*** If I haven’t met you yet, please do NOT send me a friend request. Send me a message if you’d like to meet me. Thank you! :)) ***

Hello there! My name is Ying.

My travels so far have taken me to 47 countries around the world. Thanks to CS, I’ve managed to meet so many incredible people and listened to their stories and shared mine.

I'm here to meet genuine people, and really can't tell you enough how much I enjoy spending time with open-minded people! :)

“Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less.”
- Marie Curie

“Life is either a daring adventure or nothing.”
- Helen Keller

CURRENT MISSION
So many things to list. Write, draw and create more, listen more, read more books, learn more skills, reconnect with friends whom I've met along my travels, become a better communicator, discover life, learn more from people around me, and learn more about myself.

ABOUT ME

Overall, I’d like to consider myself “reliable” and I stay true to my word. I respect your time as much as I respect my own.

I dislike labels and generalizations of people. It’s nice to have a basic understanding about a culture; however, everyone is unique and different, so it makes an interesting experience when I make an effort to learn about them; rather than putting everyone from the same origin in the same hat, and make broad assumptions about them. After all, we are all part of the HUMAN RACE. Where you’re from really doesn’t matter to me as long as you have a good attitude.

PHILOSOPHY

- Positive attitude goes a long way.

- Be a traveller, not a tourist.

- Travel, experience, learn, and respect.

- “To laugh often and much; to win the respect of the intelligent people and the affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty; to find the beauty in others; to leave the world a bit better whether by a healthy child, a garden patch, or a redeemed social condition; to know that one life has breathed easier because you lived here. This is to have succeeded.”

- "Be the change that you wish to see in the world."

- “The happiest people don't have the best of everything, they just make the best of everything they have.”

- “To move, to breathe, to fly, to float,
To gain all while you give,
To roam the roads of lands remote,
To travel is to live.”
– Hans Christian Andersen.

- “Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage.” Anaïs Nin

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

Have so far been able to meet some fantastic people on this site, and would like to continue my journey meeting locals on this site when I travel as well as being able to show travellers around in Vancouver :) It’s been an incredible experience with this amazing community.

Glad to be paying it forward with kindness and hospitality wherever possible!

Interests

• arts
• culture
• recipes
• movies
• drawing
• music
• hiking
• backpacking
• history
• languages
• hitchhiking
• food
• travelling
• nature
• stargazing
• healthy lifestyle
• roadtrips
• daydreaming
• ted talks
• being open to new experiences
• exploring different ways of travelling
• experiencing new ways of life in general
• meeting travellers and locals

Music, Movies, and Books

Music:
Mostly Jazz, Bossa Nova, music from the 60s - 70s, and Classical.

Movies and Books:
Too many to list!

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

Not too sure what I am supposed to put here, but I’m just going to state a few things I did that made me feel pretty happy.

I wouldn't say amazing, but I feel pretty great whenever I could help other people especially in seemingly simple ways - an example being that I have grown my hair for about 2 years and then cut my long hair to donate it to the Canadian Cancer Society (did this twice), and I was very pleased with what I did.

I have seen both polar bears and penguins in their natural habitat in 2020. Just before the pandemic and when restrictions eased for the summer...

I have ridden a hot air balloon in Canada, and gone skydiving in the Swiss Alps.

I have once driven through the sinuous Cabot Trail in snowy, white-out conditions in the SPRING (oh yes, welcome to Canada, hahaha lol) on my all-season tires (not winter tires) - and survived (the drive was quite treacherous, but I made no mistake :) - otherwise how could I type this up for you to see? :P ).

I like to see the well-known spots, but I also aspire to travel to places that are more “off-the-beaten-path” as they feel more like adventures to me. I have once stayed in a little cabin built with straw in the middle of nowhere in Thailand.

I've also driven across Canada from east to west. Got to see some interesting places and met some super kind and helpful people along the way!! :)

Most recently, I’ve driven solo from Vancouver to Guadalajara ALL BY MYSELF! I slept in my car for almost the entire time when I was in the US (except that I stayed in my friend’s sailboat when I was in Marina del Rey). It was quite a thrilling ride but hey, I made it in one piece! Also special thanks to the kind-hearted and beautiful family of my friend Gil who helped me out at the border and gave me a comfortable pitstop there. Gil wasn’t there but his family helped me TREMENDOUSLY. (I previously met Gil while travelling in Singapore... It’s interesting how travelling and CS work in mysterious but wonderful ways and you end up finding your way back to and receiving help from people that you previously met - or their family in this case - unexpectedly!) And... sometimes it’s the people and NOT the places that make memories... so overall, this road trip that spanned across 4,500km has been added to my many wild journeys and earned me some nice memories and a little badge of cross-continental driving alone :)

Happy to share more of my stories if you're not too tired to hear more! :P

More wild trips include hitchhiking in Latin America, trekking in the Argentine Patagonia alone and almost died, attending the vibrant Sambadrome Carnival in Brasil, getting lost in Paraguay as the only tourist there, and solving the jigsaw puzzle of coming home to Vancouver from South America (when there were no flights left and I had to deal with an unprecedented and insane level of bureaucracy) - this was after I was stuck in the outback in Argentina at the beginning of lockdowns (I re-entered by early March 2020, but only managed to leave by the end of April); Also, spontaneously meeting many strangers when I’m travelling and trusting them, staying in a kind stranger’s treehouse in the Canadian Rockies and confronting a black bear (almost) face-to-face (unknowingly), traversing through the BC wilderness for two weeks without a roof over my head - but sleeping under the stars for two weeks and didn’t become dinner of the wildlife there...) and many more...

Teach, Learn, Share

Cultures
Travelling
Fun conversations about travel experiences
Languages
Knowledge and intellectual conversations
Smiles and friendliness
Good vibes
I could offer English and Mandarin lessons to those who would like to learn? :) Learning a language is easy if you have the right attitude :)

I used to host a board game and karaoke night every month in Vancouver :) Always great vibes and had such a blast doing it! I'm not really sure when we will be able to resume, but I'll be sure to update my profile when my events resume :)

What I Can Share with Hosts

Cultures, languages, sharing my best dishes, exploring new places, sharing experiences, meeting and learning from locals, including their culture and traditions, sharing travel stories and tips, trekking, discovering beautiful landscapes and being in awe with nature wonders... the list goes on... :)

Also, perhaps a couch in return in Vancouver, BC, Canada or wherever I live in the world when you come for a visit! :)

Countries I’ve Visited

Albania, Argentina, Austria, Belgium, Belize, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Brazil, Canada, China, Croatia, Cuba, Czech Republic, Denmark, Dominican Republic, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Guatemala, Hong Kong, Hungary, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Lithuania, Macao, Mexico, Monaco, Netherlands, Norway, Paraguay, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Serbia, Singapore, South Korea, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand, United States, Uruguay, Vatican City State