Taichung’s Stylish Boutique Hotels V
TEXT / RICK CHARETTE
PHOTOS / ASKA CHI
![](https://taiwaneverything.cc/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/69.png)
The Green Hotel is in an especially quiet, primarily residential, neighborhood near the Calligraphy Greenway’s mid-section. Its lobby doors open on a narrow-street intersection, a heritage Japanese-style wooden house, now home to a Japanese restaurant, diagonally across the way. A small kindergarten seen through the left-side bank of lobby windows is the source of smile-creating scenes.
The Green Hotel is in an especially quiet, primarily residential, neighborhood near the Calligraphy Greenway’s mid-section. Its lobby doors open on a narrow-street intersection, a heritage Japanese-style wooden house, now home to a Japanese restaurant, diagonally across the way. A small kindergarten seen through the left-side bank of lobby windows is the source of smile-creating scenes.
The mission of this hotel is nature appreciation and eco-conservation. One lobby corner area is given over to a display of Taiwan plant life, the main attraction a long rack of vials containing specimens of aromatic plants such as lemongrass, sweet osmanthus, and mugwort, which guests can smell, accompanied by explanations (Chinese) of their habitats and common uses.
![](https://taiwaneverything.cc/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/76.png)
![](https://taiwaneverything.cc/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/77.png)
The hotel’s décor gemstone is its atrium, which extends from the basement restaurant to a full-glass roof section through which sunlight floods down. The atrium’s back wall is made of countless PET bottles, with LED lights embedded. Guests use a lobby computer terminal to write messages that then scroll up the wall, accompanied by visuals such as giant leaves (the hotel’s logo features a stylized leaf). All guestroom doors directly face the atrium.
![](https://taiwaneverything.cc/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/75.png)
Another key spirit-uplifting aesthetic touch is the placement of displays on atrium-facing walls on each guestroom floor. One, entitled “Branches of life,” presents Taiwan’s aromatic-wood trees, another, “Seeds of hope,” the seeds from which local plant life springs.
![](https://taiwaneverything.cc/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/70.png)
![](https://taiwaneverything.cc/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/72.png)
![](https://taiwaneverything.cc/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/71.png)
![](https://taiwaneverything.cc/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/73.png)
Rooms are minimalist chic, with a strong Scandinavian charisma. Blondish bamboo wood is liberally used, on floors and on walls. The light décor tones much expand the sense of space.
![](https://taiwaneverything.cc/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/74.png)
![](https://taiwaneverything.cc/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/79.png)
As you descend the wide stairs from the lobby to the basement Shire restaurant, the happy sensation is one of entering a Hobbit House forest setting, accentuated by the low ceiling. Western family fare is served here.
![](https://taiwaneverything.cc/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/68.png)
Green Hotel (綠宿行旅)
Add: No. 126, Minsheng N. Rd., West District, Taichung City
(台中市西區民生北路126號)
Tel: (04) 2301-4280
Website: greenhotel.com.tw
About the author
![](https://taiwaneverything.cc/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/20-2-150x150.jpg)
Rick Charette
A Canadian, Rick has been resident in Taiwan almost continually since 1988. His book, article, and other writings, on Asian and North American destinations and subjects—encompassing travel, culture, history, business/economics—have been published widely overseas and in Taiwan. He has worked with National Geographic, Michelin, APA Insight Guides, and other Western groups internationally, and with many local publishers and central/city/county government bodies in Taiwan. Rick also handles a wide range of editorial and translation (from Mandarin Chinese) projects.