The 5* luxury Hotel Asia Gardens won last summer one of the most important prizes: entering the exclusive list of The Leading Hotels of the World. This important company was founded in 1928 under the idea of joining the best hotels around the world.

The Leading Hotels of the World was born more than 80 years ago thanks to a small group of European hoteliers that had in the beginning 38 members, among them some hotels in Europe and Egypt. That is why their name was “The Luxury Hotels of Europe and Egypt”.

In the 70’s they decided that they should have members in every continent, which also made them establish more regional offices. Therefore, they got installed in the United States, Europe, Asia, Australia and South America.

During the 80’s they were almost 200 hotel members, but nowadays, The Leading Hotels of the World has more than 430 members around the world. The organization has 24 offices in the main cities of the world and the headquarters are in New York City.

In order to join this prestigious group of hotels, they have to fulfil some requirements. First of all, they have to apply to be included in The Leading Hotels of the World. Beforehand, they have to be in the category of luxury in every area: lodging, gastronomy, personal attention and facilities. The Executive Committee will then vote positively or negatively.

When a hotel is already a member of The Leading Hotels of the World, like the Hotel Asia Gardens, the company carries out the “Leading Quality Assurance”, an anonymous inspection that covers every stage a guest lives: from the reservations till he is back home. This way, the hotels have to maintain the status and requirements that made them achieve this prize.

At Asia Gardens 5* Luxury Hotel in Spain we are proud of belonging to The Leading Hotels of the World. We work hard every day to transport our guests to Asia with the best personal attention and make them live a unique experience.

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The Balinese beds of our pools are not made for early risers. But they are made to rest and relax, leaving everything else aside. From the 5* Luxury Asia Gardens Hotel we want to tell you about the origin of these beds and about the country that names them, Bali.

Bali beds consist of a wooden structure with a very big and low mattress so many people can lay on it. White sheets surround the bed from every angle, so that the atmosphere is more intimate and you can protect yourself from the sun.

The classical colour of Bali beds is white, so that it doesn’t attract the sun heat.  Besides, the white colour has always been related to beach places like Thailand or Bali itself, where relax, wellbeing and peace are basic elements.

Bali is known as the island of Gods. It is an island and a province of Indonesia, which has a great tourist influx because of their dances, sculptures, paintings, silver work and a particular music style. It is also a meeting point for wholesalers of fashion, jewellery and furniture. Above all, Bali is a paradise of void beaches surrounded by natural palm trees and an exceptional silence.

The little towns of this island are filled with temples, fountainheads and jungles, creating a unique cultural place.

As for the weather, it is very similar to the one in our gardens by the Asia Gardens pools (LINK): tropical. With the exception of the usual raining periods, Bali has a nice and warm weather.

The best way of getting transported into Asia without getting out of Spain and enjoy great Bali beds with an amazing weather is visiting us at the 5* Luxury Asia Gardens Hotel. We are waiting for you.

As you know, at Asia Gardens 5* Luxury Hotel in Spain we love to share everything we know about the Asian continent.  In today’s post we are going to tell you about one of the most recognized and healthiest practices that come from Asia: yoga. Besides that, we will also tell you about a new yoga discipline: bikram yoga.

The word yoga comes from the Sanskrit “ioga”, which comes from the verb “iush”, meaning “focusing the mind, unifying or get absorbed in meditation”. It is a mental and physical discipline that has its origin in India. Yoga is used in Buddhism and Hinduism.

Practising yoga has many benefits, such as mental and physical wellbeing, mental balance and an improved concentration, as well as the benefits for the body. By practising yoga you increase the amount of oxygen in your body and learn how to control your breathing with the “pranayama”, a basic technique for this discipline.

Yoga consists of a variety of postures named “asanas” that work on your body and mind. Some postures are very well known, like the Greeting to the Sun, the Moon and the Earth.

Bikram yoga, a variety of the classical yoga, has been being practised in the last few years, created by Bikram Choudhury. Bikram is performed for 90 minutes in a room at 41 degrees where they carry out 26 different “asanas” (postures) and two others for breathing.

His creator assures that training at such high temperatures “improves the ability of the body of controlling its corporal temperature and also improves the blood circulation”. The 26 postures work for every part of the body and that needs flexibility, so the body has to be warm, at around 40 degrees.

The combination of the 26 asanas works as a synergy that increases the benefits for each part of the body. The variety of postures is astounding, but there is one that stands out for its complication: the back-bending. As the name itself says, it consists of bending backwards until you can walk on your hands. In order to achieve this type of asana, you need a lot of practice and of course a professional teacher in a certified centre.

You don’t just keep in shape with yoga and Bikram, but you can also cure injuring and muscle contractures. Of course, the healthiest celebrities like Jennifer Aniston, Heidi Klum or Doutzen Krous practise these two disciplines and share it on their social media.

You already know all the benefits of Bikram and yoga. That is why we invite our guests to try our free yoga lessons in the marvellous gardens of the Asia Gardens 5* Luxury Hotel in Spain.

“Peace comes from inside, don’t look for it outside”

Today, from our blog at Asian Gardens 5 star luxury hotel in Spain, we are going to tell you about one of the most important symbols of the Asian culture: Buddha.

The word Buddha comes from the Sanskrit and means intelligent or enlightened.

This word derives from the verb budh, which means “waking up, realizing, understanding”. Therefore, Buddhism brings together the ones that have woken up.

The founder of this religion is commonly known as Buddha, although his real name was Siddhartha Gautama. There isn’t an exact record of when he was born or when he died, but the approximate data sets him between 563 B.C. till 483 B.C., so he lived for 80 years.

“Do not stop in the past; do not dream of the future, focus the mind on the present”.

The original name of Buddha, Siddhartha, means “the perfect goal” or “the goal of the perfect ones”.

His father, who was King then, kept him far away from the real life during the 29 first years of Buddha’s life. When he finally made it out of the palace, he saw the elderly, sickness and death, and realised that that was his destiny, too.

Buddha wanted to live a happy life knowing what was ahead of him and decided to adopt the monk’s life. Buddha left his family, shaved his head and put on an orange costume in order to sit down and meditate.

“The one that has plenty isn’t richer, but the one that needs less”.

After some time meditating, he woke up as a Buddha, enlightened and knowing much more about freeing. He then began to talk about nirvana and ended up founding what in the East is known as Buddha-Dharma, here called Buddhism.

Buddhism consists of a spiritual search. After Buddha, enlightenment can be achieved after reincarnation. Buddhism also teaches about self-fulfilment and about “a liberating union with divinity/nirvana”.

There are two very well known terms that come from Buddhism: karma and obon. “Our good and bad actions follow us like shadows”. This is how Buddha defines karma, an energy that can’t be seen or measured which derives from people’s actions. Hence, everything we did in past lives has consequences in the next ones.

On the other hand, the obon is a Buddhist tradition that honours the dead and prays for their spiritual rest. They put little paper lights on boats on a river to guide the spirits back.

“Take care of the outside as much as of the inside, because they are all one” 

The Buddhist philosophy is very relevant in today’s world, just like in Asia Gardens 5 star luxury hotel in Spain. We invite you to discover it with us and let yourself get carried away with the peace that surrounds us.

“Wealth consists much more in pleasure than in possession”.

Today, from our 5-star luxury resort in the Mediterranean, we would like to tell you about a true gift of nature, bamboo. Its properties and benefits are limitless, and we are about to tell you about some of them….

The bamboo plant (Bambusa arundinacea) is a cane (gramineae).

Its name comes from India and there are 1300 different types, some species are more woody and herbaceous.

This plant is mainly found in tropical and subtropical climates, although sometimes it can live in areas where the temperatures are lower than 25Cº. This is why it can also be found in the wild, in the coldest areas of China.

Bamboo is the fastest growing plant on Earth. Some types of bamboo are even 30 metres tall in two months, and 20 centimetres wide.

Would you like to know some more about this fantastic plant?

Bamboo has been used ever since the beginning of human life. It is extremely resistant and very light, so much so that in the East it has even been used to build bridges.

It is applied in more and more different ways every time, from manufacturing furniture, resin, vegetal carbon, paper and textile fibre, to making baskets and many other objects.

It also helps avoid desertification, as its roots prevent the rain from taking the earth away.

This plant is a true wonder with numerous healthy and culinary properties.

Did you know that?

This plant feeds humans as well as animals. Soft bamboo shoots have become quite popular in Chinese restaurants due to their filling quality. It is also a basic part of the diet of Panda bears and Asian bears.

The bamboo plant symbolises serenity, longevity, peace, humbleness, perseverance, determination and elegance. It therefore represents good omens. Its straight stem symbolises the determination of meditation, and the hollowness inside makes reference to open spirits.

In our luxury hotel & Thai Spa Asia Gardens, we are fond of the aesthetic and symbolic properties of the bamboo plant, and our hotel would not be complete if we did not offer this side of Asia by displaying different types of bamboo around our tropical gardens.

Come to our Asian corner in the Mediterranean, there is nothing Asian we do not have here.

We look forward to seeing you

At our fantastic 5-star luxury hotel, we would like you to feel as if you were in Asia and that is why we have brought straight from there a 4-metre-long and 9-metre-wide duplicate of the faces of Angkor .… one of the most emblematic images of the Asia Gardens Hotel.

The main pool, in our swimming pool area, is the Faces of Angkor pool, which will remind you of the most traditional Cambodian architecture. You cannot miss out on it; it is heated all year round to help you enjoy it whenever you feel like it.

Do you know where these famous faces come from?

The smiling faces of Angkor can be found near de Cambodian city of Siem Reap, in the Bayon temple. The enigmatic Bayon is located in the centre of Angkor Thom, one of the largest cities in the world in the 12^th Century.

Many Eastern legends are based on Angkor, as it once was a great empire and one of the most glorious civilizations in Asia.  Even nowadays, its ruins are regarded as some of the top architectural sites of all times.

This is a unique monument in the world which does not only represent a transition period between Hinduism and Buddhism, but it also consists of bas-reliefs which illustrate everyday life scenes in mythology of the Khmer (or Jemer) civilization.

The magnificent face towers of this site are considered UNESCO humanity heritage. There are approximately 54 towers with smiling faces which face the four compass points, and none of them show the same facial expression.

Who do you think these sculptures depict?

Some historians say they depict King Jayavarman VII, others think that they represent an enlightened being (Boddhisatva), some even think that a combination of both hypothesis is possible, stating that the monarch wanted to reinforce his divine condition.

At the Asia Gardens, 5-star luxury hotel, we would like you to come and see our copy of this Asian wonder at one of our pools, and also to learn about its tradition and fascinating history.

We look forward to seeing you…

Today, from our luxurious 5-star hotel Asia Gardens in Spain we are going to tell you about a tradition and philosophy able to combine spiritual spontaneity and simplicity and the elegance of shape, the Zen philosophy.

The Zen philosophy was born in China in the year 618 during the Tang dynasty. Its name comes from the term Ch´an which means meditation. Based on the teachings of Buddha, it reflects on how transitory life is and it shows how to reach the enlightment that can lead us to spiritual perfection.

“Zen seems abstract or meaningless at first, but it has a meaning, what the mind complicates, Zen simplifies, Zen is like air or water, slippery in order to avoid getting caught, but it is always there.”

This discipline incites you to learn to see yourself as a being full of energy, able to connect with your surroundings. It is a discipline based on the understanding that everything is temporary, happiness and suffering just the same, and that true peace is only found within.

It helps you find serenity, maintain balance and understand that you are above all challenges that may come your way.

“Zen teaches us that life can shine like a precious jewel if you let it, and it does not go by without us realizing how wonderful it is. Let go of superfluous thoughts and let life flow, let things take their course and allow your Zen to be there when you call, the same way echo responds to sound.”

This thousand-year-old philosophy offers us some wise advice….

– Do not let anything affect your breathing. Breathe as you always do, slowly.

 – Progress and live every moment. Do not let a single day of your life go without you doing something fun, creative and useful.

– Bring your essence to everything you do.

– Focus on what you do. In ancient times, when archers were being trained by the Chinese, they were told: “You are the bow and the arrow”. You are your own project, gaining strength every day.

-Dissolves negative emotions. The Chinese term for this is “meditate”. Take a few moments, twice a day, to meditate.

-Live intensely. Enjoy every moment thoroughly. Zen teaches you that happiness is not found in great events but on the small things that are part of our lives.

– Search your own peace. To reach your balance, join the index fingers and thumbs of both your hands together and breathe deeply to close your own circle of energy, this will balance your mind, spirit and soul.

The Sakura or cherry flower festival, which we already mentioned previously, summarizes this philosophy.

In Japan, every spring, the largest flower spectacle in the world takes place. These trees are a symbol of beauty and universal wisdom, and also a symbol of transformation, showing us that everything has its origin, its blooming period and its end, and in doing so understanding the beauty at all its levels. The beauty of the last phase is particularly outstanding, when the flowers fall before they die. For Buddhists, this is the phase of plenitude, and can be summed up in one sentence in Buddhist Zen “Mono no aware”, which means to feel empathy towards all things and their transient nature. Sakura represents the cycle we go through as human beings in our lives.

At our luxurious hotel Asia Gardens in Alicante, we love everything that is Asian and we enjoy this philosophy, so much so that we have named one of our swimming pools, “Zen pool”. The pool is heated all year round, so you can enjoy never-ending swims, relax and soak up the knowledge that we have shared with you today to help you reach a full life.

“The true master that shall help you reach Zen is on the other side of the mirror.”

Just like in Zen philosophy, when you visit our hotel you will have a good time, and after a few days you will leave… but we do hope you fully enjoy this experience and you come back many more times.

We will be glad to provide you with the ideal environment to favour your ZEN balance.