South Korea: Seoul - Hostel Korea Review

Accommodation is not my most concern when planning a trip, however i do have few requests when choosing a hostel / hotel: 

1. Location - Not in the tourist center yet must be convenience to go anywhere.

2. Price - Affordable with basic facilities.

3. Room - Bright room, prefer more natural light room. Definitely no yellow bulb / warm light room.  

For my Seoul trip, i was looking for hostel (trust me, hostel is good enough) with the below requirements:  

1. Somewhere near the subway (subway is so convenience to go anyway in Seoul)
2. Not more then RM100 per night per person, prefer not big dorm room.

3. Not in the tourist center, yet not too far from it. 

Finally i locked to stay somewhere near DongDaeMun （东大门）because there have APM Mall (am and pm mall, which mean 24 hours mall) with lots of food stalls, if we go to walk in the midnight and miss the last train, we can still walk back to the hostel. 

Yet DongDaeMun is full of tourist all day long and i really don't wanna stay in the district (another reason was no cheap hostel la hahahahaha only expensive hotel with stars)

Then i followed the rail stations map to looks for hostel that located in few stations away from DongDaeMun, and i found Hostel Korea and few others hostel.

Get the list of the hostel that i interested, and read as much review as possible to help you make the final decision, finally, i choose Hostel Korea that located in Sinseol-Dong, 2 stations away from DongDaeMun, about half hour really really slow walk from the place.  

I booked one single room (for John), one double bedroom (for Lynn and I) and one medium Hanok （韩屋）,the traditional korea house (for Kuan and Sui) with the price as below:

Seoul 3 nights: 
Lynn & Rach (double bedroom shared bathroom) = RM 180 per person
John (single room shared bathroom) = RM 261 
Kuan & Leong (large hanok private bathroom) = RM 225 per person 

Just divide the prices to 3 (as we stay 3 nights) then you got the price per night in RM, alternatively, see the price range below that i printed screen from the website. 

  

Cant see it clear? or you wanna have more photos on the room? See it in the website.

Hostel Korea Website: http://www.hostelkorea.com/index_e.html

Hostel Korea is 10 minutes slow walk from SinSeoul-Dong Station, as the the map show below: 

The hostel is located behind the main street, which mean less noise, yet there are restaurant, convenience store, bakery, traditional market (10 minute walk) surrounding, i consider here is very handy. 

The neighbor of  the hostel is the original resident, so no worry if you're a lady and travel alone.  

Yet i must say, the place is not very easy to find, we went to the place by taxi (as we have 5 people to share, so its alright), the driver was sesat a little. 

Just followed the map that shown in the website, and keep your eye looking at the main entrance that is colorful like this...

or with a luxury car that own by the boss, haha. 

No worry if you cant speak good English or Korea, the receptionist here can speak pretty good Mandarin, and later i only know this is one of the top choice for Taiwanese. 

If you're expecting photo of the room from my side, i'm sorry that i didn't get much photos here, but what you see in the website is what you can expect when you're check it, i would say that is 99% real. 

the 1% is you could never imagine the double bedroom is so small, till you put your luggage on the floor and you can turn around. 

But if you have done research on the accommondation in Korea, you will know the price and the location of Hostel Korea is worth for you money. 

If you're travel alone and you don't wanna share a room, with around RM80 you can get a single room with share bathroom like john did, pretty good deal. 

But i'm actually regret a little that not rent the whole hanok down, which Kuan and Sui stayed.

Honok is located behind the hostel, it is traditional Korea house that i had mentioned. The house with 3 rooms, large, medium and small room, a common area, own kitchen, bathroom and toilet.

If you cant imagine, scroll down for the photos that taken by Kuan.

I'm really recommend for those who dislike modern hostel and wanna experience the honok to stay here, but my advice is not to be group of 2 or alone, according to Kuan and Sui, the night time is really haunted like ghost house because the whole big hanok only have 2 of them.

A gang of friends like 8 is recommend to get all 3 rooms down, check the price in the website or email to ask them, the price is about the same with hostel rooms.

ok~ Conclusion:

I like this hostel because of: 
1. Location, quiet and handy
2. Price and worth what i pay for
3. The unique hanok! 

I dislike this hostel because of: 
1. The receptionist - The people is helpful (booked tix and arrange plan) yet he is not really friendly to us, he lost his patient and talk to us with slightly bad tone when we ask to book us some ticket and taxi.
2. The room - very very small room with only 2 A4 paper size's window.
If i'd back?
Not my first choice. Seoul has MANY hostel, next time i'd choose to stay in Namsan or somewhere near MyeongDong, perhaps.  

Alright, next post still be Seoul, but not every place that we're visit. Perhaps another 2 or 3 posts to get Korea trip ended, and start my Combodia trip.

Will try to update another one in this week as i'm off to Chiangmai and Pai in Thailand next week.

Oh yea, you can expect post about Thailand AGAIN after Combodia *wink*

Bai bai!!



Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
20120904, 1045am
Rach in goin to work soon mood