[photopress:hotels_Yuzi.jpg,full,alignright]Yuzi in Chinese means ‘fool’ or ‘fooling yourself’, so the art park Yuzi Paradise near Guilin in southern Guangxi province could simply be called a Fool’s Paradise. Except that it also houses one of the world’s largest modern sculpture gardens and workshops, and a boutique hotel – the Hotel of Modern Art (HOMA). It opened on April Fool’s Day in 2003, seven years after construction first began.
Since then it has hosted 11 International Sculpture Symposia and sponsored some of the world’s top sculptors from 47 countries, who have created over 200 works that make this place an international focal point for modern sculpture.
Yuzi has spectacular desert gardens featuring hundreds of species of cacti, many from Australia and other desert climates.
It also has two high-end hotels:
HOMA Libre is a 46-room luxury boutique hotel and the only Chinese hotel member of the French Relais & Chateaux association.
HOMA Sutra is a 118-room conference oriented hotel.
Both have fully equipped spas and business centers.
[photopress:hotels_Yuzi_map.jpg,full,alignright]If you are staying for a week or more, you can participate in creating your own art-work using the facilities of the atelier and its skilled artisans. You pay for the raw materials and create your own work. Research seems to indicate there is no other hotel in the world that offers this facility.
Yuzi Paradise has another 500 hectares that it can expand into, and there are plans to build a series of caves for a Zen retreat experience of meditation and spa treatments.
This is not an inexpensive hotel with a de luxe twin costing US$320. The hotel has its own Yuzi Paradise website which is quite as remarkable as the hotel. The first illustration shows what part of it looks like. The rest is just as good. The second illustration is a map placing the hotel.