Banana backpackers hostel, Seoul South Korea.

Here`s a quick rundown and review of the Banana backpackers hostel located near the Insadong neighborhood of Seoul.  I was going to be staying in Seoul for several months and one of the things I really wanted was to make certain I had a good place to rest whenever I needed it.
Banana Backpackers appears to have been a house that was converted to a hostel.  It consisted of four floors; the basement, the main floor, the second floor and the roof.  In the basement are a few of the dormitories.  One of them was fairly cramped and the guys who were staying in them had some funny stories about the heat being turned on by accident in the middle of summer (something I believe they accidentally turned on).

I did a fair bit of research online reading various hostel reviews before I finally settled on Banana backpackers.  I emailed them several months ahead of my planned arrival as I wanted to discuss a long stay in one of their `single` rooms.

I was lucky enough to have my Korean friend waiting for me at the airport when I arrived.  We took the bus into the city center and she guided me to my hostel.  The hostel was exactly as I expected with a few little surprises.  There’s a bus you can take from the airport which takes you almost directly to the hostel.  Visit the banana backpackers website for instructions.

First off here are a few pictures from just inside the entrance of the hostel.  Greeting you as soon as you came in was the front desk. To the left you can see the common room that included a television and several computers.  Located beside the common room were several dormitories (6 bed dormitory and a few 3 bed rooms if i`m not mistaken).  Further in the back you can see the hallway leading to the kitchen.

The kitchen, if a little small had everything one needed: a hot plate, microwave, rice cooker, refrigerator and dishes if you needed them.  I unfortunately didn’t take a picture of the kitchen.  It was small but had everything you needed in order to prepare a quick meal/snack

In the back area beside the kitchen was a second ‘common room’.  There was also a nice covered picnic table area where people could spend some time relaxing.  This also gave people a place to hang out and meet new people.

The second floor consisted of one single room, one double room and several dormitories.  Here’s a picture of the second floor hallway.

I had booked a single room for several weeks because I really wanted “somewhere to call my own” while I settled into Seoul.  Here are a few pictures of the bathroom.  This was my first encounter with a bathroom from the east.  A few things to take note of:

• The small basket beside the toilet is actually for your tissue paper (toilet paper).  There are several places in South Korea (and Asia) where you cannot flush paper toilet down the toilet.  You simply do your business and then place the toilet paper in the basket.  It’s actually not as bad as most westerners might at first think ;-)
• The shower and the bathroom have no separation.  You’re literally taking your shower in the bathroom.  At first this was a little odd but the design really grew on me and it’s something I wish I had in Canada.  Keeping your washroom clean is very easier when you can “wash down” the whole room without worry!

Here are a few quick pictures of the single room.  Not much to say other than it was a great little single room: Some hangars for your clothes, several power outlets and an air conditioning/heating unit.  A small single bed and the previously mentioned washroom and shower.

Finally on the third floor were the washing machines, dryer and the rooftop area.  The rooftop area had ample room to place your clothes to dry as well as for sitting down with friends to relax.

I’ll talk a little about the staff members themselves.  The hostel is owned and operated by a relatively young Korean and Japanese couple.  Both of them were friendly and helpful.  When they weren’t there it was normally one of two individuals who were running the front desk.  Either a very helpful young Korean lady in the morning or a very helpful young man in the evening.  Both were enormously helpful with any questions regarding almost any subject; food, directions, culture etc.  One other staff member was a slightly mean looking older Chinese cleaning lady.  When I first encountered her walking the halls she had grumpy look on her face which I felt was saying “Cleaning up after spoiled westerners again”.  When we first crossed paths in the morning I got the impression that I was just another one of those spoiled westerners in her eyes.  It didn’t take more than a day or two before we were smiling to each other when we crossed paths.  I didn’t know it at the time but she was actually of Chinese origin and also spoke Korean.  We did our best to chat every now and then but mostly just ended up smiling or waving at each other being unable to communicate with words.  I ran into her in the metro several weeks later and like an old caring grandmother she insisted I sit when she saw me standing with my backpack on the metro.  I never took a picture of her which I now regret!

My favorite surprise about the place, hands down was that there was a large dog on the roof in his doghouse.  I mentioned this to the worker at the front desk and she explained to me that his name was ShiShi (possibly spelled incorrectly) and that he was very friendly.  That’s all that it took, me and shishi became best friends.   Whenever I was at the hostel I would spend most of my time with Shishi.  I was told that the dog used to have a female to keep him company but that she had passed away a little while ago.  He definitely seemed lonely to me and it didn’t take long before we were playing fetch and he was rather amusingly chewing on my arm.  He would grab a hold of my forearm with his jaw and playing-ly chew and pull me along for little walks around the roof :-)  A few weeks after I arrived when the heat and humidity started getting rather high they shaved him, brought him downstairs and placed him outside in his own little area.  That’s where these last set of pics are from:

Whenever I had some time on my hands at the hostel I could usually be found having a beer and playing with ShiShi.  You may ask yourself why I wasn’t talking to the other guest.  It’s a sad but true fact that a large portion of guest at the hostel would spend their time sitting at the computer updating “facebook” rather than really getting to know each other….

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