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Private Notes
Presenter Toby Amies meets Gaspard Delanoe, the charismatic leader of one of Paris's most audacious artistic squats and witnesses exactly what contemporary struggling artists can achieve when they all work together to breathe life into a disused Paris bank. Inspired by Gaspard's surreal bicycle, Toby decides to make a junk-art bike of his own.
Determined to fulfill her dream of being in a Bollywood movie, presenter Asha Gill gets the lowdown on Bollywood's raunchy moves from acclaimed choreographer Vaibhavi Merchant. Studio heir Riyad Wadia gives Asha the dummies guide to all things Bollywood at one of the last remaining hand-painted movie poster workshops in the city, and dazzles her with the bright lights of the city's club-hopping scene.
Presenter Toby Amies hooks up with Havana fixer Flacco who shows Toby how Habaneros worship and relax by gaining entre to a rehearsal for an Afro-Cuban Santeria rite and a seat in the bleachers at a rollicking Havana rodeo. Street photographer Leslie Sinclair shows Toby how to see Havana through Cuban eyes by inviting him to a cutting edge art show and taking Toby on a photographic assignment in the city's cramped and sweaty camel buses.
Presenter Asha Gill's feet hardly touch the ground before she's swept off them by tango artist Guillermo Alio. First he teaches her how to tango, then he invites her to become his 'brush,' as they dip their feet in oil paints and dance on canvas, creating abstract tango art. Asha hits the streets with Argentinean romeo Romulo Tirri visiting the famous Recoleta Cemetery - the resting place of Evita - and the feria de matadores night market showcasing Argentinian folk arts and acrobatic gaucho horseman.
Presenter Toby Amies braves the biggest New York snowstorms in a century to hook up with the Wau-Wau Sisters, New York's colourful Vaudeville vixens, for a drive through Lower Manhattan. Toby meets fashion designer Zaldy Goco in the Chelsea Hotel and gets a backstage look at New York's fashion scene when he's cajoled into helping the catwalk models in and out of their clothes at the city's glamourous Fall Fashion Week.
Charismatic musician and sound engineer Reshmonu takes presenter Asha Gill on a sonic tour of Kuala Lumpur to capture the city's ambient sounds and turn them into song. The bilal's call, the national anthem, Tamil rappers and a monsoon thunderstorm are just the start, and when a nervous Asha adds her own vocal harmonies to the mix, Resh creates a KL urban soundtrack as a memento of her visit.
To find his feet in Sydney, presenter Toby Amies enrols in surf school at Bondi Beach and meets artist and novice surfer Mai Long. After helping her through a bout of painter's block, Toby attends a gallery opening with Mai's larger-than-life art dealer Ray Hughes to get the lowdown on contemporary Australian-Asian art. Toby gets an insight into Sydney cuisine when society caterer Savva Savvas foolishly persuades Toby to help cater the launch of the Sydney Arts Festival. After a night hobnobbing with the city's creative elite, Toby wakes up in Sydney's only nude B&B.
Presenter Asha Gill hits the ground with fast-talking, Vespa-riding foodie KF Seetoh, the man behind Singapore food bible Makansutra. Seetoh gives Asha an insight into Singapore food as performance art. Seetoh hooks Asha up with local Malay-surf-punks Force Vomit, who take her on their 'Liberate Singapore' campaign to promote their band at the Great Singapore Sale and local rave Zouk-Out.
Presenter Asha Gill meets the elf-like Misery, Auckland’s most distinctive graffiti artist whose spooky cartoon faces have invaded both the walls and the galleries of New Zealand’s biggest city. Together they spray a campervan - providing Asha with a psychedelic vehicle for her journey and Misery with a unique centre piece for her Exhibition.
Presenter Asha Gill hooks up with Andy Mac, the figurehead of Melbourne’s prolific street art movement which has taken art out of the galleries and put it on city walls. Andy celebrates the opening of his latest street exhibition with a block party in one of Melbourne’s signature alleyways and enlists Asha’s help stencilling the club banner of one of Melbourne’s biggest Australian Rules Football clubs.
Presenter Toby Amies hooks up with puppeteer Christian Bahrmann, explores his ‘hood and helps put on a puppet show for Berlin kids. Christian introduces Toby to Natural Born Golfer Thorsten Schilling, who’s taken the distinctly unsexy game of golf and reinvented as an extreme urban sport. Thorsten and Toby play the ultimate game of golf through Berlin’s urban landscape.
Presenter Toby Amies meets charismatic Hong Kong fashion tracker Davena Mok, who kits him out with the latest gadgets and accessories he needs to thrive in this pulsating town. Social columnist and feng shui expert Nury Vittachi gives Toby an insight into three Hong Kong passions – money, horse racing and feng shui – and invites Toby to a fancy dress cocktail party thrown by the wealthy Harilela clan.
Presenter Asha Gill does her bit to save London from submerging six feet underwater, counts the city’s bat population and peeks inside the tomb of Kama Sutra guru Sir Richard Burton with nutty naturalist Bridget Nicholls.
Presenter Asha Gill hooks up with Chris Ntombemhlophe, an African shaman with a direct line to the ancestors. Chris takes Asha trance dancing in the city’s biggest black township and introduces Asha to outspoken diva Odidi Mfenyana, who’s reclaiming the Afro for Africans.
Presenter Toby Amies hooks up with alternative arts guru Pancho Lopez, who exercises his democratic right to eat wherever he damn well pleases by staging elaborate dinners in public places – including a traffic island smack in the middle of a busy Mexico City thoroughfare.
Presenter Toby Amies hooks up with genial prankster Marc Horowitz and his partner-in-crime Jon Brumit for a heart-stopping race down San Francisco’s steepest and twistiest street – on a child’s plastic tricycle. Marc and Jon conduct Toby in a 60-second symphony, before making him coffee in the park with the help of the world’s longest extension cord.
Traveller Toby Amies discovers a new generation of Tokyoites who are rejecting a life of salary-man slavery and transforming their city into a fantasy theme park. What is Tokyo? Whatever they want it to be.
Waking up from a century in the doldrums, the city that invented the concept of East meets West is doing what it does best - taking the best of both worlds and creating something greater than the sum of its parts. Traveller Asha Gill hooks up with six of its citizens to find out why this 2000 year-old-city is suddenly back on the radar again.
An Asian supercapital, a labyrinth, and a traffic jam rolled into one, Bangkok is a mash of the contemporary and the traditional, the sacred and the profane. Traveller Toby Amies goes bush-whacking in the ultimate man-made jungle.
Charming provincial backwater or thriving, multicultural metropolis? Traveller Asha Gill hooks up with a six-pack of Dubliners to find out why everyone’s talking up the Irish capital as Europe’s hottest ticket.
Traveller Asha Gill explores the fast-paced capital of Taiwan, a city shaping a new identity from its deep-rooted Chinese traditions, unique modern history and the remnants of its aboriginal past.
Shamelessly driven by the pursuit and celebration of beauty, Rio has nothing to prove in the good looks department. Its best assets are blatantly obvious: the beach, the mountains, the sun and its citizens. Traveller Toby Amies takes the pulse of the Marvellous City in the lead-up to Carnival.
A frontier town with a boom-and-bust mentality, Perth likes to brag it has more millionaires per head than anywhere else on earth. Traveller Asha Gill hooks up with a handful of locals who’ve found a slice of the good life in one of the most isolated cities on earth.
It took just a decade for Miami to morph from a capital of sleaze and a haven for sun wrinkled retirees into the hippest city in the US. Traveller Asha Gill takes a deep breath and plunges into the de facto capital of Latin America.
