I am a Vietnamese student currently studying and living in Helsinki, Finland. My interests are, among others, traveling, trekking, and reading. I am a true Potter-head and a genuine cat-person <3

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

I want to meet local people while traveling, and hear about their daily stories, how they live in the city; as well as exchange my experiences in different cities and countries where I've visited or lived.

I am here also because Couchsurfing allows me, a student living in one of the expensive Nordic countries, to lighten the travel budget, and use that saving to travel more, and be able to give more back to the ones who helped.

I hardly had any hosting experiences due to the limited space in my flat/room in Hanoi and now in Helsinki. However, I used to be an active supporter for international volunteers coming to Vietnam to do community projects through http://vpv.vn/. So if you're going to any place where I am living in, I'm happy to be a good local guide.

Interests

Nature! I always feel like I belong to the sea, the land, the forest, so tight a bond that I have to revisit them once in awhile just to recharge and balance myself.

I love trekking a hella lot. One of the greatest trekking experiences of mine was reaching to the 3143-m Fansipan, the highest peak in Southeast Asia, in 2011.

I am a true Potter-head. I was a Luna Lovegood for this Halloween 2015 when I had so much fun spending the whole afternoon making her Ravenclaw tie, her wand, and her signature Spectrespecs. I also relate to Luna a lot, which basically means that I'm weird in some ways x).

I am a 25-year-old doll lover. I've bought a Barbie doll, make her my new friend, and take her travel with me. You wanna meet her? ^^

• cats
• theater
• reading
• traveling
• tourism

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

Back in 2011 when I was a third year student at Hanoi University, me, together with two other friends, initiated a home-visit tour for foreign visitors coming to Hanoi. The idea is that after spending a day discovering the city, they will then go to a typical home in Hanoi to have dinner with the host, taste home-made traditional dishes, hear about local lifestyles and tell their own stories. We sought advice from tour experts to develop a proper tour itinerary, recruit and conduct training for student tour guides, check and select the most traditional and suitable host families, set a proper tour price, do marketing for the tour, etc, all with the efforts of a 10-member student team.

Hanoi homeVisit tour has received a lot of positive feedbacks, and has developed much more from the time we invented the tour in 2011. You can check out the tour reviews here: http://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g293924-d7043547-Reviews-Hanoi_HomeVisit_Tour_Day_Tour-Hanoi.html

Do not expect to see me in the pictures of the tour, since I am not the tour guides but the "hidden" controller :P. One picture of me with the host family and some guides can indeed be found here: https://www.facebook.com/hanoihomevisit/photos/a.239567589404658.77096.239559596072124/414660225228726/?type=3&theater (I was the girl with a white SIFE T-shirt sitting in the right hand side chair).

Teach, Learn, Share

I feel like I'm always master in the things that mostly people don't know about (or just that mostly people don't need to know about, haha), and ignorant of the things that everybody has knowledge of. But I'm always open to new things, so I guess we can share with each other in many ways.

What I Can Share with Hosts

Well, my stories, and my presence. I think one of the most important reasons why people are hosting strangers is because they want to share and connect to other people from other parts of the world, so hopefully I can make some people know a bit more about a little country of the world named Vietnam.

And of course, a good reference too. This is a practical matter and a must I think. For me it is also a kinda connection and something to remind me of the trip and the people I meet.

I also like hand-made stuff as I believe it contains more love, so I wish to distribute some of these loves to the lovely ones who host me and make me feel like home in a foreign land.

And, as I said above, once we are friends, call me anytime you go to my locals. Doesn't matter any years from the time we last meet, just name the place and I'll be there.

Countries I’ve Visited

Estonia, Laos, Russian Federation, Sweden, Thailand

Countries I’ve Lived In

Finland, Viet Nam