The Rise of the Machines – Henn-na Hotel Nagasaki

I read today an article about a new hotel in Japan that is due to open this year. At first I thought that it was an April Fool’s joke but having carried out a search on the web it appears to be true. So whether I’m a Luddite or not depends on your point of view. I’m all for technology making our working conditions easier and for making the current working week shorter but replacing human labour completely for me is a moral outrage and if that is the case then yes let’s smash the machines. We have a surplus of labour that will only grow as the human population heads up from its 7.n billion people through 8 billion and beyond. Replacing human labour completely just enriches wealthy corporations, widens the gap between the majority of the world’s human population and the rich elite and creates a society that has even more exclusion something that can only lead to less social cohesion and more crime. The hotel will be part of a theme park and they are expecting them to be able to carry out 90% of the hotel’s functions.

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Hotel de Nesle, 7 Rue de Nesle St-Germain Paris

If you want to stay in a great little hotel in Paris that is a just a little different then try Hotel de Nesle. It’s a little bizarre but really wonderful and is still family owned. It’s not for those who like their magnolia walled bland boxes as you can see from the photos. Paris, what a fabulous city. We stayed in this hotel in 2014 and 2015 and will certainly go back the next time we go to Paris. It just oozes character. Book it direct though because if you do it through the internet they loose a huge 17%! Copyright Paul Andrews and Caroline Schmutz, Junagarh Media, http://www.junagarhmedia.co.uk

I Thought That The Internet Was Supposed To Make Things Better

There is so much hype about the Internet and yet I live in hope that somehow it is going to make things better but often it doesn’t. We recently stayed in a nice little hotel in Paris, a family business that had been in existence for over forty years. It is a great little place but is quite small so we were appalled to learn that if a room was reserved via the Internet that the owners were charged 17% for the service. Daylight robbery. How do these people get away with it. Internet capitalism stinks.

Hotel Victoria San Telmo Buenos Aires – a great place to stay when visiting this wonderful city

OK, so if you are into bland super luxury corporate 5 star hotels where the local staff are dressed up in monkey suits this place is not for you. In fact stay away 🙂 This a fabulous family run pensión that feels like home. Victoriano who still runs it is in his late 80s and is helped by his son, son in law and other members of his family. There are also some long term guests as well as the usual independent travelers so you will meet interesting human beings rather than corporate clones. When we were there we met a German woman who must have been in her 60s and whom two or three days had been riding horses in the snow very high up in the Andes. So if you think for yourself try out the Hotel Victoria, soak up the San Telmo barrio and the rest of what is one the great cities of the world. You can see more of our photography and buy anything that you like on our Junagarh Flickr site or our website, http://www.junagarhmedia.co.uk.