CURRENT MISSION

The careful feeding and nurturing of my new-found travel bug.

ABOUT ME

I'm a travel newbie, in a nutshell. I've done some trips here and there but nothing as serious and "hardcore" as I would like. I realize that backpacking is not a vacation but an experience, or, if you're lucky, an adventure. I am definitely looking for this kind of definition and want to meet anyone who's done the same or is looking to do the same.

But about me? Traveling is a relatively new endeavor. It was introduced to me when I came over to South Korea from California to teach English for a year (Aug 2009-Aug 2010). From there I just naturally met internationally-oriented people, people with amazing stories of culture, tales of mis-adventure or perhaps just adventure, or maybe not even a story at all, maybe just a perspective that tickles your mind as they explain to you the weirdness of the country they just visited.

Really, I'm looking to get down and dirty. I'd say I'm half a backpacker right now: yeah, I got the backpack, I've done a couple of short trips, but no long-term, mind blowing experiences to back it up. I've been on a couple 1-2 week stints in various countries but, quite frankly, it's just not enough.

PHILOSOPHY

As I've gotten older I've become more and more convinced that people are just fundamentally different, in every sense of the word, and that the best attitude a human being can adopt is to embrace, respect, or, at the very least, tolerate these differences. A lot of the preconceived notions, stereotypes, etc that I've internalized over the years are slowly being thrown away. Whether you're religious, nonreligious, flamingly gay, a prostitute, a conservative, a diehard liberal, I want to meet you, and I CAN be your friend, provided you share the attitude that I'm talking about here: the attitude to recognize the fundamental differences across people, to recognize that human beings adopt different value systems, morals, and viewpoints, and that all these differences are in fact OK, nay, beautiful, and that, I guess, above all, don't take yourself so damn seriously, because if my training in science has taught me one thing, it's that we are never 100% sure about ANYTHING. So act accordingly.

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

HOW I PARTICIPATE IN COUCHSURFING

However I can. I'm recently moving to the Mission in San Francisco and will be happy to host people as soon as I get settled.

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE

Rochelle Lee - Beijing, China. Rochelle's a friend of mine from my hometown.

Pushpendra Singh - Jaipur, India. Push was very accommodating and lives in an amazing part of Jaipur with lots of old architecture and monkeys literally climbing all over the place. Look this guy up!

Interests

I probably have too many interests for my own good. I'm half nerd, half geek, half athlete, half misc weirdom (twice the person!).

I can be very outdoorsy and sporty: camping, hiking, rowing, running, rock climbing, windsurfing, bicycling. I generally stay away from "actual sports" like basketball or football, only because I have very bad knees (but generally enjoy watching). I live for endorphins and I live to push my limits, which is why I'm drawn to race-oriented stuff or activities that can put be on the edge, physically and mentally. A mantra to live by, for all you nerds: life is the greatest RPG.

Indoors, I'm an avid computer user. Computer games and internet surfing, mostly. I'm a bit of an internet addict, which I welcome to have without if the opportunity presents itself. I built my own computer and have built a couple of my friends' as well. I am by no means a computer expert but have a pretty solid foundation on how everything works.

Geekdom/nerdom: comics (American and manga), Magic the Gathering (and other nerdy fantasy games), sci-fi (anything), science (particularly biology, particularly particularly microbiology, biochemistry, molecular and cellular biology...), video/computer games

I also tend to have a wild side and am heavily into electronic dance music, particularly drum and bass, breakbeat, and dubstep (but mostly DnB). This is literally all I listen to and yes, I am aware how incredibly lame/strange/uninspiring that probably is. But I live for the BPMs, what can I say.

• culture
• architecture
• dancing
• running
• athlete
• comics
• traveling
• magic
• music
• dance music
• hiking
• backpacking
• windsurfing
• camping
• surfing
• sports
• basketball
• rock climbing
• soccer
• rowing
• biology
• science

Music, Movies, and Books

There's too many to list. Big fan of the sci-fi genre, but this doesn't stop me from widening my horizons.

Music wise, I am disgustingly stuck in an electronic dance music stint, and I absolutely love it.

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

Super coincidence of a lifetime: a guy I knew from Busan, South Korea just happened to be couchsurfing the same place as me in Jaipur, India. I guess the world isn't so big after all.

Teach, Learn, Share

Do not video record any area in which the 26/11 attacks happened in Mumbai, India. It's technically illegal (?) and the cops can use that as leverage to extort you for money.

Countries I’ve Visited

Cambodia, China, India, Japan, Thailand, United Kingdom

Countries I’ve Lived In

South Korea, United States