Being a cast member of children's show Hi-5 is more than just singing and dancing in front of a camera to an empty studio. It's a ticket to travel the world.
The children's series returns following a two-year absence with several new cast members, a new name and different channel.
The series previously appeared on the Nine Network from 1998 until 2012 but from Monday it will screen on Network Ten's channel Eleven as Hi-5 House.
The reincarnation includes a new set and a refreshed format, and Hi-5 House includes puppet friends, Chats and Jup Jup, and the addition of Tinka, the tin toy robot.
While the series is being screened, the five cast members will be on the road, touring Indonesia before heading to India, Brazil and Mexico later in the year.
Fans of the show will recognise regulars Stevie Nicholson, (who was cast in 2007), and Lauren Brant (2009) and they will be joined by Dayen Zheng, Ainsley Melham and Mary Lascaris.
Lascaris may be one of the new faces in the show but she is far from a rookie performer.
She was a cast member at Universal Studios in Japan where her roles included Princess Fiona, from Shrek, Marilyn Monroe and talking and singing in Japanese for Hello Kitty.
Lascaris was cast in December 2012 when Hi-5 was in hiatus from free-to-air TV.
The series was shot over a couple of months last year, and other than working in the studio, Lascaris has been performing in Hi-5 stage shows around the world.
She said she learnt Japanese because she had to sing and talk the local language at Universal Studios and she is going to have to learn another language or two by the end of the year.
"I am excited because they have just told us we are going to South America at the end of October, and because we are also going to Mexico, we need to learn our songs in Portuguese and Spanish," Lascaris told AAP.
She said there are parallels between learning a language through song and teaching children via the tunes on Hi-5 House.
"When you are learning a knew language it is actually so much easier to learn it through song because all the pronunciation and dictation is written for you," Lascaris told AAP.
"When we would speak our lines in Japanese it was always harder but in a song you just have to remember how it is sung and it makes you sound fluent even if you can't speak it."
Lascaris said it's a mistake to think the cast are filming most of the year when they're in fact travelling, promoting and performing for the show.
"I actually feel much more comfortable performing on stage than in front of one camera," she said
* Hi-5 House returns on Monday, February 24 at 9am on Network Ten's channel Eleven.
