KOO is a collection of seven rehabilitated machiya’s (traditional Japanese townhouses) refurbished with modern furnishings, some as private villas and others with two or three separate guest bedrooms creating 13 units in total. Japanese machiya’s are small – typically around 1,000 sq. ft – and split into two levels. Insisting on key features such as […]
Category Archives: Travel
Tsingpu Retreat – The Walled, Yangzhou
Sun sets and the contours of this horizontal modernist compound come to life. Architectural up-lights raise lit columns along the perimeter, down lights flush the layered brick walls and guest rooms and dining hall become punctuating light boxes. I don’t know quite how to describe Tsingpu Retreat The Walled as a hotel. It’s certainly a modernist architecturalContinue reading “Tsingpu Retreat – The Walled, Yangzhou”
Trunk Hotel, Shibuya
It’s a common misconception for would be travellers to Tokyo that this city of super abundant creativity and modernity has numerous well-designed, boutique hotels. Well … there aren’t. There’s probably many reasons and this blog isn’t meant to be for real-estate finance mundane so I’ll curb it to a couple of inter-related reasons: prohibitive land/developmentContinue reading “Trunk Hotel, Shibuya”
House of Finn Juhl, Hakuba Hotel
It’s a wet late fall day in Hakuba and rain drizzles as the temperature falls in the valley. Hakuba, the site for 1998 Nagano Winter Olympics, is not known for beautiful lodging options – in fact far from it – so I’m particularly delighted that a new, design minded lodge quietly opened its doors. HouseContinue reading “House of Finn Juhl, Hakuba Hotel”
Road to Capella di Vitaleta
Unexpected yet direly needed relief from punishing summer heat, cool northern breeze moves in on a cloudless day. Val D’Orcia in mid-summer is an utterly beautiful expanse of golden wheat fields where harvest just completed and hay rolled up neatly doting the valley. Drive up north from Bagno Vignoni and veer off right just southContinue reading “Road to Capella di Vitaleta”
23 hours at Phum Baitang, Siem Reap
4pm. It’s a clear, big sky, tall clouds late afternoon in Siem Reap and jovial yet consummately polite staff in the pared down reception shelter is much needed refreshment in the punishing heat. Staff in all white linen lounge top and wide-legged pants gracefully sweep the timer flooring and hands you a cold, jasmine scentedContinue reading “23 hours at Phum Baitang, Siem Reap “
Hotel Kanra, Kyoto
Entering Hotel Kanra is a light and airy affair. Gentle steps down the narrow corridor with slender bamboo stalks on either side swinging gracefully, pass through the sliding wood panels into the sparse reception area and the seasonally curated Ikebana (flower arrangement) awaits. This time it’s unusually sweltering early summer and wisteria arrangement is inContinue reading “Hotel Kanra, Kyoto”
The Naka Phuket
If pool villa was Banyan Tree Phuket’s gift to travelling civilisation, it’s been re-gifted countless times without any reinvention for almost twenty years. Considering Amanpuri’s open suite formula of ‘contiguous living-bedroom-bathroom’ hasn’t been innovated on for 30 years, you can’t blame the unimaginative hoteliers. What’s more Phuket, over the years, has taken the concept ofContinue reading “The Naka Phuket”
Hoshinoya Tokyo
What makes Tokyo a great city? That it’s a proper city. Where there’s proper crowding worthy of the superb public infrastructure, properly dressed and behaved people and the food, proper food. Hoshinoya Tokyo is the newest entry into the luxury sector in the already luxury Marunouchi banking and retail enclave. You’re kept outside the reachContinue reading “Hoshinoya Tokyo”
Satoyama Jujo
Hush conversations overheard through washi paper sliding doors, modest splashes of neighboring bather’s bucket water and faint simmering of freshly cooked rice as it reaches ‘niebana (flavourful al dente)’… all perfectly in tune with the rolling hills of Niigata landscape, disciplined attention to service and gentle yet confident design at Satoyama Jujo describe my twoContinue reading “Satoyama Jujo”
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