Hello World. I am so grateful and honour to be a member of the Google Local Guide family. I think in.some way we are a family because we are all connected 
. I now would like to introduce myself.
* My name: Loc Nguyen. That is my name in.my passport but my mates always call.me.Lockie and I am happy with that name.
* My location: I am currently living in Gold Coast, Australia ( came to Australia more than a decade ago from Vietnam. I always say to.myself that I have two homelands and I love them equally.
* My passion and inspiration to be a Google Local Guide: I love exploring nature/landscapes and traveling as well as cooking. I remember those old days when.I was still living.in Vietnam and travelling around the country with my very basic camera. I took lots and lots of photos of beautiful places. I collected information about places which I first time visited. I tried so many different types of food from region to region in Vietnam. I was surprised to see that Vietnam is such a small country in size but so diverse in culture, landscape, and food (and accents which I couldnât believe that I had difficulty in.understanding Vietnamese people living in different parts of the country) Things I gave seen and learnt back then were amazing but I couldnât share with many people let alone the world because internet was still a new thing. Then I got a chance to move to Australia to study. Wow a completely different world for me. Things were difficult for my during the first few years of my new life but fortunately Australian people are very good people. With their support, I gradually settled my new life here in a new land which is amazingly gorgeous. I started doing again what I have always been loving: exploring natures and new places. With the advanced technology these days, it is easier for me to share my experiences. And as a fan of android I began uploading my photos on Googleâs sites as well as on other sites. To one day when I got an invitation to join Google Local Guide. I without hesitation accepted and realized I just put my first steps in a whole new world. The more I contribute to Google local.guide,.the more I see how important what we as members of the Google local guide are doing. We are actually helping people around.the world, not only in our community or city. There is no need to carry a Lonely Plannet book anymore. Just with a smart phone connected to internet, you have the best travel guide book in your hand: Google. Want information about a new place you want to visit? ask Google. Want to.know where around you a nice place to eat? use Google. look for flights and hotels? use Google, even to check what people say about a place, just ask Google. Google makes life so much easier.
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What a great introduction, @locbuuloc ! I really enjoyed reading it. It is so full of fascinating information about you and the way you wrote is very captivating. But now I have a couple of questions to ask you. The first one is - Does your nickname come from the Norse mythology - the god of mischief? And the second one is - Were you one of the winners for the Christmas decorations competition? 
Looking forward to your reply!
P.S.: Donât hesitate to let me know if Iâm wrong, but I assumed that this publication is actually your application for Connect Live 2019 and this is why I decided to change the title of your post. This way it will give a clear indication of the content that you have published on Connect.
Oh wow @KlaudiyaG your message is so sweet and inspiring to me. Thank you very much for that.
I am sorry but I havenât got a clue why my Aussie friends csll me Lockie. They may have seen some kind of mischievous characteristics from my personality 
but in a humorous way. They very often say to me âLockie you are very funny. You make people laugh a lotâ. I take that as a compliment 
. So thatâs it. I suppose thatâs where my nickname comes from. Regarding the Christmas decoration competition, I didnât enter the competition. It takes a lot and I mean a lot of work and time to put the decoration together and make it look brilliant . I work full time and donât have that luxury. Maybe in the future. 
You seem to travel a lot . Are you from France
Thank you again for your lovely message.
Kind Regards
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Believe me, @locbuuloc , the pleasure was all mine! Itâs great to have the power to make people laugh and I personally think that this is the greatest gift there is.
I can only imagine the troubles and sleepless night that people have to endure to win this prize. It takes me atleast 3 to 4 hours to decorate my apartment for Christmas and believe it or not I donât even overdo it. Nonetheless, itâs amazing to see people really getting into the holiday spirit and making every corner of their home or place where they are going to celebrate the fest as extravagant as possible. Most of them donât only do it for themselves, but also for other people to enjoy it. Itâs definitely not for everybody and I do understand your point. Work is vital. Itâs what makes our world function and thatâs one of the reasons why I donât travel as much as I wish. That in mind, who is? People who love to travel will always want to travel even more. I guess thatâs part of who we are. As per your question, no Iâm not from France, but I did have my fair share of time spend there. My story actually is in a way quite similar to yours. Iâm Bulgarian, but I lived a huge part of my life in Morocco and just like you I feel like I have two homelands that I absolutely adore.
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I totally agree with you @KlaudiyaG about the power of being able to make poeple laugh and we need that in todayâs busy world =) lol when people have so little time to laugh.
Regarding the Christmas decoration joy, I would like to share with you this touching story. A couple in Gold Coast where I live spent months before every Christmas decorating their house and they had done that for the last 17 years. They spent s much time and money plus effort making their place so briliant for people like me to come and enjoy. They are so famous in the whole city as what they had done actually has created a great spirit and atmosphere for the community. They have got so many 1st prizes for many year in a row and they deserved it. However two years ago and it was Christmas time, as usual I went for a drive to their place to have a look at their Christmas decoration. It was as fabulous as always but it was so heartbreaking moment when I walked around the corner of their yard and saw a message they put out on a wooden sign. The message said that they were so sad to let people know that it was the last time they decorated their house for Christmas and after that no more. We all felt so devetasted and wondered what happened. We then saw the line saying that due to their old age, it is not safe for them to get on the roof of their house to do the decoration, not safe to them to get all the electric wires connected and to out up all the strcutures. You gotta be there to see how much work they did. They turned their house into like a mini theme park. We were very sad but understood it was time for them to enjoy and relax. We so much appreciated their love and care for the whole community. If people knew the couple started decorating their house 3 months before Christmas they would definitely want to see how it look like. Such beautiful souls.
I posted a post on Local Guide Connect about people like you and me who are born in a country then move to another country to live after their childhood. The post is called âYou can take the boy of out the country but you can tak the country out of the boyâ If you have a look at that you will see how I feel about having two homelands.
It is so nice to share and talk to you about these aspects of life.
have a great day
Best Regards
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These people are truly amazing, @locbuuloc , and from what Iâm reading they deserve without a doubt some vacation from all the preparation. After all, the holidays are also for relaxation and spending some quality time with your love ones.
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