Recently in Lodging Stories Category

I'm spending my last night in Tokyo at the Sheraton Miyako in a standard room on the 6th floor. A lower floor again but I get a view of the neighborhood. The hotel is next door to a Toyopet dealership and at the bottom of the hill from the Shirokanedai Station off of the Namboku Line. The lobby has an early 60s design that would fit in the world of Mad Men or 花樣年華. It doesn't look retro; it was probably how it was built many years ago and spotlessly maintained since. My room was recently remodeled and was quite comfy and plush. I can only imagine how the "nice" rooms look like.

The bed is awesomely firm, like most nice beds in Asia. The opposite of North America...

Nice desk and loafing couch. I think that's the same TV I have in my bedroom.

Internet here is free but wired. Check out the speed!

Damn fast!

Sheraton Miyako
1-1-50 Shirokanedai Minato-ku
Tokyo, Japan 108-8640
Phone: +81 3 3447 3111

Unlike Singapore, where the lodging market is bracketed by decent hostels and hotels whose rates seem to go ever higher into the stratosphere, Hong Kong has hotels that go even higher along with a veritable crap-shoot of choices for cheap lodging, many of them not being flashpacker quality. I've written about some of these places before (mostly in Chungking and Mirador Mansions) as well as some of the decent guesthouses in Causeway Bay (Noble Hostel and Wang Fat), that, although they were a good value, they were lacking in perks and style.

I recently found a small local HK chain of hotels called Mingle. They have two locations, one near Knutsford Terrace in TST and the other in Sheung Wan on HK side near the Macau Ferry Terminal.

Small bed for a very small (narrow) room! Very firm though...

The cheapest room is this one; very narrow and long. You get your bed at one end, a full and very clean bathroom on the other and a workspace, closet, hot water and a place to plug in your iPod. No window though. That comes with the bigger rooms, but since you're in HKG, how much time will you spend here?? Oh yeah, did I mention the tech focus of this hotel?

There's a flat screen TV where you can control the cooling and lights in the room. Also music and vids on demand!

Each room has a Linksys iPhone where you can log in directly to Skype. There's also a FREE wireless access point in each room because the router that runs the iPhones also is an access point. And unlike my recent experience with internet at HKIA, the net here is fast and wide.

Even the cheapest room here gets your own private bathroom. With ensuite shower!

The showers are powerful and the water was very hot. Perfect!

Styish sink

Not bad for under US$100/night. This is the kind of mid-level lodging that I've been looking for for a LONG time! Now if only Singapore could have something like this too...

Mingle on the Wing
125 Wing Lok Street
Sheung Wan, Hong Kong
http://www.mingleplace.com/

One of the many questions I field from frens and acquaintances is "how can you afford to travel so much?". I respond that it's necessary to spend for your plane ticket but where you sleep is another matter.

Please keep in mind that most of these frens usually travel "5-star" and that's a foreign concept to a flashpacker. Generally.

So I will begin to write about some of the places that I regularly stay at when I travel. Sometimes I will write about places that I don't usually stay at. For example, I don't usually stay at chain hotels when I travel overseas. Costs waaay too much usually.

That doesn't mean that I'm above treating myself, if the deal is a good one. Here's a recent example. During my last visit to KL where I flew out of the LCCT, I spent three days at the Kuala Lumpur Hilton.

Here's the view from the 24th floor, where my room was

The word "Hilton" here in the states usually means at best, boring and corporate. At worst it means "uneven" and "second choice" for many of my friends who seem to prefer Starwood or smaller boutique chains. The KL Hilton, however, simply means "swish".

This is the hallway to the room! My room has a hallway!!

Nice TV, small desk!

Bed and window and couch. By the window.

Tub in front, shower to the right and all open to the room via sliding doors!

This and the Le Meridian are in separate towers that are part of KL Sentral. The KLIA Ekspres terminates at KL Sentral as well as the LRT and the Monorail (sort of). Besides having a VERY transit friendly location, the bus that takes you to the LCCT boards downstairs on the other side of the building. No muss, no fuss. I've read on the net that the Hilton is nicer than the Meridian, both in service and in facilities. And I could always use the Hilton points! Not bad for US$135/night!

Compare that to when I stayed in Singapore overnight a few months back. I paid US$120. For a room. At a Hotel 81!!! KL has better deals!