The seventh season of the CNN travel and food documentary series Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown begins on April 24 with a trip to Manila, capital of the Philippines. The show follows the best-selling author and chef as he travels the globe to discover the cultures and cuisines of lesser-known destinations.
Bourdain visited Manila unannounced in December, catching his fans and the local media by surprise. Exploring the city during the Christmas season, he travelled through its festive streets to try out local dishes including adobo, sisig and kare-kare. He also indulged in the popular sweet and milky dessert halo-halo. The episode opens with Bourdain’s visit to Jollibee, which he describes as “a fast-food wonder”.
In an interview with CNN this week, Bourdain said he was looking forward to the latest season and “very excited particularly with the episode on Manila”.
“I’m very close to a lot of Filipinos here in America – I have a sort of extended Filipino family,” he said.
“In the episode we also explore the overseas Filipino worker phenomenon. We look at the caring and generous nature that is very much a part of Filipino culture.”
“Filipinos like to eat and they like to cook – and they do it well.”
This is Bourdain's second TV trip to the Philippines. In 2008, he visited Manila, Pampanga and Cebu to film an episode of his Travel Channel series No Reservations.
The eight-episode new season of Parts Unknown of will also feature trips to Chicago, the Greek Islands, Montana, Tbilisi, Senegal, Cologne and Buenos Aires.
Filipino track featured on Vampire Diaries
Filipino fans of American television series The Vampire Diaries were surprised to hear a 20-year-old popular Philippine song used as background music in a recent episode of the horror-fantasy drama.
The 1997 song, Bakit Di Totohanin (Why not make it real), was performed by Carol Banawa, a popular actress and singer in the late 1990s.
It appeared in a scene featuring lead characters Stefan (played by actor Paul Wesley) and Valerie (Elizabeth Blackmore), who were visiting the Philippines – although the scenes were not filmed in the country.
The episode, the 16th in the show's seventh season, was directed by actor Ian Somerhalder, who plays Damon in the show. Vampire Diaries also features Filipino-American actress Leslie-Anne Huff, who plays Rayna, though she did not appear in the episode.
Banawa revealed that Vampire Diaries's music supervisor Chris Mollere had contacted her to seek permission to use her track for the show.
“I am in disbelief right now but very grateful,” she posted on Instagram.
Banawa, 35, who now lives in the United States with her husband and three children and works as a nurse, also messaged Mollere on Twitter: “I just want to thank you for giving my music a chance. I am beyond thrilled.”
Asked on the television programme Rated K whether she regrets leaving the entertainment industry, Banawa replied: "Fame – I can live without it. I'm OK because I'm such a homebody."
Voice Kids finalist joins Les Misérables cast
Eight-year-old Esang de Torres, who finished third on the second season of The Voice Kids Philippines, has joined the cast of the Manila run of Les Misérables.
She debuted in the musical last weekend, playing the role of the young Cosette in the hit show, which is based on the novel by Victor Hugo.
On The Voice Kids Philippines, De Torres was coached by actress and singer Lea Salonga, who starred in the Broadway adaptation of Les Misérables as Eponine and Fantine.
“I’ve been dreaming about this. I’m very thankful and I’m very grateful,” De Torres told ABS-CBN News. “I’ve been hoping to emulate what Coach Lea had accomplished.”
The Manila run of Les Misérables features Filipino singer Rachelle Ann Go as Fantine.
Little Azkals to screen at Toronto festival
The Filipino documentary Little Azkals, directed by Baby Ruth Villarama, has been selected to screen at the children's cinema section of the Toronto film festival's Kids International Film Festival, which opened last Friday and runs until April 24.
It follows 22 young boys selected to train in the United Kingdom for the Philippine national football team.
The documentary will screen at Toronto’s Bell Lightbox Theatre today and on Tuesday.
"The doc is about these boys' dreams," Villarama told the Philippine Daily Inquirer.
“Hopefully the world will see our nation’s growth in these kids’ journey to become world-class athletes.”
Little Azkals, produced by Voyage Studios, previously screened at last year's Zlin International Film Festival for Children and Youth in the Czech Republic.
artslife@thenational.ae
Confirmed bouts (more to be added)
Cory Sandhagen v Umar Nurmagomedov
Nick Diaz v Vicente Luque
Michael Chiesa v Tony Ferguson
Deiveson Figueiredo v Marlon Vera
Mackenzie Dern v Loopy Godinez
Tickets for the August 3 Fight Night, held in partnership with the Department of Culture and Tourism Abu Dhabi, went on sale earlier this month, through www.etihadarena.ae and www.ticketmaster.ae.
Company Profile
Company name: Hoopla
Date started: March 2023
Founder: Jacqueline Perrottet
Based: Dubai
Number of staff: 10
Investment stage: Pre-seed
Investment required: $500,000
The alternatives
• Founded in 2014, Telr is a payment aggregator and gateway with an office in Silicon Oasis. It’s e-commerce entry plan costs Dh349 monthly (plus VAT). QR codes direct customers to an online payment page and merchants can generate payments through messaging apps.
• Business Bay’s Pallapay claims 40,000-plus active merchants who can invoice customers and receive payment by card. Fees range from 1.99 per cent plus Dh1 per transaction depending on payment method and location, such as online or via UAE mobile.
• Tap started in May 2013 in Kuwait, allowing Middle East businesses to bill, accept, receive and make payments online “easier, faster and smoother” via goSell and goCollect. It supports more than 10,000 merchants. Monthly fees range from US$65-100, plus card charges of 2.75-3.75 per cent and Dh1.2 per sale.
• 2checkout’s “all-in-one payment gateway and merchant account” accepts payments in 200-plus markets for 2.4-3.9 per cent, plus a Dh1.2-Dh1.8 currency conversion charge. The US provider processes online shop and mobile transactions and has 17,000-plus active digital commerce users.
• PayPal is probably the best-known online goods payment method - usually used for eBay purchases - but can be used to receive funds, providing everyone’s signed up. Costs from 2.9 per cent plus Dh1.2 per transaction.
WIDE VIEW
The benefits of HoloLens 2, according to Microsoft:
Manufacturing: Reduces downtime and speeds up onboarding and upskilling
Engineering and construction: Accelerates the pace of construction and mitigates risks earlier in the construction cycle
Health care: Enhances the delivery of patient treatment at the point of care
Education: Improves student outcomes and teaches from anywhere with experiential learning
DEADPOOL & WOLVERINE
Starring: Ryan Reynolds, Hugh Jackman, Emma Corrin
Director: Shawn Levy
Rating: 2.5/5
Feeding the thousands for iftar
Six industrial scale vats of 500litres each are used to cook the kanji or broth
Each vat contains kanji or porridge to feed 1,000 people
The rice porridge is poured into a 500ml plastic box
350 plastic tubs are placed in one container trolley
Each aluminium container trolley weighing 300kg is unloaded by a small crane fitted on a truck
Zayed Sustainability Prize
KEY DATES IN AMAZON'S HISTORY
July 5, 1994: Jeff Bezos founds Cadabra Inc, which would later be renamed to Amazon.com, because his lawyer misheard the name as 'cadaver'. In its earliest days, the bookstore operated out of a rented garage in Bellevue, Washington
July 16, 1995: Amazon formally opens as an online bookseller. Fluid Concepts and Creative Analogies: Computer Models of the Fundamental Mechanisms of Thought becomes the first item sold on Amazon
1997: Amazon goes public at $18 a share, which has grown about 1,000 per cent at present. Its highest closing price was $197.85 on June 27, 2024
1998: Amazon acquires IMDb, its first major acquisition. It also starts selling CDs and DVDs
2000: Amazon Marketplace opens, allowing people to sell items on the website
2002: Amazon forms what would become Amazon Web Services, opening the Amazon.com platform to all developers. The cloud unit would follow in 2006
2003: Amazon turns in an annual profit of $75 million, the first time it ended a year in the black
2005: Amazon Prime is introduced, its first-ever subscription service that offered US customers free two-day shipping for $79 a year
2006: Amazon Unbox is unveiled, the company's video service that would later morph into Amazon Instant Video and, ultimately, Amazon Video
2007: Amazon's first hardware product, the Kindle e-reader, is introduced; the Fire TV and Fire Phone would come in 2014. Grocery service Amazon Fresh is also started
2009: Amazon introduces Amazon Basics, its in-house label for a variety of products
2010: The foundations for Amazon Studios were laid. Its first original streaming content debuted in 2013
2011: The Amazon Appstore for Google's Android is launched. It is still unavailable on Apple's iOS
2014: The Amazon Echo is launched, a speaker that acts as a personal digital assistant powered by Alexa
2017: Amazon acquires Whole Foods for $13.7 billion, its biggest acquisition
2018: Amazon's market cap briefly crosses the $1 trillion mark, making it, at the time, only the third company to achieve that milestone
