Taichung’s Stylish Boutique Hotels V
TEXT / RICK CHARETTE
PHOTOS / ASKA CHI
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
