Tiny Paris Flat
This one’s a little different, and my apologies for time off. Truth is, we’ve been traveling by tour bus for most of this, and more than that, I’ve been off the laptop for almost a month.
Tour’s over, for now, and I’ve chosen to take a few days off in Paris, probably my favorite non-New York city in the world. Definitely my favorite city to disappear in with no plan, and no goals. Actually, there was a plan and a goal for coming here this time, but it’s a matter of the heart and not this-blog-worthy.
The first time I came to Paris on my own 6 years ago, it was, like this, at the end of a tour with the Rapture. I only had my friend Amandine at the time, no plan, just some vague ideas of what I wanted to do where I could get lost, but mostly entranced by cold walks, getting lost, drinking painfully average espressos outside and smoking a lot, thinking, writing, taking photos.
I left Paris after 9 days with a million photos and probably 15 new friends like my friend Raul/Jetboy who runs En Face (go there! It’s across from Ave Maria, Rue Jacquard, where you should also go!).
The thing is, I’d asked Amandine about where to stay and she recommended I stay at her friend’s flat. She said it was normal for her to rent it out to travelers, and now that I’ve lived in NYC for a while, I know this is a totally normal, and as I’m about to tell you, superior experience to staying in a hotel.
For about €100 a day I got nice flat, a big bed, a beautiful living room with nicely curated objects but not too cluttered as to feel you are invading someone’s environment, kitchen with a view onto the street past the little “salon.” I stayed there 3 times, and it put an entirely different spin on my trips. Being able to put your food in the refrigerator and not a minibar without having gone through a lobby, without hanging a sign on the door, without a lot of things that are totally fine with 1- or 2- night stay in a hotel, but for a richer, deeper experience I highly recommend looking for one via friends of friends or the many online sites that specialize in apartment vacation rentals.
I’m writing this from a different flat, and I’m just starting to feel at home, it takes a second, you know? The street is a little busier, as the one where I’d stayed previously was on a side street, but I’m on the top floor, with an amazing view, kitchen has a skylight, and some other kind of non-annoying music comes floating up from the street every few minutes. Also, the back windows are open and the cross ventilation brings a new home-cooked meal smell into the place every-so-often. It’s sunday, it’s a beautiful day, I’m hungry now, time to go!!
General. Electricity.
While I just started out again on an American land cruise, it’s a little premature to start in with the hotel critiques. The reason behind this is one-fold: of the two hotels where I’ve slept and woken up thus far, I have too much to say about one and not the other. I have a bit of processing to do about my stay at the one that actually impressed me.
In the meantime I’d like to take a second to follow up on the cheap mini-trashcan post and talk about something that’s almost always a deal-breaker and that’s power sockets.
It almost goes without saying that most hotels aren’t equipped to deal with our modern world’s power needs, as power seems to be the thing that most controls our human universe. Surely, if you’ve ever seen Sir David Attenborough’s “Planet Earth” series, you’ll notice the subject of energy keeps popping up. In the animal kingdom it’s how to acquire it, store it, and find more of it, often in the form of other animals, but that’s another blog. In our human world of slight-to-maximum privilege (ie, you have a rented a place to stay for the night, you have rented a really fucking nice place to stay for the night) our basic hotel night needs while we’re about to retire come down to where can I plug in my laptop, charge my mobile, charge my smart phone, charge my camera, and I need it all near my bed because each of them has the alarm to wake me up.
Inevitably I end up dragging the side table away and unplugging the lamp, the clock radio (unless it already has an ipod charger in it, though I’ve found they’re not as good as just plugging it in to power) and sometimes the phone. I’ve also taken to carrying a 3-way, grounded US outlet expander with me. I room with another person a lot, and there usually aren’t enough sockets to go around if we actually wanted to charge EVERYTHING up over night. Thankfully, that’s not a problem, but as I write this at 49% charge on an old MacBook with a crap battery, I really want to climb into bed and do some last bits of computing before I fall asleep.
Of course, this hotel, like last night’s, has a bank of like 6 outlets on the desk with an additional one on the lamp. That’s a lot! It’s also about 5m away from being useful, especially with my “roommate” using the desk.
This also says a lot about the reliability of a) hotel wake-up calls and b) cheap hotel clock radio alarms. I’ve not gotten my wake up calls before. I depend on them, and perhaps the one time I’d called for one and didn’t get it I missed my lobby call and generally felt like shit all day. I don’t like to wake up to a strange alarm, or the hotel phone for that matter. I’m perfectly happy using my mobile as it starts with a little, but stern, vibration, then again, then with a chime, then eventually it comes to life as an alarm. I usually wake up after the first BZZZZT. I need this thing charging. Not the fire alarm ring of a hotel telephone. In fact, I’d prefer to NEVER hear that.
So besides this (I’ll tell you later, ok?) being a halfway decent hotel, maybe even pretty good, it’s still prey to the bullshit lack of outlets, like all the others.
*Addendum, I actually ended up with major beef about that hotel’s bed and shower and probably won’t even write about it — except we have to go back for 5 days.
Sofitel, Brisbane, QLD
Oh, Sofitel… It’s not you, it’s me. Well, maybe it was a little bit your fault. I’m just glad we made it through all this and we’re still friends.
I remember how it all started. I’d flown in for Future Music festival 2011 where I’d meet up with the Presets. Do you remember how it rained and rained? You were such a warm place to recover from the 24-hour journey! Well, I told you that then but the truth was I was staying in Darlinghurst Sydney before that in a managed apartment. I just couldn’t bare to tell you when you’d done your best to accommodate me, overcompensating with the vast, nicely lit room and comfy bed. I honestly can’t remember how comfy the bed was that first time, but again, I wouldn’t have told you back then. I was a little shy.
Do you remember that sort of passable food in your basement pub with the incredibly awkward, but I suppose traveler-friendly atmosphere. I wonder if you saw me sneak off and help carry a couple pints over to that “ladies’ night out” next to the speaker amplifying that bad live music. I mean, it was fun. All-in-all my time with you, despite the $34 breakfast and overpriced coffee in the bar was pleasant. I have fond memories. I never did get to see your pool or fitness room.
This second time around, again, was a little mysterious. This time I DID come in from a long, all-day/night journey from Tokyo via Singapore. You didn’t have my room ready. I was already overwhelmed then found out how much you were charging for internet. What happened to us? Thankfully, the festival comped us for the internet. I could connect with the outside world, since our date was starting to get really WEIRD.
With all the people around it was hard to focus on you. And I felt the same from you. The big banquet buffet we had together was yummy, but quickly I wanted to make an exit. I kept getting up to go outside and around the corner to your impoverished smoking area to choke down these horrible (yet amazingly packaged) Japanese “Echo” cigarettes, even though I didn’t REALLY want to smoke. Eventually I just moved on back to my room to try to have some alone-time.
So many mixed messages. The bar staff was blank, not friendly, while reception was full of sunshine, especially the concierge who joyfully scanned some drawings I’d done. “Bonjour!!” all the time, oh I get it, you’re French. The Aussie accent tricked me, but ok, it’s cute.
I have a confession now. I slept with your sister Sofitel Wentworth in Sydney. I mean, since we’re just friends now… It was weird at first, really weird. I’d never been with an interior, corner room facing a courtyard, much less a 20-storie, grey brick wall. I felt trapped, yet unable to resist. I basically locked myself in that dark cave of a room for 2 days. And slept, I just slept, ok? I hated that room at first and all I could think of was you and your massive, nicely lit room. Your bathroom had a real door, not the weird closet/saloon doors your sister had. How many people threw open those doors?
But something happened. Her bed enveloped me. Sure, I went downstairs, down to City Convenience around the corner, braved the rain while Sydneysiders ran around as if a hurricane was hitting, coming back through your lobby to “BONJOUR!!” But I have to be honest, I really, really, eventually… I really got into that bed.
Others with whom I’d been traveling had nothing good to say about her, grumbled in the lobby having been forced to get internet dongles so she wouldn’t grab all their money from their pockets. But not me. I’m ashamed to tell you this, Brisbane Sofitel. But even though I think you’re a bit of a better hotel, I kinda like your sister better. At least she’s got a chocolate shop next door.
I’d like to make the case once and for all that these do not belong in hotel bathrooms. The little ones, living on the tile floor. When you step on the pedal, it just slides away, under the sink, with the remains of hotel guests passed, where housekeeping sweeps their memories, their failures, their mementos.
I’m sure rubber matting, bought in large enough supply for an entire hotel chain could make this seemingly cute, utilitarian, GREAT IDEA actually work. But it’s a pain in my ass. Always. Just put a black bucket in there, like they did the other day.
What the Tivoli sort of lacks in getting the balance between space and coziness correct in their rooms they certainly make up for in a massive first impression.
Brazil is already a magical place to me, whether it’s the bustling potential of the landlocked and beautifully advertisement-free urban sprawl of Sao Paulo or the intensely mellow, City-On-The-Beach vibes of breathtakingly picturesque Rio. Hopping out of our climate controlled transport and briefly into the beyond-humid steam shower was just disorienting enough to distract me away from the endless caravan of Supercar SuperSUVs pulling to the valet. Into the lobby and you’re met with a dazzling metal hanging sculpture of rectangular rods, you might bother to look up if you weren’t looking down as you passed the Little Person doorman contrasted by the enormous security guard standing behind him.
The fun kind of ends there. The lobby/atrium is great, and were it that I was the kind of person who wanted to wow a client who still considered her/himself young and hip (but probably isn’t) I’d be happy to hold court right there. One of my touring companions was quick to point out the “fuck-me rail” in the elevator, which I’ve never heard of and if you’re on my team there it’s a shelf round the perimeter of the elevator, 6’+ person’s waist-high with tuck and roll leather. That was fun, I guess.
My room wasn’t that special. I liked the minimal woodiness of it a lot. I didn’t really connect with the size of it, as it was quite long, and empty, despite having a massive bed, a normal-sized sofa, and a nice desk. The in-room coffee service there is a pod-machine, with a variety of pods laid out, however, not clearly indicated they’re part of your minibar fee. I guess I’d gotten so used to the notion that if the coffee in the room is DIY, then it’s complimentary (ok, “very nice packaged” coffee and a French press, I’d look before I leap). At finding out too late about the $8 I’d just spent wasn’t wonderful, especially after a pretty gnarly early wake-up to get out of Santiago the night before. No, there’s no auto shut-off either, so I had a pretty watery, over-priced Nespresso in the 15 minutes I had to enjoy my room before I ran out the door to work.
I basically came back and climbed into the vast bed and had a pretty good night’s sleep. I think I enjoyed the menagerie of pillows and didn’t feel like I had to stay up and audition each one, which can be annoying sometimes when you just want to crash out but not wake up in the morning with half your arm still asleep.
All in all it was a decent hotel. The bathroom had a bidet and I used it! I always appreciate the old touchtone phone hanging next to the toilet. It makes me think there used to be a time where being constantly connected was a luxury and to have one next to the shitter, well, even moreso.
Tivoli. Sao Paulo.
Tivoli. Sao Paulo.
ANA Crowne Plaza, Osaka
I’ve been to Osaka 3 or 4 of the 5 times I’ve been to Japan. Actually, it’s possible I’ve been there 5 times. I’ve always found it a little baffling, even though it probably isn’t at all. After this trip actually, I think I have a better sense of the layout. If you’ve found your way to this travelogue looking for tips and destination info I can’t really guarantee you’ll find it here. These are really just some firsthand, off-the-cuff observations and reactions to my constant battle with loving hotels, good ones, and that love being at constant odds with my hot and cold feelings about work-related travel. I don’t pick these locations.
That said, I’ve stayed in a Crowne Plaza in Osaka before, I’m almost certain. And it was certainly on the other side of town. In fact, the first time I was there I was on the other side of town. And judging from this last stay, the other side of town is where it’s at.
Here’s the long-story-short:
The Ana Crown Plaza is about a 30 minute walk from everywhere I wanted to go save the Science Museum and the Museum Of Fine art, which was a quick 10 minute walk out the door. Immediately you hit a Circle K or Sun-something, I always forget the name, but I believe they’re interchangeable. If you don’t know about Japanese convenience store culture, do some searches, I’m sure there are people blogging about their lives surrounding these oases. I was perfectly happy starting my day there, as well as indulging in a lot of iced coffee from cans and pre-packaged-style to-go cups with extendable straws. If that one’s not your thing, Lawson Station is around the corner.
First and foremost, there’s a really amazing yet slightly understated Buck Rogers nightclub lobby with some additional pieces a la Superman’s Fortress Of Solitude (think chrystaline, think geometric, think glowing). I’ll update this with some instagram links if I can. Or just peruse my main tumblr http://jnthnk.tumblr.com you’ll see them. (Ok, the lobby was probably enormous. I never felt like it was though. They did a good job.)
The staff is pleasant, smiling, Japanese and unobtrusive.
The elevators are super fast, and the door-to-elevator-to-room experience was just fine: minimal mental intrusion from anyone else’s world. Happily, in a city like Osaka or Tokyo where you can turn a corner finding youself in a seemingly miles-long pedestrian mall, surrounded by at least 10,000 people, being 1) a gaijin and 2) just the general vibe, it can feel like you’re completely alone. See Lost In Translation, I suppose.
My room was a shoebox. It was really difficult to take pictures with my completely average camera. That said, I spent a lot of time in there getting acclimated, reading, and enjoying the quiet of the hotel. There was a night I thought I could hear my neighbors about to get busy, but I honestly believe it was my mind playing tricks on me, the hotel is that quiet. I did not avail myself of the naughty card this time. Pixelated rape-porn is not my vision of a pleasurable, lonely self-service.
I slept like a rock in the bed, and the pillows, like most I’ve experienced in Japanese hotels, were just right, with at least one buckwheat pillow — which always give me super odd dreams.
The bathroom was your basic tourist hotel bathroom. The shower was just right, the mirror didn’t fog up, and the robo-toilet, was, well, a robo-toilet. I miss them the second I hit the airport to leave.
I didn’t eat there. There is a confection shop in the lobby that is just as much eye candy as it is for your mouth.
I can’t think of anything I didn’t really like about the place.
Internet was free free free!!!
But yeah, it’s probably a great place to stay if you want to get some exercise, see some really cool architecture, and nice statuary adorning a couple of bridges, because you’ll probably want to walk to the other side of town.
Mini-update/rant…
(Sorry for the low res, rare occurrence missed alarm, and woke a minute after I needed to be in a car to JFK — and hadn’t even packed so no cam charger ATM. This may warrant another entry, even)
I’m back here:
http://thishotelsucks.tumblr.com/post/17033557088/sofitel-brisbane-qld
I actually enjoyed my time here a year ago, and knowing I was coming back I decided to check back before making a real entry. I’ll do so after, but I wanted to point out something that as an improvement for one hotel (Tokyo Excel Shibuya) now becomes a deficit for another:
THE INTERNET.
In my life it’s a given that the internet has replaced the television. In America, you still may see old, plastic signs advertising “HBO” outside a roadside motel, which is comical considering you can probably get a bunch of movie channels, plus all the other basic channels for free at a Super 8. Yet at some big, fuck-off fancy hotel in a major city in Australia that has X many Foxtel (cable package here) channels yet that you have to pay AU$26/day for internet is fucking lame.
That’s where I’m at today, having stayed in 2 hotel brands who previously charged out the ass for internet (Crowne Plaza and Excel Shibuya), both this time around came correct with the free internet. At some point I realized the nicer the hotel, the more of a “premium” it is to have something as ridiculously universal as INTERNET. And this seemed to be the case across the board.
I realize Australia, as an island nation, and a very big one at that, is in its own world as far as internet price-gouging goes, and quality of service, but it shouldn’t have to take a natural disaster to set the balance right here.
Make bandwidth a premium, not access.
That said, they didn’t have our rooms ready when we arrived and we waited nearly an hour, so we got comped internet for the day. But I have work to do, and I’m watching the time/mb limit and it’s stressing me out.
Staying at a hotel should never stress you out, unless that hotel sucks.
Hotel Habita, Monterrey, MX
These two photos of Habita could say it all. In fact, for the most part, they will have to, as that’s all I shot. You could easily, however, find some really stunning photos of the rooftop pools (yes, two) or possibly the bathroom, which was also perfect.
But I’m fairly happy with remembering my very short stay at the Habita for peaceful nap I had in the early afternoon, and the great sleep I had that night. For me a good hotel room can go one of a few ways, or combinations, sure. It can be this surreal, supremely OTHER experience in staying somewhere, emphasis on staying, or it can be like the home you’d always imagined but never really achieved in your own living situation.
The minimalism and positioning of everything in the room spoke to me. Granted, perfection would’ve meant the tv was non-existant or at best appeared in a puff of haze, but otherwise, the comfy platform bed facing the mountains behind tall glass windows? Yes, please. Equally I liked the desk, how it fit snug against the bed, but still felt distinctly in its own space, as if the room evolved to whatever your purpose was at any given moment. Yes, even the bathroom was part of the room, if that’s how you wanted it to be.
I missed a chance to eat in their restaurant, which I hear (and smelled wafting up the stairway) is excellent. But there was an enormous burger I had on the rooftop pool while young, somewhat obnoxious Mexico-meets-Hollywood rich kids clowned in the pool (it’s ok, the testosterone bullshit factor was nicely balanced by their quiter lady friends, well, being nice ladies). Word is that that part of town is like the Beverly Hills of Monterrey, which would make sense given the Ferraris, Lambourghinis, etc, we passed. I was told you could buy a membership to the hotel pool, so that kiddie pool factor could be the only downside, really.
Lastly, and something I’ll try to point out when I can, the door-to-elevator-to-room experience is perfect. There really is no lobby to navigate, to make an entrance, whatever. You check in, hit the elevator to your room, done.
