My favorite guesthouse! ❤
Because of this guesthouse honestly, i have no regrets or anger or sadness that my goshiwon cancelled on me. I’m thrilled now because i get to find this really affordable and amazing guesthouse! 😀 I didn’t book this one through booking.com or hostelworld as I usually do, so I felt it was so wasted if I didn’t write something on it somewhere on the net…
So without further ado!
I had lots of luggage so I was super relieved to find out that the nearest station Gwangheungchang had elevators all the way, and the guesthouse had no staircase! Phew. I’ve learned from previous experiences that guesthouses are usually not located on the first floor so yeah. But MORi was something more of an entire apartment building if I have to put it that way, so it was nice 🙂
The moment of entrance was a large carpark but it’s used as a space for bicycles and laundry.
Entering MORI~
Upon entering they would ask you to take off your shoes and provide really cute little bathroom slippers.
Waking up to smiley slippers everyday does help haha
My first reaction when I walked in was woah they’re spacey!! 😀
Very pretty design!
It’s a little bit complicated for me because i actually went through booking.com first and booked 8-bed room for 11 nights, then found their website and decided to email in to see if there is possible ways to make special arrangements because i wanted to stay in 6-bed room. The initial plan was 6-bed room for 7 nights, then 8-bed room for 4 because for two days in between there isn’t room in the 6-bed room. But they made a mistake in reserving so for my last 2 nights they had to move me to another 6-bed room. So I had to move twice and i stayed in 3 different rooms altogether in my 11 nights.
I was honestly just glad they didn’t suddenly tell me i needed to evacuate so it didn’t bother me, and they were very apologetic about it. It also allowed me to see the different rooms and compare. Actually there was a pretty big diference which i’ll point out later on~
Upon arrival James led me to the 6-bed room on the first floor. It was very pretty and i loved the colors! 😀 He told me about the guesthouse rules which were basic, and they had no curfew. They also provided locker keys and small towels.
Now this room’s bed was very comfortable, because they added a comforter on top of it. It was soft and i was so happy when i first sat down on the bed. 😀
I’m a sucker for curtains and now not only do I have my on personal curtain, i also have my personal bed light!! 😀 this was plus points for the guesthouse and it was one of the reasons i chose to book it over the others. The whole privacy thing makes it so convenient for you to change or stay up late without disturbing other guests.
I was also pleasantly surprised to find that it was bigger than expected. Most guesthouses have pictures that are extended so they are pretty much smaller than what we see on the internet, but MORI was pretty accurate with their pictures and i was comfortable with the space.
Personal lighting and curtains~ and pretty bed colors!
My fortress at night. All nice and cosy!
There was no window in this room so i wake up every day in some kind of inception thing like is it day or night?? And because it’s so nice and dark and cosy in my little fortress that i often end up like where’s the curtain?? and end up groping the wall on the wrong side trying to open the curtain lol.
He showed me around the guesthouse. There were three bathrooms on the first floor but if you wanna bathe after 12 you have to go the one upstairs. Probably because the three bathrooms on the first floor are really close to the rooms so it’s kinda noisy.
There was also a mini makeup area outside the rooms on the first floor.
He then showed me the second floor.
The second floor had more rooms and even more bathrooms!!
bathroooooooooms galore! no waiting for shower stalls! Yay!
Each bathroom looks similar to this:
Nice clean bathrooms! Bathrooms are very important to me in guesthouses and often determine whether a guesthouse is yay or nay for me. Haha. This one was one of the cleanest I’ve seen, despite there being so many of them. Everyday at about 11am ish a cleaning lady comes around to scrub every bathroom clean haha. I leave the guesthouse really late everyday which is why i kinda know that they come in around afternoon time LOL.
Cleaning ladies or the owners of the guesthouse also enter the room at around noon time-ish to quickly sweep and mop the floor, as well as change the sheets/blankets for the vacant beds. This is when the curtains are extra useful. Although technically you shouldn’t be expecting people still sleeping at noon but well they were prepared for guests like me.
They’re really diligent and efficient with their cleanliness which was really nice 🙂 They’re not by any means a tiny guesthouse so it was nice to see they had a system they stick diligently to.
Anyway, the second floor had this mega huge-ass makeup room, probably to accommodate the numebr of rooms on that floor.
Huge right?! Part of why i really appreciate the sincerity of this guesthouse is that they could have turned this area into like two more rooms and earn more monehhhh (makeup rooms aren’t that common in guesthouses), or they could also reduce the bathrooms if they wanted to. But they’re not stingy with the space and make sure the guesthouse is very comfortable for guests. Bordering on luxurious I’d have to say considering the price they charge their guests. Many guesthouses out there charge much higher and i doubt their service comes close to what MORi offers.
One area of the second floor of the guesthouse, also where i stayed at for the last 4 nights
Bins and water dispenser available on the second floor too!
We didn’t stay around at the second floor much. I got to know the second floor much better later on though when i shifted there after my first week on the first floor haha.
He showed me around the lounge area afterwards!
This is what I see when I first open the door to the lounge:
like woah! I’ve never seen such a huge lounge in a guesthouse seriously ❤
The tables and hangout areasssss
The kitchen area!
I watched the World Cup finals here!!
As per other guesthouses, they provide bread, eggs, coffee and juice. But just like Guesthouse 710, they also provide cereal!! Any guesthouse that provides cereal is like a bonus!!! woohoo
I end up ditching eggs because there’s always cereal. Glory. When they stock up on the chocolate ones it’s the most glorious thing ever.
After a week on the first floor, i had to move to the 8-bed room for two days. At first she was gonna move me to the one opposite the reception area since i had lots of luggage, but after finding out that eventually i have to go up to the second floor for the last 2 nights at another 6-bed room, i figured meh just move now. And she said the 8-bed room upstairs is bigger than the one downstairs.
So I agreed.
She was right, it was bigger! The pictures online looked quite cramped so i was worried. But you can see in the picture below that you could fit large luggages comfortably in between the beds!
Luckily for me i had a nifty little corner to tuck my luggages in.
Nifty corner!
This room had sunlight streaming in haha, unlike the first one. No more waking up to a dark nice cosy cave 😦
The beds on this floor weren’t as comfortable as the one i slept in on the first floor. They didn’t add the comforter for these rooms but i wasn’t complaining because i really liked this place~~ i felt that they were already giving me much more than I paid for. Talk about utility man.
On the last 2 days, I moved next door to the 6-bed room one. Actually this was just an 8-bed room converted to a 6-bed room LOL, so the space where the last bed is becomes luggage space. Again I felt like they could have utilized the space to convert it to an 8-bed room but they didn’t and maybe that’s for a functional reason but nevertheless it was nice to have so much space in a guesthouse i didn’t pay much for. The others were always so cramped 😦
So much luggage space over there!!! woohooo! Perfect for when i packed on my last day~
Look at how our huge luggages looked dwarfed in that immense amount of space. glorious
Plenty of space for everyone! If you’re looking to move into this guesthouse you can always let the hosts know that you have lots of luggage, they’re more than happy to give you the room that has more spaces. Because some rooms are smaller than others despite them being the same type of rooms.
Fortress style~
I now understand why they have an almost perfect rating on all the booking sites. Seriously they deserve it for their dedication and attention to detail! So pretty, clean, spacey… and the hosts are so super nice! 😀
I think because of all the makeup rooms the hostel end up being mostly girls-dominated. LOL. They do have male dorms i think but i’ve seen only like 3 males out of all my 11 nights and they only appear during breakfast or at night at the lounge area.
The catch is that this guesthouse is extremely affordable! It’s actually cheaper if you contact them directly, plus they gave me a 10% discount for long term stay. You wouldn’t get the same price if you booked through an agent. But then again the benefit of an agent is that you can cancel without losing any deposit, whereas my direct booking at MORI required me to pay 50,000 won in advance to secure my booking. It didn’t matter to me though because i was pretty sure i wanted to stay there~
With one of the hosts, Jiae! They both speak fluent English 🙂
Name: Mori Guesthouse
Location: 12-8, Seogang-ro 1-gil, Mapo-gu, Seoul 121-881, South Korea
Nearest station: Gwangheungchang Line 6, 2 min walk
Nearby: Sinchon (10-15 min walk), Hongdae (15 min walk), Sangsu (7 min walk)
Price: (via website) 19,000 won / night for 6-bed room, 17,000 won / night for 8-bed room. Discount for long stays. My booking for 7 nights in 6-bed room and 4 nights in 8-bed room came up to 180,900 won which is a little below 17,000 won per night, because of the discount. I ended up with 9 nights in 6-bed room and 2 nights in 8-bed room for the same pice because of their little slip up though hehe. Free upgrade!
Website: http://www.housemori.com/main/index
Its location is probably its worst drawback which also probably explains the price. But i wouldn’t sweat it. I mean unless you’re staying for like exchange or smth tht requires you to keep coming back to the same area everyday (like for exapmle you wanna hang out in Hongdae 3 times a week), then it’ll benefit you to find a guesthouse closer to Hongdae. But if you’re a traveler honestly the subway is all you need and this guesthouse has a subway really close by. There’s a lack of food nearby though but i always walk to Sinchon cuz it’s a straightforward route down and isnt far. All the good food places are there.
There’s so much life in every cafe over there and they pay attention to so many details. Over here it kinda feels like some cafes are being churned out just to satisfy people looking to feel hipster visiting artisan cafes, and maybe because of that i don’t feel that same kind of attention to customers like the ones in Korea. It’s kinda like.. you visiting my cool cafe benefits you more than me so it’s not really necessary for me to provide the small details. It’s the small things that matter though. Cafes in Korea are so customer friendly, always providing wifi, toilets, power points, blankets, water, etc. And there’s always a personal touch in the decor of cafes that give them that personality. Also the cafes in Korea are supportive of lone visits or visits for study/work purposes. In Singapore it’s mostly just a nice atmosphere to talk and catch up. When I need alone time in Singapore where do I go then?! D:
darmawanders 