CURRENT MISSION

To leave this box empty in my profile! Who wants to know my mission? If I were Tom Cruise, I'd have a mission, but it would involve self-harm....

ABOUT ME

I'm a writer, editor and teacher. I'm English, but I was born in Libya, brought up in South America, India and the Caribbean, and have lived in Hong Kong for 20 years. I'm poetry editor of the Asia Literary Review. I live on a gorgeous beach on Lantau Island, and can hear the South China Sea washing on the rocks outside my window as I type. One of my great pleasures is riding to work in Hong Kong - on my BMW 1200C bike, which started its life in 'Tomorrow Never Dies'. On my way home I have to watch out for wild cows and buffaloes on the road.

PHILOSOPHY

Life is full of blessings.

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

HOW I PARTICIPATE IN COUCHSURFING

People gave me couches way before CouchSurfing existed. Some of them didn't have locks on their doors, electricity or money, let alone couches. I don't think I'll ever be able to give back the hospitality I have received. This CouchSurfing community seems to me to be about trust and friendship and fun, and that's good enough for me!

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE

I travelled overland from the top to the bottom of South America when I was a kid. Strangers opened their doors to me ALL THE TIME. That experience of trust and generosity has helped to shape the man I am. Once, here in Hong Kong, I was riding my motorbike home when I saw a guy on a bicycle, all loaded up for world-travelling. I turned round (not easy in HK), found him again and led him slowly home. Turned out that he had just ended a round-the-world trip on a bike. I gave him a key and put him up for a week, against the incredulity of all my friends. He WAS a bit strange (anybody would be, after spending two years getting mugged in about twenty countries!) but it was nice to have him stay and to show him around a bit before he caught his final flight home. And he made me think of the hospitality I had been given by strangers who stopped to ask if I needed somewhere to stay.

Interests

I'm a writer and an editor and a teacher. For more information, have a look at my website, http://web.me.com/martin_alexander1/Home/Martin_Alexander.html, or check out Martin Alexander at http://www.EyeBoox.Com

• writing
• literature
• poetry
• traveling
• cycling
• boxing
• teaching
• beaches
• mountains

Music, Movies, and Books

Groundhog Day, Bach and Loudon Wainwright, Joseph Conrad and Love in the Time of Cholera. And more!

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

I made what was probably the first map of the Inca Road to Machu Picchu, when the trail was lost in the mountains, and there was no one but us to find it, and even the Museum in Cuzco had only the vaguest directions. So, armed with my dad's first edition of Hiram Bingham's 'Lost City of the Incas', we told the train driver to stop at K88, we crossed the river, headed upstream and took the first valley on the right. After a climb to 13,000 feet, the road suddenly began on the other side of the pass, six feet wide and paved with stone, and leading off ahead into the mist.
Pictures here: http://web.me.com/martin_alexander1/Home/Inca_Road.html

Teach, Learn, Share

Poetry, short stories, literature.

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