Ok, this could perhaps be my very favorite hotel of all. I mean, yes, I remember I said that about Cancun, and maybe they are both in first place. But the design of this hotel is completely over the top!!! It is called Hotel Unique, and from the size of the washcloths to the backwards presentation of the room service menu, it IS! First its outer design is much like the shape of a slice of watermelon, or the belly of a ship. All the windows are round like portholes, and the outside is a deep teak looking wood. Ahh, I think of Davis (my brother). You walk through 40 foot metal doors into the lobby which itself is 2 or three stories high, painted deep reds and browns, with art carefully placed everywhere. There is a reading room just past the 2 personal-sized reservation desks, where there is some kind of brown pillowy thing you can flop on top of to do some browsing through any of the many giant coffee table books they have artistically placed on the book shelves. I cannot even describe the bar, tall. So upstairs. We are staying on the highest guest floor, but above us is the Sky Bar and restaurant. This is on the top of the building, and the skyline is so immense it makes New York look like a small neighborhood. Wow! The guest rooms are designed so fantastically that I want to make my next house look like them, with maybe a little more color (you know how they are into this white on white thing, but it seems very very crisp). Aside from the flatscreen TV, towel warmers, a fresh coconut opened with a straw, and a bed that will make you cry to get out of, this room has an automated curtain you control from the bed that makes it pitch black as night when you’re sleeping. Ohhhh, the perfection. I won’t go into too much detail about the Jacuzzi, or how you can lift up the window/wall separating the bedroom from the bathroom and watch the flatscreen from your perch in the bubbling tub. My favorite thing about this hotel I haven’t even described yet. Oh! The Poooooooool. Yes, I love a pool, but this one is out of some creative genius’s imaginative depths! Ok. It is downstairs 3 levels from the lobby, and since Sao Paulo is technically still in winter (although it is mild) I figured an indoor pool was a perfect idea. Well first of all, it was two pools.
One on the right was yellow, with a slide coming from the floor above going into it, Jacuzzi chair things that if you lay in them (under the water but your head would be resting comfortably above) and push a button on the wall beside them they’ll massage your whole body with raging water, ahh. Then to the left was a blue long pool for swimming. I went straight for that one. Since I slept 13 hours last night (due to a recording session that ended well after 5:30 AM the night before and an early flight the next day) I thought a little exercise would be a perfect way to start off the day! (it was 3:15PM when I got to the pool) Just after I started swimming I realized music had come on. Nice, and although at that moment I thought the man behind the bar had turned it on, it was later I realized the music was automated, somehow triggered by my movement in the pool. But what was so amazing about this music was that is sounded clearer underwater than it did out of water. Under Water Speakers!!! Ohhhh genius! I loved it, and honestly it was the first time in my life I have ever been able to swim to the beat of music! Usually you hear it above the water but as soon as you make a small splash you can’t hear the sound anymore. Oh, wow. So, as I swam I realized that I was not, in fact, indoors, underground like I assumed initially. Above me was the atmosphere, a straight shot to the sky! HOW, they found a little pathway between the buildings and levels of the hotel to make an open room I will never know! Finally I ran up the stairs to level two and took a ride on the waterslide! Ohhh, it was FLYING! I think they had greased it up or something, and it was so fast and so fun I must have gone up and down the stairs 4 or 5 times. And keep in mind I was the only person around aside from the many staff bringing me towels, offering me drinks, showing me to the lockers and the saunas, etc. OH! The paradise! I always love to find a place where designers have thought about how to let adults (not only children) have fun! It was perfect! I finished the morning - no, afternoon, with a visit to the sauna, where when I entered the hot room music automatically began. I had another slide into the pool after that, and a final sauna visit. Could I get used to this?!?!?!?!?
Love!!
Luci
