CURRENT MISSION Educating the youth of Yorkshire!

ABOUT ME:
I'd say I'm fairly friendly and approachable, reasonably amusing, quite talkative, and hopefully nice and kind. I also like to take my surfers to eat at some great local places around my home.

COUCHSURFERS REQUESTING TO STAY WITH ME, PLEASE READ:
- If you don't write my name (Tom) when sending me a CouchRequest, I will decline you with no explanation.
- I can only host one person at a time. No exceptions. Just you. Not you and your partner. Not you and a friend. Not you and a parent, or a kid. Just you. If you request for more than one person, I will decline with no explanation.
- Fill out your profile. Write more than one sentence about yourself. Have more than one photo. You're asking to stay in a person's HOME, not a hotel. I want to know about you!
- Communicate! I want to talk to you! If you're going to be late, try to let me know, too. Don't leave me hanging.
- Clean up the room after you've left. That means make the bed and put trash in the trash can in the room. You'd think this was common sense, but apparently not.
- I'm an LGBT friendly host, and I won't tolerate homophobia or transphobia in my home. Gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender guests are more than welcome.
- If you're vegan or vegetarian, I can help you out and give you some recommendations. Or we could just cook!

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

HOW I PARTICIPATE IN COUCHSURFING

Interacting with people from around the world, and hosting people. Talk to me! I don't care if your English isn't perfect, after all I was an English teacher and I had to be able to understand little kids who knew about twenty words of English. If you're able to read most of my profile, I think we'll do just fine!

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE

I've hosted guests from...
The USA / Philippines / Singapore / South Korea / Ireland / China / Taiwan / Mexico / Thailand / Canada / Germany / Ecuador / The UK / Brunei / Colombia / Czechia / Malaysia / Netherlands / Ukraine / Switzerland / France / Israel / New Zealand / El Salvador / Vietnam / Australia / Japan / Italy

I've surfed in...
Australia / Turkey / Poland / Lithuania / The USA / Colombia / Canada / Germany / Romania / Philippines / Hong Kong / Cambodia / Thailand / Laos / Malaysia / Singapore / Netherlands / Estonia / Spain / France

Don't see your country in the list of people I've hosted? Send me a decent request and we'll see what we can do :)

Interests

I'm always planning my next trip - COVID obviously put a stop to travel for a while but can't wait to get back out and explore the world. I love to eat and cook, and try to stay reasonably fit and healthy. I enjoy exploring new places, going to cafes, watching movies, playing board games, getting friends over for snacks and Netflix (and maybe some drinks), and reading. I have two lovely dogs that I adopted in Taiwan, Yazhou and Zenko, so looking after them takes up a lot of time for me too.

• dogs
• cooking
• cocktails
• coffee
• working out
• walking
• movies
• reading
• music
• squash
• travel
• gym
• game of thrones
• rupaul's drag race

Music, Movies, and Books

Movies: Clueless, Mean Girls, Sister Act, Children of Men, Kingsman, Finding Nemo, X-Men movies, Sisters, Spotlight, Romy & Michele's High School Reunion, The Orphanage, Big Hero 6, Shiny Shrimps, Miss Congeniality, Real Steel, Legally Blonde, Run Lola Run, Horrible Bosses, Easy A, Drop Dead Gorgeous, The Dressmaker, The Others, Three Idiots, Bridesmaids, Pitch Perfect, My Neighbour Totoro, Beauty and the Beast, Jurassic Park, Mrs Doubtfire, Spy, Cruel Intentions, Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children, Hidden Figures

Music: Girls Aloud, Paloma Faith, Kelis, Rina Sawayama, Carly Rae Jepsen, Doja Cat, Sugababes, Hot Chip, Basement Jaxx, Cyndi Lauper, Grace Jones, Faithless, P!NK, Britney Spears, Disclosure, Daft Punk, The Saturdays, Little Dragon, Kylie Minogue, Hurts, V V Brown, TLC, Roisin Murphy, Destiny's Child, Dolly Parton, Fifth Harmony, Beyoncé, Björk, The Knife, Robyn, Madonna, 2NE1, Alex Newell, Jamelia

Books:
The Kite Runner
One Hundred Years of Solitude
Middlesex
The Thorn Birds
The Historian
Crazy Rich Asians trilogy
The Heart's Incredible Furies
Sweet Sour
House of the Spirits
Five Quarters of the Orange
The Good Women of China
Memoirs of a Geisha
The Memory Keeper's Daughter
Maya Angelou's autobiographical series
The Green Mile
The Shadow of the Wind
Malorie Blackman's Noughts and Crosses series
Elena Ferrante's Neapolitan novels

TV (because why not):
Game of Thrones
RuPaul's Drag Race
Friends
Futurama
Will & Grace
The Good Place
The Inbetweeners
Orange Is The New Black
Squid Game
Sex and the City
Green Wing
The Simpsons
Family Guy
American Dad
Grace And Frankie
South Park
The Most Popular Girls in School (YouTube series)

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

Moving to South Korea, and later Taiwan, finding jobs, making friends, and learning some of the language of each country.

Bringing my dogs home from Taiwan to the UK with me. A total headache, lots of paperwork and transport coordination (it involved a flight and a ferry), but so worth it to have my sweet and beautiful fur children with me!

Surviving -28C weather in central Europe without a particularly warm coat. Must be the body hair. And layers....and vodka.

Not dying while descending the steps at the Big Buddha in Hong Kong. Seriously, those steps are steep. Plus I'm awful with heights, so it's an achievement for me.

Surviving the 'Sleeper Bus' from Vientiane to Luang Prabang. I got no sleep, and it hurtled along what apparently is known as 'Death Road' at quite an alarming pace. Luckily I found some noodles to restore me, and my guest house allowed me to check in early!

Teach, Learn, Share

Teaching English, it's what I used to do for a living after all! I can help with anything for grammar to some more 'colourful' colloquial phrases, should you wish ;)

I also know all the countries and their capitals, should the need ever arise for such knowledge. Likewise I'm also a walking encyclopaedia of Drag Race knowledge.

What I Can Share with Hosts

Conversation! I'm a talker, that's for sure, and hopefully you'll think I can hold a decent conversation about a lot of different things.

Travel tips if I've been anywhere that you're wanting to go.

I can also try and come up with a drag name for you. Mine is Beverley Pills. I don't do drag, but you never know when it may come in handy at a party, or when fabricating your future time on RuPaul's Drag Race. Not that I ever do that.

Countries I’ve Visited

Albania, Australia, Austria, Belarus, Belgium, Bulgaria, Cambodia, Canada, Colombia, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hong Kong, Hungary, Indonesia, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Kosovo, Laos, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Macao, Macedonia, Malaysia, Mexico, Moldova, Monaco, Morocco, Netherlands, Norway, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russian Federation, San Marino, Serbia, Singapore, Slovakia, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand, Tunisia, Turkey, Ukraine, United Kingdom, United States, Viet Nam

Countries I’ve Lived In

South Korea, Taiwan, United Kingdom

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