Personal tips for exploring Europe (Part 1)

I made my first trip to Europe in 2008 when I embarked on a one year NOC internship program to Stockholm during my time in my time in NUS. As a Computer Science student, I initially applied to do my internship in Silicon Valley, but due to the high demand, I was offered a place in Stockholm instead. Although I was extremely disappointed, but it turned out to be a blessing in disguise. The IT community was very vibrant in Stockholm, the Swedish people are friendly and VERY beautiful, and Europe is an awesome continent to travel. Crossing borders in Europe would bring me to a different country, with different cultures, food and architecture. As compared to America, you could be driving for hours and still end up eating burgers and fries and visiting American museums. I'm not saying America is inferior to Europe, but I was just glad that it wasn't a bad thing that I was posted to Europe  instead of America for my one year internship during my time as a student. America is definitely on my list of places to travel and I'm looking forward to an amazing road trip there someday.

Gröna Lund in Stockholm, Sweden 2008

Zurich, Switzerland 2015

Zurich was our first destination upon arriving in Switzerland. Although our flight was to arrive in Geneva, we decided to leave that city for a later part as we had a friend there but he wasn't around during the time we arrived. As per our predictable habit of traveling, we still have yet to decide on how we would travel from Geneva to Zurich when we touched down.

At a park beside Lake Zurich

Traveling to Zurich

We were considering the option of traveling by train or driving. After speaking to the staff on the ground of the various transport departments and considering the cost of the Public Trains (SBB), Swiss Travel Pass and Hertz Car Rental, we decided to rent a car for 24H, drive to Zurich and then return it there. It was actually cheaper to rent a car (including petrol, insurance, different return location charge... etc) than traveling by train. Actually for most travel within Europe, trains are generally costlier, but in some scenarios they are more convenient, timely and scenic. But in our current situation, it was more convenient with a car as it would bring us direct to our accommodation together with the 2 suitcases and 2 backpacks that we had. And since it was cheaper, it was quite a no-brainer option for us. The other considerations we had were flight fatigue, night time driving and snowy road conditions; We had just arrived from a long flight and it was actually snowing & raining.

Ibis Styles Bandung Braga Hotel Review (Indonesia)

It's a lovely hotel with modern and funky decor from the lobby, to the dining area, corridors and of course the rooms. The rooms were spacious enough for you to open your luggages and you get a nice view of the city if you're on the higher floors. I love the design of the room with the glass separator for the toilet.

The staff were really friendly and helpful and always greeted and conversed with smiles on their faces. There are pubs around the area and a nice spa place nearby too. Great place and will definitely consider coming back again!

Our room

View from our room

Date of stay: Nov 2014

Address:
Jalan Braga No 8, Bandung City Center, Bandung, Indonesia 40111

Links:
Tripadvisor listing
Agoda listing

P-Hotels Brattøra Review (Trondheim Norway)

Considering that Norway is such an expensive country, this hotel is very value for money and is within walking distance to the city. It's conveniently located near the train station (just beside the hotel), ferry terminal and airport bus station. So this is a good location if you have an early morning flight/ferry/train to catch as you could easily make your way there from the hotel.

Simple and nice rooms with enough space to open up your luggages. The toilets were rather spacious too.

Wifi is accessible from the lobby. So request for the rooms nearer to the lobby if you want the wifi in your room. Mine was the last room, so we couldn't really access it.

Rough walking time without luggage:
Trains - 1 minute
Bus - 1 minute
Ferry - 10-15 min

Hotel entrance

(Credits: Agoda)

Hotel room

(Credits: Agoda)

Date of stay: July 2014

Address:
Fosenkaia, Trondheim, Norway

Links:
Tripadvisor listing
Agoda listing

Guesthouse Anita Review (Mljet, Croatia)

Anita and her husband were really helpful and ensured that we got everything we needed. The weren't working on site at the guest house but they arrived to greet and welcomed us when we arrived. During the times there weren't around, their neighbours acted as host and helped us resolved any issues or enquires that we had. We had the room on the ground floor and could have our meals outside while having a nice view of the ocean. You could also head down to swim. There were a few eateries within walking distance. It was a simple, nice, quaint and peaceful place. Overall we had a good stay. Would recommend this place!

Entrance to our room

View from our bedroom. That's the porch where we would have our breakfast. And that's our rented bike.

Area in front of our room

Date of stay: July 2014

Address:
Sobra 34, Mljet, Croatia 20225

Links:
Agoda listing
Tripadvisor listing

Homey house Review (Taipei, Taiwan)

(Credits: agoda.com)

(Credits: agoda.com)

Everything looks brand new. The staff was extremely friendly and prompt. We arrived really early at around 10am and we could not check in yet as the standard check-in time was 3pm. That was fine as there weren't any extra rooms and they needed to wait for the guest to check out and clean up the room. But staff was really kind and offered us additional complimentary breakfast for that morning.  Thumbs up to Vivi for that kind gesture! :)

Date of stay: Aug 2013

Address:
No.56, Changchun Rd., Zhongshan District, Zhongshan District, Taipei, Taiwan

Links:
Official website
Agoda listing

Goodstay Nobless Yeoksam Hotel Review

This hotel located behind Yeoksam station and the airport bus stop is located nearby. They have large rooms and just a few stops away from lots of shopping and food.

It has a good location and you could walk to Gangnam underground shopping located 1 train station away or head over to Gangnam COEX. The rooms were spacious fitted with a large flat screen TV, a 2 seater sofa and luggage storage area. The toilet was extremely spacious with a jacuzzi tub (the jacuzzi wasn't working or maybe we had to get the staff to switch it on? We didn't really need to use it so we didn't ask them about it), separate shower area and toilet bowl area. It can get quite noisy as it's located near the main street but that could also be due to our open windows as the air-conditioning was only powered up during winter time.

We only booked this hotel for one night as we just ended our snowboarding trip in Yongpyong and needed a one night stay in Seoul prior to our flight back. Overall we had a good stay and the main intention was to have easy access to the train station and the airport bus.

Our spacious bedroom 

Toilet with tub, shower and toilet bowl area

Date of stay: March 2014

Address:
642-2, Yeoksam-dong, Gangnam - Gangnam, Seoul, South Korea

Links:
Agoda listing
Tripadvisor listing

Yongpyong Resort Dragon Valley Hotel Review

Hotel

The rooms were large with comfy beds and the hotel was located just behind the ski lifts. It's about a minute's walk from the hotel lobby to the ski lifts.

Double room (Credits: agoda.com)

Twin room (Credits: agoda.com)

Entrance (Credits: agoda.com)

Hotel Lobby (Credits: agoda.com)

Neighbourhood

There wasn't anything to do around our hotel at night as almost everything was closed around 6pm. So there's definitely no after-ski or places to chill during the night. It is a very different atmosphere from what you would expect from Europe. Maybe it's because we were there during off peak. The night skiing is only available during the weekends.

Transportation

It was tricky getting to the hotel from Seoul as the website to reserve the shuttle bus tickets were in Korean and you needed to buy using a Korean credit card. Fortunately we had a Korean friend who helped us buy the tickets. The hotel staff recommended us to buy the tickets online, but there were also some people who bought the tickets directly on the bus. There were no designated bus stop at the Lotte Mart (Jamsil) for the shuttle buses, but the buses generally arrived early so you could spot them and the buses we took were purple in colour. (More details regarding transportation here: Yongpyong Resort Website) You can book your bus tickets through Grace Travel.

(Credits: yongpyong.co.kr)

Date of stay: March 2013

Hotel details:
130, Yongsan-ri, Daegwalnyeong-myon, Gangwon-do, Pyeongchang, Pyeongchang-gun, South Korea

Links:
Official website
Agoda listing
Tripadvisor review

Show Tel Review (Seoul)

We stayed here only because we needed just a cheap 1 night stay to catch the early bus to Yongpyong in the morning from Lotte World. It's more of a love motel and it was about 10-15 min walk to Lotte World (Jamsil). The staff didn't really speak english and our doors couldn't be locked, but he assured us that he could monitor our room from his CCTV when we went out in the day. At night, you could lock it with the door chains inside. The bed was hard to sleep on. We weren't expecting anything fancy for the price we paid.

The best part of this stay was that we had an AMAZING garlic bread that we bought from a bakery in Lotte World Shopping Center. :)

In short, it's cheap and reasonable (for the price) for a one night stay.

(Credits: Agoda)

Date of stay: Feb 2013

Address:
5-13, Olympic-ro, 34-gil, Songpa-gu, Jamsil / Songpa, Seoul, South Korea

Links:
Agoda listing
Tripadvisor listing

Elysee Motel Busan Review

For a first time visitor, the place might look sleazy or haunted. The place is quite dimly lit and it looks really shady. You might also find it tricky to locate the entrance as you enter via the carpark.

The owners sent us a prior email before arriving to give us directions to the motel. Upon arriving, they gave us an introduction of shopping, food and sightseeing locations around the area coupled with print-outs of the maps and descriptions.

Although the place looks rather old and worn out, the couple running the place were extremely helpful and friendly, giving a warm homely feel to the place. They readily helped us with any information we needed and also helped searched for the information if they didn't know the answer to it. There was a jacuzzi, shower area, computer and a huge flat screen tv in the room.

The location was quite good as you could walk to get to the shopping and food areas that are nearby.

Apart from the looks of this place, I would actually give them a double thumbs up for their impeccable service and value-for-money.

Update 27 May 2015:
From their photos, I think they had some renovations and they look significantly better now, especially the rooms. Triple thumbs up now!

(Credits: Agoda)

Date of stay: Jan 2013

Address:
22 Daecheong-ro 126beon-gil Jung-gu, Jung-gu / KTX Busan Station, Busan, South Korea 600-023

Links:
Agoda listing
Tripadvisor listing

J Hill Hotel Review (Seoul, South Korea)

This hotel is centrally located in a shopping and food district. There was free wifi in the rooms and the breakfast area is located at the top of the building, providing some nice view of the surroundings.

It's well located in between Myeongdong and Euljiro 1-ga train station. It's less than 5 minutes walk to either stations, without luggages of course. :) There are lots of street food & shopping around the area and there's a Lotte departmental store nearby too. The room is really small and you could only open 1 luggage at a time while the room. The room had a slight cigarette smell though. Because it's located in the shopping and food district, it might get slightly noisy but we find it still ok. The staff were very friendly and helpful and could converse in english. They helped us search for locations/items online when we had questions and the staff at the lobby was extremely enthusiastic in helping us with our luggages and at one occasion he brought us directly to the restaurant when we asked him the location of a food place. Double thumbs up to him! The toilet had the auto washing function too, that was quite cool! Overall it was nice and comfortable stay, with everything within walking distance.

Our bedroom

Toilet bowl

Date of stay: Feb 2013

Hotel details:
J Hill Hotel (3 star)
48 Myeongdong-gil, Jung-gu, Myeong-dong / Namsan
Seoul, South Korea

Links:
Official website
Agoda listing

Airo Tower Hotel Review

Me and my friends had a bad experience staying at that hotel.

Although it was located quite far away from the city, having to take the train to the end of the line, then switching to a tram and travel to the end of the line again, it was rather near the tram station (3min walk).

As we arrived there in the night, we were told that 1 of the 2 rooms which we have booked and fully paid for, has been taken up and there are no other available rooms in the hotel! After the staff spent some time on the phone, they said we would be staying in a different hotel. Despite them making arrangements to call for a cab and paying for the trip to and fro, we found it extremely unprofessional as we have already made the full payments for the rooms. The staff behind the counter wasn't emphatic about our situation and even retorted that we could choose to sleep on the streets if we're still unhappy when all the necessary arrangements have been made. And after my friends went over to the nearby hotel, they only gave them 1 room with 1 small bed when there were 2 of them and the reception was closed there. They had to call us and we in turn called up our reception to get another room for them there. Though the rude staff apologized for his bad attitude, but it was an unpleasant experience staying there. The staff at the souvenir store wasn't too friendly either. He was unhappy that we touched the display glass infront of his shop that left A (ONE) fingerprint mark on it and told us not to do that.

(Credits: Agoda)

Date of stay: May 2008
Review score: 1/ 5

Address:

Kurbadstrasse 8, Vienna 1100, Austria

Links:
Tripadvisor listing
Official website
Agoda listing