Paju Book City

Stayed in both the hostel option and private room option. For both, you can find better in the neighborhood on both price and quality. This is not a 3 star hotel. Maybe a 1.5 star if generous. It’s just poorly maintained and a cheaply renovated hotel conversion in an office tower. For the hostel. I’ve stayed in 40+ hostels so I know what I’m getting into. Beds are fine but showers / toilets are poor. It’s bc they tried to cram too many toilets/showers into too little space. Especially a space with no windows. This means everything is constantly wet, humid, musky, and rusty. For the private rooms. Your mileage really varies depending on the room. I’ve stayed here previously and the room I got was much more serviceable. This was not the case this time. Room is so poorly laid out that it borders on unusable. The bathroom has the toilet blocking half the door. So you get to side walk into the bathroom each time you use the sink. The bathroom is also so small and unvented that it never fully dries after showering. So mold and rust are issues. There is no table and the shelf is built on top of the mini fridge and the opening faces the bed instead of the walkway. The linens are also questionable. Stained in random spots. The stairways are a fire hazard bc the doors can neither stay fully closed or open bc the staff stores boxes and laundry in the stairwells. Location is central to many other neighborhoods. Laundry in the big machines work.

The staff was so helpful when a family member left something on the taxi. They were able to locate and contact the taxi. Arrangements were made to bring the item to us.