Hyatt 48 Lex (New York)

Hyatt 48 Lex, a set on Flickr.

A new baby Hyatt is recently born in New York’s Midtown East. Barely three months old in mid-December 2011 when I visited it, Hyatt 48 Lex is meant to be a boutique hotel in the vein of W, except with much less luxury. The tower has a very tight footprint, having been built on a little plot where a convenience store used to be. With 24 floors, 116 rooms and suites, each floor has 6 rooms that face either the Lexington Avenue or the 48th Street, but corner rooms are lucky to see the intersection of those two streets. The rooms begin on the 3rd floor.

Room 01 and 06 are isolated from the other rooms in the floor, while rooms 02, 03, 04 and 05 are clustered together. The façade of the lobby and ground floor restaurant, as well as the 3rd and 4th floors jut out from the rest of the tower. From floor 5 until floor 24, the

The Park Hyatt Saigon

Park Hyatt Saigon, a photo by bloompy on Flickr.

The Park Hyatt Saigon opened just this past July 2005. I checked in four months later, staying in 3 different rooms (2 standard and 1 suite). The prime location in District 1 (considered most desirable in Ho Chi Minh City [or HCMC], the city formerly known as Saigon) makes most of the landmarks available within walking distance. The hotel is next to the Opera House, close to the “Hotel de Ville” (French for “City Hall”), and not too terribly far away from the Notre Dame Cathedral and the Independence Palace. In addition, the