A 24-year old chemical engineering graduate turned food technologist. 100% Balinese, born in Australia, grew up in Jakarta, now pursuing my master in Netherlands. A bit introverted and melancholic on the side, but I'm up for some fun as well! The nickname's Ian, btw.

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

I caught travel bugs when I did my 2 months exchange to Ukraine on 2011, and has been traveling whenever chances come up ever since. And since then I realized that the most effective, the easiest, and the most fun way of learning other's cultures is through locals. And I think this is where Couchsurfing comes to the rescue.

Interests

- Arts and culture, especially traditional music and dance.
- Casual stroll around the city with casual conversations.
- World cuisines
- Foreign languages!
- Visiting cool local bars and talk over beers or anything, and a bit of partying with nice music
- Light (and sometimes heavy) conversations (about anything except politics) (prefer quality over quantity, I personally don't like hanging out with too many people, 3-4 people is enough for me)
- Games (role-playing, mostly)
- Travel-blogging (just started very recently)
- Tennis (used to play a little bit when I was little, mostly just watching now)
- Of course traveling (small group or solo) and I'd be more than happy to share travel experiences and to hear yours as well!

• arts
• culture
• dancing
• dining
• cooking
• beer
• partying
• politics
• traveling
• blogging
• music
• camping
• tennis
• engineering
• languages

Music, Movies, and Books

Music:
So diverse that I'm not limiting my ears to specific genres, but what I listen to usually depends on my mood. I listen to Coldplay (big fan right here!), Keane, Mew, Stevie Wonder, Calvin Harris, Esperanza Spalding, Avenged Sevenfold, Bee Gees, Kings of Convenience, Michael Buble and the list goes on.

Movies:
How I Met Your Mother (it's becoming my habit now that I'm always watching one episode every time I have my lunch/dinner), Breaking Bad, Game of Thrones, House of Cards (haven't continued since Season 2 though), Harry Potter, Silver Linings Playbook, The Imitation Game, Wolf of Wall Street etc.

Books:
To be honest I don't read too many books, but some of the books I read are Blink (Malcolm Gladwell), Quiet by Susan Cain, the Alchemist, An Innocent Abroad, How to Kill a Mockingbird, (some of) Harry Potter books, and very recently Haruki Murakami's books (Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki, Norwegian Woods).

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

Joining a summer camp as a part of cultural exchange program in Ukraine (which almost none of my peers ever thought of going to) was my turning point. I got to mingle with the locals, see and experience by myself their way of living, learn their languages (I can read cyrillic alphabets thanks to this!), and had a lot of fun!

And basically moving to Netherlands to pursue master's degree. This really opened so many opportunities for me, both academic and non-academic. Not to mention the chance to travel in Europe, which is much easier compared to other continents, IMO.

Teach, Learn, Share

Indonesian language (I'll make sure to slip in some slang words :p), how to cook some typical Indonesian delicacies (I'll try my best on this *fingers-crossed), Indonesian and Asian culture (in general), and anything worth sharing, basically

What I Can Share with Hosts

Foods (not limited to Indonesian, of course), beers, or wines.

Countries I’ve Visited

Andorra, Australia, Austria, Belgium, China, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Hungary, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Singapore, Slovenia, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Ukraine, United Kingdom

Countries I’ve Lived In

Indonesia, Netherlands, Ukraine