Mini Hotel

Finding a place to stay in Hong Kong is always a drama. There are so many considerations - close to my grandparents, close to public transport, close to the good food spots, close to the shopping hubs and, this trip, close to the Hong Kong Central Library, so I could work on my thesis. Surprisingly, we found a place that fit the bill easily and without any drama. The Mini Hotel in Causeway Bay was the answer, a petite boutique hotel in an amazing location tucked behind the hustle and bustle of Times Square, just off chic Hysan Avenue. The concept of the hotel is exactly what I look for in a place when I travel; intelligent, modern design coupled with great service, simplicity and the right price (as well as comfy armchairs in every room to collapse into after walking around all day, the dream). The Mini Hotel doesn't have the kind of extras that most of the bigger hotels would have - gym, room service - but who needs that when you're in Hong Kong, and the pavements are your treadmill and out the front of your door is some of the best retro coffee shops that Causeway Bay has to offer? It was the perfect base. A big white hotel bed, with crisp white hotel sheets - so fresh, so clean - a convenient location that put us right in the heart of our Hong Kong hood and gloriously cool air-conditioning to battle the humidity of Hong Kong's infamous summer.  Finding a place to stay in Hong Kong is always a drama, but now I've found the Mini Hotel it doesn't need to be anymore.

Mini Hotel Causeway Bay, 8 Sun Wui Road, Hong Kong

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teakha

one // two-three

You know instantly when a place is the one. It mostly just feels like relief. Relief from a long day of walking and talking and looking. Relief and instant comfort. This is a place where you can sit and relax with a pot of tea (or ice tea in this heat) and no-one will bother you, or if they do, it's only to bring fig and ginger scones with home made jams and a little pot of butter and what's the harm in that? It's tiny but you prefer the word intimate. It's has a small menu but you prefer the term perfectly formed. Why bother with all the bells and whistles when the idea is right and true in the first place? 

Maybe I'm getting silly in my old age. But this kind of place is somewhere we don't have enough of in Sydney. Places that serve tea and cake and not much else, that invite you to stay forever, that are filled with flowers and wide smiles and calico aprons tied twice with a bow. Eating in Sydney has become a bit of a free for all. We constantly, tirelessly search out the next-big-thing so we can instagram it and hashtag it and be proud that we made it there first before anyone else. Sure, you instagram in a quiet little place like this (I mean, look at those flowers!), but that's not the point. A place like this is a step away from the machinations of our food obsession, it's a step to the side and down a little somewhere a little more off-the-beaten track. It's trendy, of course it's trendy. But again that's not the point. It's just right. It's exactly what you need. It's a place to drink in the world, and a slow-brewed chai drunk with ginger and spices. It's a place you know instantly is the one but, like all good, true things, you might spend your whole life looking for. At least now you've found it you know where to keep coming back to.

Teakha, Shop B, 18 Tai Ping Shan Street, Sheung Wan, Hong Kong

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a morning in causeway bay

see more in the series: a morning in wan chai // a morning in paris // a morning with abby // a morning in brooklyn

Rainy mornings at The Mini Hotel in Causeway Bay are made of this - spending half the day reading a good book, goofing around in new glasses (Ray Ban Clubmasters from Vision Direct, Kate Sylvester beauties and the old faithful Bespecd opticals), taking long, hot showers, listening to the melody of rain coursing against the window and hiding from the day under crisp white sheets.

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slip

garance dore

A week in this Hong Kong heat and I've shed all the scales of a red-cheeked winter and embraced the bare-armed beauty of a wet, humid summer instead. I bought a dress (the first once since my 21st, but who's counting?) and I've been wearing it non-stop with nothing to accompany it but the whisper of a gold bracelet and wet hair and a pair of wingtipped sunglasses and I've been going about my work here without a care in the world because there's nothing better than bare legs and a bit of a breeze when everyone else is dreading the heat. 

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the apartment

We spent our first night in Hong Kong in the delicious surrounds of the Apartment O. It's primarily a long-term stay apartment, but we got the keys for one night and one night only, just enough to enjoy the kookiness of red wallpaper, oversized Chinese pop-art and a bathroom with a mirrored feature wall. There was a balcony with french doors that opened from the living room and you could look down on the canyons of Causeway Bay. These are the pleasures of staying in an apartment instead of a hotel. That lived-in feel, that personal touch, that sense of reality - however heightened and perfected and stylised - that makes you feel instantly comfortable. Find the right one and it might even make you feel like something of a local, picking out cakes from Zoe's across the road, the classic breakfast set from Cafe Matchbox one street down. That's the kind of travel experience I love. Thank you for having us Apartment O!

 

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big jet plane

I've handed in my papers and I'm free at last (what a blast!) I keep forgetting the fact that I'm not actually free, that I'm now just over the first hurdle and onto the last straight, that I'm working on my thesis for the remainder of the year. But I figure that one day of dreaming won't hurt me. I'm off to Hong Kong to do more research and see my family for a week, more frequent updates from my instagram (@hannahroserose), though you know me, I'm never able to fully separate from here. I hope everyone's end of exams/semester/term/financial year went fantastically. I think we've all earned a bit of a break. 

If anyone has any Hong Kong tips I'm always open to them! Comment here or email me hryee1@hotmail.com - I'm particularly after breakfast spots, the one thing I think Hong Kong is lacking...

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indigo

 A kitchen-style buffet breakfast, with food in le creuset pots and freshly-baked baguette sticks poking out of wicker baskets, a library of comfy chairs and wide-spread lounges filled with books on Wan Chai and movies you can take up to your room and watch at your own leisure, floor-to-ceiling windows onto Hong Kong's iconic skyline, a rooftop pool nestled amongst the hills of Victoria Peak, rooms adorned with hand-tiled mosaic mural walls, organic bath products and linen robes, friendly, attentive staff who know your name and smile at you as you leave every morning - sounds like kind of a dream, doesn't it? Well that's the Hotel Indigo, and let me tell you, it really was.

Hotel Indigo, 246 Queen's Road East, Wan Chai, Hong Kong

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a morning in Hong Kong

see more in the series: a morning in paris // a morning with abby // a morning in brooklyn

Hotel mornings are made of this - the smell of newspaper on your fingers, feeling like a perfect British gentleman in Derek Rose sleepwear, drinking jasmine tea from a proper cup, spending hours deciding what shoes to wear (See by Chloe sandals or RMK? Loafer or Heel?), leaving the curtains closed, dripping Grown Body Serum on the sheets by accident, and never wanting to get out of bed.

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