysia, Netherlands, Norway, Singapore, Spain, Thailand, United Kingdom, Viet Nam

Countries I’ve Lived In

Australia, Germany, Japan, Sweden