Featured Destination: A Living Wall

This hotel caught our eye. Sure its uber-lux accommodations are exquisite, don't get us wrong, but it was the blanket of native plants cloaking its exterior that really tickled our fancy. The Athenaeum Hotel recently got a face lift unique to the world of high end hotels, showcasing lush green space instead of stark concrete walls. The self-irrigating Living Wall (or vertical garden as it is called in design circles), is made up of some 260 plant species and mirrors London's neighboring Green Park. The man behind this living tapestry is actually the inventor of the Vertical Garden concept, French architectural botanist, Patrick Blanc. Blanc's quest to spread biodiversity to urban centers is evident in his famous Vertical Gardens all over the world from Bangkok to Paris, New York to Tokyo and London. Hmmm, next stop Firestone Vineyard - wouldn't that be cool?

Featured Destination: Totally Radical

We recently caught wind of The Radical Innovation in Hospitality Awards, which identifies cutting edge ideas in hospitality, from existing locations to the purely conceptual. This winner this year is The Pixel Hotel, located in Linz, Austria. Based on the concept of providing immersion into the local scene in a private setting, the hotel is completely decentralized with a network of beautifully-designed apartment-like rooms scattered across the city. Employing a fully mobile on-demand staff, complimentary wireless internet access, and a 24/7 emergency phone line, The Pixel Hotel already sounds legendary. How much better can it get for those of us who want to truly experience a new city and attempt to blend in, with the added bonus of having a dose of luxury and a mobile concierge?

Hidden Spot: Fortune Cookie Frenzy

It definitely pays to wander up and down the streets of San Francisco's Chinatown. In the very heart of the district you may find yourself drawn down a narrow alley by the sweet scent of baked vanilla cookies. The trail of wafers wafting in the air will likely lead you straight to the Golden Gate Fortune Cookie Factory, a tiny operation nestled in the middle of Ross Alley. This factory has been supplying fortune cookies to Chinatown and around the world since 1962. Don't let the word factory fool you. One tiny room houses the entire operation, with a conveyor belt right in the middle, surrounded by barrels of finished cookies, a couple of fortune cookie production pros and the owner's desk, piled high with papers and whatnot. The ancient machine cranks out small discs of dough, where pre-printed fortunes are inserted by hand and folded into perfect crescents at a wicked pace. Although "admission" to the business is free, a .50 fee for photos is sort-of-strictly enforced. You can purchase bags of freshly baked fortune cookies directly from the shop, or take it a step further with a customized order. How cool is this: you can have your own message printed and inserted into a personalized batch. What a fantastic party favor!