How about a Valentine's staycation?

With all the hectic activity in your life, you might not have the option of heading to Tagaytay or Bagiuo for the weekend to get away from it all. And with Valentine’s Day here, you may be looking for a cool place to nestle as a couple.

How about a staycation in Quezon City?

You might not be looking for an oasis of tranquility in the heart of Quezon City — after all, it’s known for its strips of popular eateries, nightclubs, bars and TV stations — but Cocoon, a new green boutique hotel in the area, offers just that: a retreat from the hectic urban landscape, yet still within walking distance of the area’s nightlife. It just might be the staycation you’re looking for.

Enter Cocoon Boutique Hotel at Scout Tobias (you can park in its two-floor basement garage on Scout Rallos) and you find an expansive lobby outfitted with glass chandeliers, wooden décor such as recovered carabao cart wheels and an 1800s Steinway piano. The effect, says Cocoon owner Gigi Vinzon, is “modern tropical Filipino design,” a style echoed in the hotel’s 40 green and modern suites.

With inverter aircons, double-glazed windows, pocketed spring memory foam mattresses and goose-down duvets, you might not ever leave your suite.

The sustainable design firm of Steven Leach did the interiors, which meet many of the requirements of LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certification: LED lights; inverter air conditioners that save 70 percent on energy costs by regulating heat transfer and flow; double-glazed windows to retain cool air and reduce energy consumption; even the room’s wastebaskets are labeled for easier recycling.

But what strikes you is the warm wood interiors, and you’re told all the wood in the hotel — and there’s a lot of it, making the Cocoon experience much like being in a tropical Asian resort — is recovered from old homes. This gives each room a unique style spin, with different door designs and beams. It’s a trend: collectors hunt around Zambales and Laban for decrepit houses, often abandoned to lahar flow, and the recovered wood gets a second life in Metro Manila.

Rooms come with high-speed Internet access (though no Wi-Fi yet), flatscreen TVs and you can even request “yaya service” for those parents who want to slip out for a few hours at night while the kids watch pre-selected DVDs in the room.

Add to that the pocketed spring memory foam mattresses and 100-plus thread-count goose-down duvets, and you’re definitely in for a restful, cocooning sleep.

But who wants to sleep just yet? We stayed overnight at Cocoon with our daughter, and while my wife was having a hair treatment, I found myself exploring neighboring Eton Centris Walk for a bit of laser tag and fresh taho. Located across EDSA at Centris Station, the Ayala-developed outdoor plaza features walkways dotted with restaurants and family activities: try Walking On Water (climb inside an inflatable ball that is set adrift on a shallow pool … then try standing up and walking around!); or load up at Nexus Lazer Tag, an indoor fluorescent-lit shooting gallery; try the Segway carts or mini-bikes, or attempt the bungee jump. Of course, you’re also a short drive away from TriNoma or SM North EDSA if you get the urge to shop.

With concessionaires offering spa services, hairdressing, a derm clinic geared towards medical tourism, floral arrangements and a trio of restaurants for lunch, dinner and dessert (see sidebars), Cocoon lives up to its name, making it very tempting to just stick around the hotel and not stray far.

The roof deck offers a breakfast buffet, a mini swimming pool, and a high-ceilinged, brightly lit conference room ideal for weddings, parties and even artist-sketching sessions (like a recent one with BenCab, Arturo Luz and other greats in attendance).

Cocoon adds to the “boutique hotel” trend with a couple of ace cards: a truly green initiative by the owners, a number of compelling reasons to enjoy your “staycation” indoors, and an even more attractive list of options if you feel like exploring the “heart of Quezon City.” Opened late last year, the hotel is already popular among OFWs and foreigners, but is becoming increasingly noticed by locals who just want to “get away from it all” without leaving Metro Manila. Cocoon Boutique Hotel is located at 61 Scout Tobias corner Scout Rallos Streets, Quezon City. Call 921-2706 to 413-7281 or visit www.thecocoonhotel.com.

Dining

Cocoon has a strip of concessionaires at the lobby level alongside the hotel to meet your dining needs. The three eateries (not including the breakfast buffet at Cocoon’s roof deck) will take you from milk tea treats to fine dining and even after-hours cocktails and dessert.

• Start with My Serendipitea, which serves truly authentic Taiwanese bubble tea drinks. Owned by two couples — including a restaurant owner, an H&R manager and even a dermatologist — Serendipitea offers everything from tapioca pearl and nata de coco crystal drinks to Yakult-based concoctions. All tea is brewed fresh daily and the fruits and ingredients are top of the line. You can even choose the sweetness and carb levels of your drinks — from “No Sugar” to “Full Sugar” to “Low Carb” and everything in between. (Open 9 a.m. to 2 a.m. Call 514-6773.)

• For dinner, try Il Duello, a concept Italian restaurant in which two young chefs, Pierre Tan and Rurik Laviña, try to outdo each other at opposite ends of the kitchen. This idea of competing kitchens reminds you of TV cooking competitions like Kitchen Battles or Iron Chef, but no matter whose dish you choose here, there’s something different going on. On the night we visited, the private room was sealed off; Manny Pacquiao was reportedly holding court with friends and investors inside. Start with Il Duello’s fresh tomato soup and then try their mushroom risotto or excellent truffle pasta. (Open 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. Closed on Monday.)

• For a quick lunch or a great late-night stop, check out one of the sweetest places in town, Paire. Run by mixologist Kat Nantes and her pastry-chef sister Abby, the concept is simple: cocktails specially paired with pastries. The two owners have carefully arrived (“through trial and error”) at a roster of libations that “pair” well (get it?) with sweet and savory meal enders such as A Fine Pair (sparkling lemon wine served with spinach and cheese quiche) or their best-seller, Class A (an Amaretto sour nicely offsetting the sweetness of an almond slice draped with fresh cream). You may be used to dessert liqueur with your rum cake, but the Nantes sisters take things to the next level, pairing sweet with sour, textures and tastes to offer desserts with a real kick. The interiors are cute, colorful and inviting, with oddly matched wooden chairs and tables fronting a bar and open kitchen. There’s also a very decent lineup of à la carte sandwiches and pastas which Kat promises to expand soon. (Open 9 a.m. until midnight, Mon-Fri, 2 a.m. on weekends. Call 579-1554.)

Relaxing

Pampering is a big part of cocooning, so whether you’re a dude looking for a Shiatsu rubdown, a wife seeking a facial and foot massage, or a daughter who wants to decorate her fingernails with Hello Kitty, Iris Spa — located at 2nd floor of Cocoon — has got you covered.

The menu includes a full line of massage, including Swedish, Shiatsu, Deep Tissue, Aromatherapy, Thai, Hot Stone and Ventosa treatments. A nice touch: the massage beds are heated, for better relaxation.

For the rest of your body, there’s sea salt and coffee body scrubs, hand and foot scrubs and even paraffin wax treatments.

My daughter naturally gravitated to the Nail Art table, where she chose from among 120 fingernail designs (she chose Hello Kitty; no surprise there) and then she enjoyed the sensation of being waited on hand and foot as the Iris staff buffed her nails, refilled her lemonade glass and gave her the little princess treatment. (Open 12 noon to 4 a.m. Call 382-7855.)

Also available at the 2nd floor is the Nouvelle Clinic, offering dental and a wide range of dermatological services, from diamond peel facials to rhinoplasty, liposuction, facelifts and breast augmentation. Talk about “a new you.” Joe, our helpful liaison, tells us that Cocoon is a natural fit for medical tourists who receive treatments within the hotel and then relax during their recovery period.

At the ground level, next to the entrance, my wife and I visited Peps Silvestre Salon for haircare. The place is reportedly popular among celebrity clients such as Piolo Pascual, who is known to park his Hummer out front. (Call 414-7003.) Finally, for floral needs (Cocoon is also a popular place to hold weekend weddings), there’s The Mulberry Shop, also at the ground level.

Wally Gonzales at My Bro’s Mustache

Nightlife

A fixture on the live music scene, My Bro’s Mustache Folk Bar (a few blocks away from Cocoon on South Tobias st., South Ave.) has been serving up great local music for over 10 years. With regular appearances by bands like The Jerks and Florante, Joey “Pepe” Smith and fiery sets by guitar legends Wally Gonzalez and Jun Lopito, the folk/blues/rock hangout put up by Attorney Boy Vinzon (Gigi’s husband) is a great place to begin your unwinding, or stick around until the wee hours.