While the big boys are continuing to expand their portfolios—with some spectacular announcements for 2024—the coming year is also shaping up to be a good one for people who prefer a bit of whimsy, a dollop of homegrown style and the one-of-a-kind feeling of an independent hotel (or at least one that’s part of a small regional group). From Aspen to Athens, Bhutan to Botswana, here are 15 new hotels that share a close attention to detail, a distinctive character and a genuine interest in sustainability.
In Search of Hokkaido’s Creative Spirit
21.11.2023 - 17:45 / cntraveler.com
It's hard not to stare at Yoko Arano's socks. The spry 89-year-old is otherwise sharply attired, from her neat trouser suit to the amber beads around her neck. Yet her unusual hosiery, covered in Pollock-like ink splatterings, hints at another story.
Arano is one of Japan's most celebrated calligraphy artists. I'm standing in her Niseko studio alongside the local gallerist Kiyoe Hosokawa, who introduced us only minutes earlier. Beyond the windowpane, snow is falling in thick, cartoonish tufts. But in this cozy, light-flooded space, where signs of Arano's craft abound—artworks drying on walls, folded newspapers, ink splashes across floors—time feels distant.
The bright, minimalist lobby lounge at Hoshino Resorts KAI Poroto
A heater hisses gently as Arano slips overalls on over her clothes and removes her necklace before laying paper on the floor. Then, after a moment of stillness, her performance begins. With a low groan, she bends her knees, hunches her back, and with a primal force, lifts a knee-high brush from a bucket, its bushy mass of horsehair weighted with syrupy black ink. Splashing onto the paper, it dances across the whiteness before taking the softly blurred shape of a Japanese kanji character. Seconds later, Arano pauses, and with a final groan heaves the brush back into the bucket. She stands and surveys her wild abstraction before slipping smoothly back into conversation. “I chose the kanji teinei, which means ‘polite,’ ” she says, smiling, “because it's a nice warm feeling meeting you today.”
For many, Hokkaido means one thing: snow. (Or whatever you want to call it—yuki, in Japanese; upas, in the Indigenous Ainu language; or Japow, a hip local contraction of Japanese and powder.) Though it's the least populated and northernmost of Japan's islands—closer to Siberia than to Tokyo—Hokkaido attracts a booming winter sports crowd, which is drawn by the light, fluffy mixture that blankets its mountains each year.
The painter Shigeru Tokumaru, from buzzy Hirafu
Unusually, and somewhat unfashionably, my wintertime visit doesn't involve hitting the slopes. Instead, I'm forging a different path, heading out in search of Hokkaido's creative spirit. No doubt about it, the island's aesthetic sensibilities are tied to its dramatic landscapes. Stark black trees etched into the skyline, sharp sunlight on mountain peaks, the crisscross of forest shadows on snow: These details find manifold artistic expressions, from volcanic soil–glazed ceramics to austere snow-and-skies photography and, as evidenced by my visit with Arano-sensei, poetic calligraphy.
This synergy between nature and art can be credited largely to Hokkaido's complex history. The island became part of Japan in the late 19th century, but
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