The Gallery

I checked out of the Cheongju Ramada Plaza three days before my flight back to the United States. When I first asked to extend my stay from the 11th to the 16th I was told that I could only extend until the 13th as they were full up after that. As the end of my stay neared a few rooms opened up but they only had smoking rooms available. Knowing what I know about how people smoke over here I had no interest in trying a smoking room so on to plan B.

Plan B was a relatively small hotel a few blocks from the customer site. The place is called Hotel Gallery and the website looked nice enough. They have Cafe and Bar that claims to have "international cocktails, snacks and an attractive regularly changing lunch menu." They also claim to have an indoor driving range though for the life of me, I cannot figure out where they have space for it, even if it is a video driving range like many in Korea.

When I arrived only one thing sprung to mind: seedy highway motel. When I got to my room it had a stale musty odor. Unlike the Ramada though, this place has wifi so I was able to google it to see what other travelers had to say about it. There was only 1 review that I could find:

"The location is close to Printing museum, nice walking around.Budget hotel with computer for internet in rooms, also has heat floor which work in few rooms. the walls are to thin so you can hear whats going on in the next room. The breakfast contains bread, butter, jam, canned noodles and juice." - Nataly P on TripAdvisor.

Thanks Nataly, at least now I know to go out to an Angel-In-Us coffee for breakfast tomorrow instead of risking the canned noodles.

But for ₩77,000 (as opposed to ₩166,000 at the Ramada) I guess you get what you pay for.

At least it's just for one night. Tomorrow I go back up to Dongtan and get to stay at the Shilla Stay which has come to be my favorite hotel in Korea (and is right across the street from my third favorite running route in Korea).

This place wouldn't be much worse if the TVs played this video review of the hotel on repeat:

Hotel Gallery Cheonju