CURRENT MISSION

To not get stuck..... and then go to Carthage

ABOUT ME

This is about due an update.. so I'll keep it short.
I'm still in Qingdao, mainly involved in marketing South African vineyards in China. A fun job with its obvious perks (good wine :) ), but seeing as its my own business it has a fair share of challenges as well. I keep learning every day though.

Any new hobbies I picked up? I do Archery now which I'm really enjoying. I still swim a lot (our family now has a yearly trip to the Midmar mile, the worlds largest open water mile event, held in Midmar, Kwazulu Natal). I went Diving in the Phillipines last year, that was awesome!

So not as to bore you with the details, the rest of the stuff below are still fairly accurate :)

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Towards the end of 2008 I finished an awesome overland trip from Taiyuan (China) to London via Vladivostok, Helsinki, Napoli, Lisbon and 35 other cities!

After that I stayed in South Africa for a couple of months but now found myself in Qingdao. So far I've loved every minute of it!

Also I don't have long hair anymore... so don't look for the tall guy with the ponytail, just look for the tall guy.
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I completed my degree in 2006 and desperately needed to live and experience something/somewhere else. Unfortunately the moon wasn't open. So the second biggest culture shock I could think of was China!

Since then I've had a ball of a time. Teaching English was never something I saw myself doing but its kinda like still being a student. Who can complain about that?

I try to live life to the fullest. It all depends on your point of view: It annoys people quite often but if something starts going wrong and doesn't work out the way you planned it, I see the funny side of it. It makes the problem so much easier to tackle if you know that you'll have a laugh when you are finished!

While at university I worked for the university's radio station and the nightclub that happened because of it: organizing new years parties, giving away elephants, driving around short people and their boa constrictor, buying a bullet proof jacket, a baby chair, old movie posters and a stuffed crocodile.... it was a pretty crazy time.

PHILOSOPHY

I'll quote my dad on this:

"Life is full of choices. Sometimes they are hard and sometimes they seem to not exist. But know that you always have them!"

He also has another gem:

"If you worry you die, If you don't worry you die.
So why die?"

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"Take the deep end, and swim till you can't stand, cause it will make a difference in the end" - Two Door Cinema Club - 'Beacon'

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

HOW I PARTICIPATE IN COUCHSURFING

Hosting, Surfing and helping out with any questions that I can regarding life in South Africa, life in China, teaching in China etc.

I've also organized a fair amount of meetings over the last 2 years. They bring their own amount of fun and games.

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE

I heard about couchsurfing in Shanghai. I met a bunch of people and we had a great time. By the last day it was just me and one other guy from the group still left. He invited me to go and join him for a couple of drinks with a girl that he met through CS. The three of us had an awesome party that night, drinking tequila well into the early hours of the morning!

Since then I've hosted quite a couple of people and I had a good time every time!

Interests

I love traveling, Cricket, Football (Wigan! Pirates!), reading (I think I nearly bricked my new flatmate into his room with all the books I passed onto him during his first week in China), listening to music, talking nonsense, drinking beer, drinking Tequila, eating good seafood, devouring good Pizza, showing people new things that they might not have known about, telling people new things that they might not have heard about... in general just having a good time.

And how can I forget: Oppikoppi!

Music, Movies, and Books

Music: I love rock and alternative but have a fairly wide range that I listen to.

Bloc Party, Bittereinder, Johnny Clegg, Incubus, New Academics, Faithless, Foals, The streets, Die Heuwels Fantasties, Fokofpolisiekar, Iron Maiden, The Narrow, Digitalism, St. Germain, Twenty One Pilots, TV on the Radio, Guano Apes, Frou Frou, Queen, Lost Prophets, Two Door Cinema Club, The Shins, Zero 7, The Smiths, Oasis, just to name a few.

Books:

I love 'The hitchhikers guide to the galaxy'!
That then makes it easy to see how similar writers like Terry Prachett and Robert Rankin fit in. Scaramouche and Flashman. Have you heard about a guy called Colin Cotterill? If you like the above mentioned, check him out.
Lately I've been reading a lot of Travelogues from Robert Twigger, Tony Wheeler, Johan Bakkes to the guy that ran the Holiday Inn in Lhasa for 5 years. George Orwell must be mentioned.
I just love books. I read them, I give them away, I get others back, so my library has a bit of a life of its own.

Movies:
I'm a sucker for movies about Africa and most movies involving some kind of an anti establishment Rebel - So if you haven't seen 'District 9' yet, do it! (If your not South African, I'll gladly explain some of the snippets that you should be looking out for and won't understand otherwise). V for Vendetta comes a close second.
Feel good movies are ofcourse a winner (Garden State and Everythings gone green). Will Ferrel... I can't help putting that one in :)

TV shows - Chuck is by far my favourite. That's followed by Black Mirror, The Thundercats (especially when you watch it in excellent grainy VHS quality), Not Going out, How I met your mother, Scrubs, Heroes, Black Books, Game of Thrones...
The A-Team and Airwolf!

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

I went to Shanhaiguan to see where the great wall runs into the sea.... and the ocean was frozen around it!

Also, I'm pretty happy with myself for completing my overland trip from Vladivostok (started in Taiyuan, China) to Lisboa via Rovaniemi, Napoli and Budapest.

Teach, Learn, Share

South Africa! I absolutely love my country and can't stop telling people about it, both the good and the bad.

Countries I’ve Visited

Austria, Belgium, China, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Israel, Italy, Mauritius, Netherlands, Philippines, Portugal, Russian Federation, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom, Vatican City State

Countries I’ve Lived In

China, South Africa

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