Hello!

I'm an avid traveller, just looking for new places, people, experiences, and food. My family always valued travel and different cultures. I grew up in Dallas but my earliest memories are actually in Mexico and China. Every year we used to spend all our holidays with my dad's family in New Orleans, visit my mom's family in Beijing, and take road trips through Mexico. We didn't even speak spanish back then and didn't have guide books; we'd just travel with big road maps and ask in each town where to go next.

Now I'm travelling full time, and probably will for the next year or so. Now I try to spend more time in each place to make more friends and learn the small local things more. I've spent 3 months now in Cartagena Colombia, Mexico City, Rio, Bangkok, and Istanbul. Then Taiwan and Penang for a month each, then Tokyo for 3 months. I try to host whenever I have a spare room.

By now I've spent about 4 years outside of the US total.

I like listening to people more than talking, but I can carry a conversation fine too.
I really like spicy food and I don't eat much meat. I'll always try something new at least once though.
I love hiking and scuba diving, and nature in general.
I enjoy quiet bars but not clubs. I prefer places where you can easily hear someone two or three chairs away
I'm usually down for drinks, coffee, tea, matcha, any meal, board games, walking around, hikes, sports days, anything cultural, and sometimes cooking too (if I can find the ingredients).
My biggest hobby outside of traveling is gardening.
I don't have much interest in watching sports, shopping, or fashion.

Btw I'm mixed white and chinese. My mom's from Beijing and my dad from New Orleans. This tends to come up a lot, because generally people think I'm either 100% white or 100% asian. But I pretty much grew up just like any other asian american, because in the US everyone just treated me like the other asians. This is just to say that I'm very used to adapting to different cultures and to being stereotyped (which I don't hold against anyone).

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

I want to meet people and learn how they live and what their culture is. I want to be able to meet anyone from anywhere and have a common ground and understanding with them.

I don't have goals to travel to x number of countries or anything like that. I'm just trying to learn and understand how the world works.

And of course, I want to make a lot of great friends along the way

Interests

• cooking
• coffee
• walking
• gardening
• movies
• music
• hiking
• scuba diving
• snorkeling
• parks
• mountains
• food
• tea
• forests
• trekking
• diving
• hip hop
• long walks
• spicy food
• drinks
• r&b
• bonfires
• senderismo
• montañas
• bosques
• matcha
• spice
• hacer senderismo

Music, Movies, and Books

Used to be mostly hip-hop and r&b but now it's more eclectic. I try to pick up local music from wherever I am and make a new playlist for every place I go. All my spotify playlists are public https://open.spotify.com/user/pjhell42 ! Some favorite artists are Frank Sinatra, Kanye West, H.E.R, Jhene Aiko, Kendrick Lamar, Ennio Morricone, J Cole, Karol G, Lauryn Hill, Post Malone, and Joy Oladokun.

I like intense movies that are very emotional, very beautiful, or with interesting plots. I keep track of all the movies I've liked and all the movies that people tell me to see, so send me your recs! Some of my favorites are:
Cowboy Bebop
Dorehedoro
Everything Everywhere All at Once
FMAB
Into the Spiderverse
It's such a beautiful day
Odd Taxi
Oldboy
Pan's Labrynth
Paprika
Shoplifters
and most films by Tarantino and Miyazaki

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

Scuba dived with sea lion pups in La Paz
Saw humpback whales jumping in Hawaii and La Paz
Swam with whale sharks in La Paz and Koh Tao
Walked among the largest trees in the world in Sequoia National Park
Hiked the Narrows and Angel's Landing of Zion National Park
Saw the milky way camped half-way up Mt Rainier
Saw the sun set over a sea of clouds in Huang Shan, and again in the Paramo in Colombia, and in the coastal mountains of San Francisco
Island hopped along the estuaries, bayous, and barrier islands of the gulf coast for a few weeks
Had my breath taken away countless times road tripping across the west of the united states
Climbed Mt Fuji from the very base to the top for sunrise
Spent Dia de los Muertos in a cemetery in Oaxaca
Road tripped across Xinjiang

What I Can Share with Hosts

I like giving recommendations about places I've been. Usually I give much more recommendations than people expect when they ask me. Especially with nature and nice places in the US. Like I'll pull up Google maps and point to all the neighborhoods and describe every single one with restaurants and cafes and bars in all of them.

I can teach how to play Fly Me to the Moon on piano, with all the chords, and why the chords work that way. And other jazz chord progressions that are related.

I can cook pasta or vegetables in a Californian style, or chili in a southern USA style, or some chinese american dishes. I can make good broccolini, dinosaur kale, belgian endive, cabbage with lao gan ma, black bean quesadillas, and pastas.

I know a lot about clean energy, climate change, capitalism, and food systems/plants affect on history, if you're curious.

I know a lot of chinese, asian american, and american card games.

Countries I’ve Visited

Argentina, Belize, Brazil, Canada, Cayman Islands, Chile, China, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cyprus, Ecuador, Germany, Greece, Iceland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Jordan, Malaysia, Mexico, Peru, Singapore, South Korea, Spain, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand, Turkey, United States, Viet Nam, Virgin Islands, British

Countries I’ve Lived In

Brazil, China, Colombia, Mexico, Thailand, Turkey, United States