2014 Our Seoul Apartment

We found the Milatel Chereville Serviced Apartments online through www.booking.com. (The address is 17 Gangnam-daero 61-gil, Seocho-Gu, Seocho-Gu, Seoul, 137-074, Korea, South, +8225329774, e-mail: information@mchereville.net, website: http://mchereville.net/room/room_02_e.html). BTW, the M Chereville staff answers e-mails in English! And, the reception desk staff (on the 6^th floor in room 607), also speaks English and is very helpful and accommodating. Booking.com did not require that we pay in advance; we paid for our stay upon arrival (after we saw the apartment). The street address system changed while we were in South Korea. The address above is the address under the new system. The old address was: 1316-31, Seocho 4-Dong, Seocho-Gu.

The total cost of our 14 night stay was KRW 1,904,000 and at .00098 exchange it came out to US$133.28 per day. The exchange rate was US$1 = Korean won .00098 on September 4. Checking in was easy; the doorman, Mr. Kim, spoke English and helped us with our luggage. Click here to see pictures of the "Deluxe One Bedroom".  Click here to read a description of our "Deluxe One Bedroom" apartment on the booking.com site.

We were impressed when we walked into the apartment. Our deluxe one bedroom was 861 sq. ft. (80 sq. meters) and very well laid out.There was an entry hall with lots of cabinets for shoes and clothes, with a mirror (for Audre's final check before leaving the apartment). Then one came to a large rectangular room with a window on the far end (in 601 we get morning sun, even on the 6^th floor). At the other end of the room there was a small (but well equipped) kitchen with a table and chairs at the other end. In the middle was the sofa and desk. Across from the sofa was the flat screen TV on top of a piece of furniture with cabinets, drawers and shelves for stuff. Then there was a bathroom and a good-sized bedroom with another desk, a chest of drawers, a sitting alcove with two comfortable chairs and a table, a king-sized bed, an end table  and a closet. The window had good blackout curtains and, when we opened them in the morning, we had good morning sun.

There was a large refrigerator, a microwave, two stove top burners and a rice cooker in the kitchen, with pots, pans and utensils. We had a water boiler and a water machine with cold and hot water spouts. The kitchen space was big enough for Audre to work in. We typically had breakfast in our apartment, even eggs (sometimes) and a baguette and croissants from Tous Les Jours in the GT Tower down the street! The rest of our meals we typically ate out. Click here to see our restaurant reviews. The apartment also had a washing machine and drying rack (no dryer).

The M Chereville says that it is "Luxury Living You Can Afford" and it is. We had a full cleaning with a change of linen 3 times a week. Towels were changed daily and the trash was removed daily. All of the rooms (and common areas) in the M Chereville were non-smoking and clean.

There very good w-fi in our apartment (with a dedicated router) and a flat screen TV with cable and a huge number of channels, including the standard ones in English. We had CNN and BBC among others. We could control the temperature of the air conditioning in the bedroom separately from that in the living room.

There was a odd feature in the bathroom. The shower had a steam feature (not working when we were there--"equipment deadlined for parts"). In the canal where the doors slide there was a hole that allowed water to drain out of the canal from the running shower and onto the floor of the bathroom. The first morning we had a flooded floor. We solved the problem by putting an earplug (that we just happen to carry for noise) into the hole. It stayed and the maids left it there! It worked.

The "gu" or district in which our apartment was located was called Seocho-gu (a part of the larger Gangnam area. It is the IT and corporate headquarters. There was also schools near our apartment building. That meant there were gazillions of students and 20-somethings in our neighborhood. It was kind of odd to see an "adult". It was also a huge area for bars and restaurants for kids to eat a small meal and drink. Those kind of places were called anju where people can eat dishes to accompany alcohol consumption. The streets were packed with young people and the restaurants were not serious, compared to other areas.

We liked our apartment so much that we decided to stay there again at the end of October when we returned to Seoul before flying back to States.  So, the neighborhood was not so bad after all.

The streets around our apartment had lots of interesting sculptures in front of the high rises. It made walking around fun.