Hotel Rian - Review of our Seoul Hotel stay

After four wonderful days in Busan, it's time to return back to Seoul! Our "home" for the next five nights is a small boutique hotel called Hotel Rian, located in the Jongno district.

We booked a Standard Twin room and typical of Korean room sizes, it was small-ish but manageable for two persons with huge pieces of luggage (size is about 23 sqm). Our rooms were exactly the same as the pictures on the hotel's website! Average price per night was $95.

Photo Credit: Hotel Rian website 

Photo Credit: Hotel Rian website

Interesting artwork adorn the walls around the hotel

Hallway to our room

Besides the two twin beds, there was (surprisingly) also space for a small closet (YAY! Finally I can hang up my clothes), a small coffee table and an armchair - which means this room is large by Korean standards.

Hi-tech bidet loo! 

The room was very clean and the beds were super comfy. Amenities wise, we had everything we needed. Toiletries (including packets of shampoo, soap and conditioners) as well as body moisturizers were replenished every single day. There was excellent wifi in our room as well.

We did not take the breakfast plan when we booked the hotel, but since we stayed so many nights, we were given a complimentary breakfast for two for our first morning! And when we checked-in, we were given calendars as presents! Woot!

Yum

On the rooftop of the hotel, there is a small garden that overlooks the city. There is also a enclosed smoking room which looked rather swish.

View of the city from the rooftop garden

Smoking Room

The area around the hotel is rather interesting. The hotel itself is located on a quiet, small alley which gets rather dark at night but we never once felt that afraid walking back to the hotel at night. There are two other hotels on the same street (Doulos and Nafore), so there were always some tourists milling around on the street.

Hotel is surrounded by small alleyways of shops and eateries

The nearest subway station is Jongno-3-ga. It is only about 5 minutes walk / 150 metres from the nearest exit 15 of Jongno-3-ga station. You can walk in through the small alley next to the Pharmacy (see map below).

The hotel's proximity to the subway makes its location ideal for tourists like us because once you get to the subway, you can pretty much get around the city easily. There is also the airport shuttle bus across the main road that takes you to Incheon Airport [Do note that there are no buses to/from Gimpo though].

Photo Credit: Hotel Rian website

This is my first time staying in the Jongno area and I quite like it. It's not as touristy as Myeongdong or Dongdaemun area but there are plenty of eateries and shops around. There are also many interesting tourist attractions nearby the hotel such as Tapgol Park, Insadong and Gwangjang Traditional Market (will feature more of these in my later blogposts).

How to get here: 

From Seoul Station, we took a taxi to Hotel Rian. It was a 10 minute cab ride that cost around 6,600 KRW. There are usually many taxis outside Seoul Station at any time of the day. Do note that there are two different taxi queues (one for the normal taxis and the other is the pricier deluxe taxis in black.) Do avoid the black deluxe cabs unless you are in the mood to splurge. I see no reason why though as there are loads of normal orange cabs around.