Would you travel for the world's best toilets?
Gentlemen's washroom at Felix (Photo: Courtesy of The Peninsula Hotel)
Isn’t it just such a disappointment when a restaurant is perfect in every other way, and then you’re let down by a sub-par bathroom? We’re not asking for freshly laundered linen hand towels every time, but really, paper that doesn’t feel like tree bark should be a bare minimum.
Read more: Hotel Secrets From A Mandarin Oriental Executive
Australian tourism counsultancy MyTravelResearch.com clearly share our grievances, as they’re launching the Toilet Tourism Awards to set some much-needed bathroom standards. The inaugural edition of the Awards, which just opened for applications, has six prize categories which include Best Location, Best Design and Quirkiest Toilet Experience.
Gentlemen's washroom at Felix (Photo: Courtesy of The Peninsula Hotel)
We’ve been to some pretty fancy WCs around town that we’d like to put forward for consideration. For instance, there’s nothing quite like the washrooms at Felix over at Peninsula Hotel to make you feel like you’re on top of the world.
Designed by Philippe Starck, the experience is particularly impressive for the gentlemen—Italian marble stations stand in a line before panoramic views of the breathtaking Kowloon skyline, and it’s been likened to an infinity pool.
Photo: Courtesy of The Upper House
Café Gray Deluxe deserves some love, too—one of our favourite haunts, the Andre Fu-designed bar and restaurant perches on the top floor of the perennially chic Upper House, and has one of the best wraparound views in the city. This vista extends to the light-filled corner bathrooms, which sport huge windows.
Washing our hands while looking down at the Wan Chai and Admiralty cityscape elevates this mundane task into an experience in and of itself.
Ladies' washroom at Felix (Photo: Courtesy of The Peninsula Hotel)
The bathroom can, at the top of its game, be a pleasant escape, or perhaps even a “place of spiritual repose”, in the words of Japanese novelist Jun'ichirō Tanizakia. Perhaps it’s time to bring this porcelain elephant out in the open and up the bathroom ante—a little competition never hurt anyone.
If you own an establishment that you’d like to put in the running for the Toilet Tourism Awards, submissions are open until June 15.
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