New Year, new website, new projects!
Well its a new year and we've already kicked of 2019 in style! A whilrwind tour in South East Asia; I've hit up Philippines, Maldives, India, back to Philippines, again back to India, and then Japan, followed by coming back home to California. All in a month and a half! We've filmed a lot of content and a quick summary of all our adventures can be found in this clip above.
New Seasons of Island Hunter, Maximum Foodie being filmed over the next few months.
Quick summary of my thoughts in each locations:
-Philippines: what else can I say other than I absolutely love coming here every time. It is without a doubt, the fastest growing tourism destination in SE Asia. 7000+ islands, friendly locals, gorgeous topography, amazing beaches (including secluded ones), fresh seafood, good facilities everywhere! We've filmed 2 eps of Island Hunter, 2 eps of Road less Traveled, 2 Max Foodie episodes, and 1 of Food Unknown. And we're still finding more content!
-Maldives: My first time here and what a country! The geography with it's thousands of atolls, islands, islets, is just mezmerizing. We had a fantastic collaboration with the Shangri La and Como brands for our Island Hunter shoot. Apart from the 5 star properties, we definitely got a feel of local culture which was an important thing to showcase as well. I have NEVER seen over the water villas as good as what we experienced in Maldives. Second to none! Over the last decades, a lot of 5 stars have established themselves in the Maldives, and a lot of big players are still developing in the next few years. It should be interesting to see how tourism grows over the decade as its already dubbed as the ultimate honey moon (high end) destination. Extremely thankful to the staff at Shangri LA and the GM of Como Maalifushi for the epic sunset yacht wrap party!
Japan: I always had this notion that Japan would be hard to navigate, understand, and I'd get hopelessly lost in the big city! Wasn't the case at all. Super convenient to hop around the entire country via Metro, which was easy to figure out as well! Food as expected, was mind bogglingly good, the locals were again, as expected, super polite and friendly. It didn't come across as this weird wonderland I had always envisioned. Rather, having bounced around from Saitama to Shinjuku, I expected more crowds and people. Its got nothing on Hong Kong when it comes to crowd and population density! Loved the bathrooms with their high tech gizmos, why can't we all have bidets!? It was a good pre pro trip and I can't wait to be back filming for real for the new Season of Maximum Foodie.
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Oh and new website! Hopefully better encapsulates our ethos, brand, vision and capabilities. Wanted to make it media heavy as thats what we're all about! More to come, should be a stellar 2019!
Sashi