Review : Cooool Guesthouse Busan (South Korea)

Hey ho!

Like i promised in the last Korea Trip post, i am dedicating a whole blog post for this awesome guesthouse in Busan, Cooool (with four O's hahaha) Guesthouse-because they deserve it!

I know, i know. Doesn't look all that impressive from the outside. Hunny, Baby Boy and i arrived very late at night after getting so desperately lost in the neighborhood, i was honestly super shocked when i saw how the guesthouse looked from the front : dodgy and not appealing at all *LOL*. It is located in a store house building, seemingly very narrow and tiny! It shares the building with a few other businesses (including a Thai restaurant) too.

The only indicating thing to the guesthouse from the side of the road. No wonder we never found it before the kind Korean helped us with Waze *LOL*. The first two pictures were obviously taken the morning after, but some of the guesthouse's pictures below were taken right after we arrived.

This is the sight that greeted us once we stepped inside the cozy and warm guesthouse :

Errr. Yea. Got lockers but we saw shoes strewn around like that so we followed suit :P

Reception area. The other members of our group's already checked in and get settled so we didn't have to bother anymore. The guesthouse's not too big though and the reception's very very friendly and not formal at all

Hallway leading to the dining room. That's Chris, the owner of Cooool Guesthouse, a very friendly lady ^^

Egh, i guess Marshmallow was as rattled as me after the traumatizing time getting lost, it got so blurry zzz

Directly in front of the dining table's our room! It's actually a dorm but since we're traveling in a huge group (6 adults, 2 teenagers and 2 lil' kids!) we got the room all to ourselves

Ever since i learned about Airbnb.com from some of my fave bloggers, i've been obsessed about booking a house/room/stay in cool guesthouses. It'd be easier when i travel with hunny and Baby Boy only because they'd follow my lead hahaha, but it's a big group so a lot of (annoying) compromises must be made. Especially because KC is a big baby and don't really adapt, he'd stay in 5 stars hotels the whole time if it's up to him (i seriously don't care about paying a fortune for a room we're only going to sleep in). We're (not KC) interested to stay in ondol (which we did in Sorak), since we've done it already when CL found a cool guesthouse we decided to give it a try. 

To be honest with you, Cooool Guesthouse is not even that cheap, what we paid for two people is almost the same as a (good) hotel's room *LOL*, but the experience is totally worth it (and if you're traveling solo it'd always be cheaper to pay for one person instead of one room)! I don't remember how much, and how CL booked it (pretty sure via Airbnb.com ) but i've already linked the website (it's in Korean though...) and i'm sure you can find a way to book it online.

This is our room! There are cupboards with locks to store our belongings, but we're one big family in that room so we didn't bother with locks haha

The room has four bunk beds, each bed is big enough for two adults that two of the beds ended up being empty (coz hunny bunked up with me and KC with CL!). They also rolled out futons for the little kids. I love the wooden flooring (like i said many times already, a huge fan of wooden flooring! So cozy and homey!), the comfortable beds, and especially how spotless the entire place (not just the room!) is with only Chris and Tom running the place!

I dunno if it's a low season in Busan or because we already booked this whole dorm (i have no idea how many dorms are available) but the place's not too crowded. I don't remember exactly, but i only bumped into two other guests (i think there were some female guests too but i didn't see them) who are long-term guests during our stay.

One guy's so funny, i guess he's learning English so he kept on coming to us randomly and speak while opening his dictionary. He came up to me to introduce himself and asked my name and where i came from-after i answered he then tried talking to me in Indonesian after getting another dictionary from his room LOLOLOL. The quietness totally added to the comfortability of my stay-i'm not too good around strangers hahaha most people think i'm snobbish and standoffish when they first met me but in all honestly, i 'm just shy).

Since it's during winter time, the heater was on full blast and us fussy Indonesian felt very stuffy and hot inside our warm room! Chris and Tom were totally in awe and amused by out antics, they thought we were half mad when we tried turning on the AC (i repeat, in the middle of winter) LOLOLOL. In the end we settled with letting the door open so some air can come in >.<.

Excuse my cray hunny *LOL*. We're back to the hallway! From the front door, if you go to the right you'd go to the dining room area while to the left it's the bathroom area

One thing that shocked me about the guesthouse is their collective bathroom! Male and female bathrooms are separated (obviously) but... I expect it to have like at least shower curtains so that we can be naked and alone *LOL* but that's not the case!

The front area of the female bathroom for guests to doll up

They provided a lot of stuffs for the guests to use

Even makeups! We talked about how it'll be gone in a sec if it's in Indonesia -___- first guest would already swipe them all *LOL*

Look! No separator, not even shower curtain! You'd have to be completely naked in front of strangers >.<. I did get naked in front of strangers in the end but that's for another story (i did it at the jimjilbang), i didn't shower that day (not yucky, remember-at the dead of winter) because i was already so tired and the next morning i showered at the jimjilbang so i never showered in this bathroom

The other side. I think there were 6 or 8 showers in the bathroom, and each shower has different products that the guests can use. I find this really cute and interesting.. I've never stayed in dorm style guesthouses so i have no idea if this kind of thing is common in other countries too? I don't think i can get used to be naked with strangers >.< there isn't any lock either in the bathroom *LOL*

You can just grab a clean towel when you need it. Wonder why most of the towels in South Korea are so small? Is it all they use??? We always use huge, fluffy towels so i find it hard to adjust (i bring my own towel anyway)

Collective sink hehe

The female toilet

The toilet is like public toilet, that's another thing that i find hard to get used to. I mean... It's so... open... If you do your business if there are other people in there... They'd hear noises and smell... Ewh. No wonder i got constipated while in Busan >.<!

Cute toilet papers never cease to fascinate me *LOL*

Hallway leading to the other rooms. You can simply discard your used towel in the basket

I also think that the cleanliness of the place, other than the keepers' hard work, is also due to the way the guests act. We also run hotels and guesthouse in Indonesia and we have loads of employees who keep on cleaning, but it's hard to make the place spotless because the way the guests behave. You know, especially Indonesian (and some foreigners too) mentality, we already paid so we might as well make the hotel's employee bust their asses *sigh*.

This is the morning after, we're having breakfast prepared by Chris and Tom (the Caucasian guy. I thought he was Chris' boyfriend or husband, but turned out he works there. The reason why he's working there? Because he's learning Korean *and what better way to learn than to interact with the locals, right?*, used to work as an English teacher but that job didn't help with his Korean so he quit and start working here-he was once a guest too if i remember correctly *my mind might make that up though hahahaha*. He learned some Indonesian words while we were there, mainly food LOL)

KC enjoying his bfast in his long john *LOL*. This guy keeps on going around in his long john that lots of Koreans thought he's nuts hahahaha. I guess long john's really like.. winter underwear, while for us the top at least looks like a normal top!

Tom's specialty, really yum! And i ate a tomato! How crazy is that. Didn't taste too tomatoey (if you know what i mean) so i swallowed hahahaha

Here are some artsy fartsy pics of the guest house taken (and filtered) by CL, i stole them from her Facebook page... (FYI, CL is very artistic).

The other two guests-the guy in grey jumper's the guy i was talking about! This sitting area i never got the time to even see *LOL*

Nor this balcony area! Oh... Those two are probably the other guests that i didn't see

In short, we loved our stay there! The place's super nice, homey and far cozier (and cleaner) than any of the hotels that we stayed at during our stay in South Korea! Chris and Tom also made us felt super welcomed and well-taken care of, thank you for the hospitality! Highly recommended! Oh, i just found their Facebook Page, you can book via that page!

yberman smoking a cigarette

Happy guests with Chris and Tom! Excuse the pale face, i literally just woke up!

#Pink

PS : They just won The Best Hostel in South Korea award!!!! So well deserved!