Seoul 서울 Hotel

When you are looking for a decent hotel in South Korea, there are not many webpages which can help you. The Lonely Planet guide suggested to sleep over in so-called Love Motels. The description is self explaining and it was one of the reasons why I wanted to stay in a decent hotel.

I booked my hotels at hotelwide.com but South Korea seems not to use the rating system of giving stars but of giving different classes. It was difficult to me during the booking to find out the difference between a "deluxe class" and a "1st class" hotel. Pictures, as usual, looked fine but I orientated according to the price.

In Seoul I slept at the Hill House Hotel, which was extremely hard to find. When I exit the airbus I had to ask pedestrians. Fortunately the Koreans are very helpful, much more than the Europeans or Americans. As this hotel was a local hotel the guy I asked didn't know it either. So he asked other locals but no one seemed to know this hotel. According to the web critics even cab drivers had difficulties in finding it.

I was giving a direction (go up the hill) and to ask other locals there, as the reception didn't pick up the phone neither. With a strange feeling I walked up the hill (the hotel was called Hill House, so I hoped it was the right direction at least) but didn't find it. There was another hotel and I virtually wanted to go inside when another couple dropped by and asked if they could help me. Sure I replied and my luck they knew the hotel. So we walked up the hill together and they dropped me off at the hotel entrance. I would have never expected anybody to do that, and my journey seemed to be starting with an extremely positive feeling for Korea...


I was surprised that I had such a big TV screen and if you booked a VIP room you also had internet on screen, WOW !!