all heart & soul   Discovering new places and people on her travel shows is all in a day’s work for actress-host Belinda Lee. She tells JUSTINA TAN how travel saved her soul.     SHE HAS TRAVELLED to 21 countries, including far-flung Argentina, Iceland and Peru, but 31-year-old Mediacorp artiste Belinda Lee will have you know that travelling for work isn’t at all about glitz, glamour and five-star hotels. “It’s not your Fann Wong or Zoe Tay kind of travel shows where you get to stay in luxurious five-star hotels, soak in the bathtub for hours, or go to the spa. It’s hardship.” Belinda, who has become a poster girl of sorts for television travelogues, should know a thing or two about hardship. She’s slept in the African wilderness, gone without a shower for days in Botswana and Mongolia, scaled a steep mountain to visit mental patients in Yunnan, China, and even suffered an excruciating bout of dengue fever while in Switzerland. So you can understand why she doesn’t obsess over the current must-have Prada bag or Manolo Blahnik shoes. Last seen on the second season of Channel U programme Find Me a Singaporean, a travelogue where Belinda heads to exotic locations like Kenya and Mongolia to seek out Singaporeans residing there, and stays with them for a week to suss out their reasons for relocating, she’s been able to showcase a different side to her wacky onscreen persona. The show allowed her to freely display her heartfelt emotions, whether it was commiserating with homesick Singaporeans or comforting the destitute. After 10 years in showbiz, the fetching actress-host claims to have finally found her place in the industry. “I’ve finally found freedom – and found myself – in Find Me a Singaporean. It’s very much like what Simply Her does – it’s not gossipy, but something that is close to the heart and tugs at the emotions.   PHOTOGRAPHY FRENCHESCAR LIM ART DIRECTION MICHELLE KUEK STYLING DEBRA WONG HAIR CASH TEE/SANDSTORM (6795-7077), USING SEBASTIAN MAKEUP YANG (9856-6866), USING BOBBI BROWN