South West London born and bred, but Iranian at heart. Trying to be a good human being and enjoy life as much as possible.

Got the travel bug at age 19 when I went to volunteer in South Africa for 6 months at a home for children with special needs.

After that, went to university, worked a few jobs, got my teaching qualification and taught English and Drama in a secondary school for a couple of years.

An opportunity came to move to Japan and teach English, and I jumped on it. Spent 4 years in Northern Japan and loved every minute of it!

Currently heading back to London, taking my time travelling through South East Asia.

I like to think I'm a fun loving, easy going and friendly guy. Open to new experiences, and enjoy meeting new people.

My mum thinks I'm great... She's right.

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

My girlfriend has been couch surfing for a while, and I had my first couch surfing experience whilst travelling with her in Sydney, Australia. Our host there was fantastic and we had a great time with him.

This experience inspired me to make my own account. I've realised how much better travelling can be when you spend time with someone who really knows the city well. I also want to host people wherever I settle, and I will strive to be as good as my first host in Sydney... Though I think that will be very difficult.

Most importantly, I think this is a great way of meeting people and making connections. We all have busy lives, but I feel that engaging with something like this forces us to take time out for valuable human interaction. I'm looking forward to meeting people from all over the world!

Interests

Before Japan I spent most of my time eating out with friends, watching movies, playing video games and reading. Now, I still love all of those pastimes, but I've also found that I enjoy more physical and outdoor activities.

Love snowboarding and boxing. Trying to stay relatively fit and healthy now as I'm not as young as I used to be, so I am trying to enjoy running and general fitness stuff too.

• fitness
• running
• movies
• video games
• reading
• traveling
• eating out
• socializing
• outdoor activities
• surfing
• snowboarding
• boxing
• volunteering

Music, Movies, and Books

MUSIC

Too much to mention! Top 3 albums that come to mind are Songs in the Key of Life (Stevie Wonder), Illmatic (Nas) and Be Good (Gregory Porter).

Was once a massive hip hop head, but listen to everything now.

MOVIES

Again, hard to summarise, but first 3 that come to mind are City of God, The Big Lebowski, and The Godfather.

big fan of the Coen brothers, Tarantino and Scorsese.

TV SHOWS

The Wire, Breaking Bad, The Sopranos, Archer, The Office, The Inbetweeners, Peep Show and a whole load of British comedies.

BOOKS

Focused mainly on Postcolonial, Caribbean and Black British literature when I was studying English at universities. Love reading about other cultures and peoples journeys. 3 recommendations - Things Fall Apart (Chinua Achebe), Tsotsi (Athol Fugard) and Small Island (Andrea Levy).

Authors I like - Cormac Mcarthy, Bill Bryson, Terry Pratchett, old Billy Shakespeare.

Guilty pleasure - recently been reading the Harry Potter books...

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

I opened the fridge once and instinctively put out my hand. A tub of butter fell and landed perfectly on my outstretched palm. There was no way I could have known the butter was falling before opening the fridge, and there's no way any normal human could have reacted fast enough to catch the butter under normal circumstances.

For that one moment, I was completely at one with the universe. Poised, balanced and completely in tune with the elements, the sun and the moon.

Unfortunately there was no Jedi master around to help me harness my rare ability to sense falling butter, and it hasn't happened since.

That was more than 15 years ago... But I don't think I could top that moment in 100 lifetimes.

Countries I’ve Visited

Australia, Canada, France, Malaysia, South Africa, Spain, Thailand, United States

Countries I’ve Lived In

England, Japan, South Africa