CURRENT MISSION

Live and become.

ABOUT ME

'Wandering mixed-up third-culture-kid dreamer' about sums it up! These last years my home has been where my backpack rests. I left my tech job in China/US/Southeast Asia to volunteer in Nairobi and Cape Town, and San Francisco will be the next pause on the journey after one more adventure in Nepal. I recently did a vipassana meditation course that really changed my perspective on life. Would love to swap my stories with your own when we meet :).

I am generally reflectively cheerful. I tend to take myself too seriously, but I am rarely stressed and always up for adventure. I like listening to other people's stories. At my best I laugh spontaneously at nothing obvious.

PHILOSOPHY

Cliche as it sounds, my view on life actually changed after spending a month in Tibet, or more specifically after recovering from a bedridden week of high fever in a Kathmandu Hotel as a result of hiking through snow to touch Mt Kailash and then sleeping at 5500m at Everest Base Camp... it's a continual journey trying to understand and practice what I learnt, though!

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

HOW I PARTICIPATE IN COUCHSURFING

CS has been amazing for me during my travels, and I'm really looking forward to opening my home to all of you once I have one.

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE

I started surfing when I began travelling 2 years ago, so I have no hosting experience yet.

Interests

People's stories and challenges and histories.

Meditation, yoga, spirituality and the interior journey. Mountains, forests and the ocean. Music! (I play the violin, mostly Bach.) Global families, identity and culture. Inequality, gender equality, economics, our beautiful troubled environment. Governments and startups, indie studios and creativity and crowdfunding, games and design and technology. Politics, religion and ideology. Energy and transportation and cities. Art, music and theater and street movements. Coffee shops and strange books. Philosophy, history, science and the future. Hiking, frisbee, cooking, getting lost on random buses. Whatever moves people...

Those golden moments when life feels like an adventure from a fairytale.

• arts
• culture
• writing
• books
• theater
• design
• environment
• dining
• cooking
• coffee
• yoga
• meditation
• politics
• technology
• traveling
• music
• violin
• hiking
• backpacking
• camping
• surfing
• swimming
• economics
• history
• physics
• religion
• science
• volunteering
• mountains

Music, Movies, and Books

Music - Anything electronic and a bunch of indie stuff. Eg The Flashbulb, The Hampdens. Classical. But please share yours with me, I need educating.

Books - Everything by Hermann Hesse (esp. Siddhartha, The Glass Bead Game). Sci-fi (Iain Banks most recently, RIP), and travel writing (Colin Thubron).

Movies - I haven't watched as many as most. But I like The Life of Pi a lot, and Gravity.

I think Games should be a category here too - Arcanum, Civ 4, Dreamfall, Mirror's Edge, Deux Ex, Journey.

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

It's odd how a lot of amazing experiences are not easy to convey in plain writing... I think this one works ok:

In the Hebrides, islands off the north of Scotland, I stood with the deepest and purest blue sky you can imagine stretching the full 180 degrees from horizon to horizon over the ocean.

Teach, Learn, Share

Honestly the more I see and hear the less I feel qualified to share anything! I can share stories; from Tibet, from China, from India, from Iran... I can give advice about how to get to Tibet if you're curious.

I can talk about what it's like to work in a mobile game startup in China, or a development design consultancy in Kenya. I can ramble about Kierkegaardian philosophy... and I supposedly learnt physics at uni. I've taught friends to swim before.

My goal for now is to live life intentionally. Meditation, yoga, violin and healthy food, every day.

What I Can Share with Hosts

If there's a violin around I can play music for you! I like to try and get people lost in their own cities. Otherwise, the most I really have to share is company, and some stories :)