Monday, August 3, 2009

Couch Surfing (not a review yet)

so how safe it is to crash at a complete stranger's house?
or personally for me, more importantly
how safe it is to allow a complete stranger to crash at my place?

i am NOT endorsing couch surfing by writing this,
this is merely an opinion, your experience is entirely your decision ok?!
you should exercise ALL AVENUES of precaution to ensure safety, ok?!

i first heard about Couch Surfing after descending from Mt Kinabalu,
2 complete strangers were at the Kinabalu Park Centre;
looking to hitch a ride and ask if we're going to town,
they are just 2 tall back packers; not really a threat
against our whole family and our mean driver la...
no problem! we're chinese we know kung fu!
we let them hitch a 2 hour ride back to KK for free,
but the driver still wanna charge them RM40,
they are nice Norwegian guys, and talkative,
they asked us to drop them at their 'friends' place,
i asked out of curiosity since they've only been here 2 days,

"Who's your friend?"
"a Japanese working in Kota Kinabalu..."
"ahhh??? Japanese???"
"He's an expat"
"so how do you know him?"
"couch surfing"
"AHHH??"
i've heard of surfing on the beach,
but never surfing on couch whey!!
"couch surfing is a website,
you register and members volunteer
to offer you a place to stay, or bring you around
or take you to coffee, the local touch the experience"
"ooooooooohhhmyyygooodddd sooo COOL!!!"

at the sound of the KEYWORDS (ding ding ding!)
my BASIC travelling instinct pops out
cos couch surfing sounds ....
so eff-ing CHEAP!!!
(who cares about danger when its FREE)
so eff-ing FUN!!!
(who cares about risk when its FUN!!)
rocking out with LOCALS!!!
(who cares about psycho anyway!!)
and most important of all its sooo SEXY!!!
the idea is sooo turn on, imagine going off beaten track!
and being a solo female traveller and
totally going against the traditional SAFETY zone,
its like every turn in your journey is an adventure!!!!

i totally remember the first time going to Philippines alone,
and staying at Rose's house, a COMPLETE STRANGER,
that was one of the most exhilirating and terrifying experience,
one that I DO NOT RECOMMEND if you have a choice,
but for me (thank goodness) the reward was friendship!

you can read more about 3 Canadian girls from Montreal
(Montreal is said to be the Mecca of couch surfing)
and their experience of couch surfing here

this excerpt caught my eye
"The average age of couch-surfers is 27,
but the website draws a few octogenarians and
a very active community of 50-somethings."

did you read that??? 50-somethings???
its like imagining my mom and dad couch surfing
in some STRANGER's house, who's prbbly 27 yrs old!
wah lao weh. i really damn LOU TOU.
damn conservative, its like ONE PART OF ME
celebrates the idea of couch surfing (high-5 shuxian!)
ANOTHER PART OF ME
totally thinks i'll never be able to do that AT ALL.


what about you??? i really wanna know!!!!

3 comments:

ariel said...

u go sit people's couch
& people come sit on your couch~
haaaaa... sounds cool!

i go register sin~ =)

Fei said...

the idea is a bit scary geh.. have to trust a complete stranger...

missnoname said...
This comment has been removed by the author.