The Hotel Box, Jeonju

Leaving Suwon, it takes me an age to transfer between the subway and main train station. I sit on my luggage near the ticket office, watching the departures board. As it's not quite 11:30, my 12:02 service doesn't show up for some time. When it does, it shows Track 5, which is where I head.

My ticket is for car #6 and, like Japan, there are indicators on the platform for each car. There's barely anyone around the area for car #6, so I'm able to sit. After a couple of trains pass by I realize that, not like Japan, car #6 of these trains is back towards the middle of the platform. With a couple of minutes to go I move back to the middle of the platform

Sure enough, my train arrives and car #6 is not far from where I am now. On board, a man is standing in an area that would make perfect storage for my megaluggage. He magnanimously gives up the space to me. This allows to sit on my luggage for much of the time, so it works out OK.

On arrival at Jeonju, I join the taxi line outside the station and catch one within 10 minutes. This is the beginning of a new recurring theme where taxi drivers have NO FRIGGING IDEA WHERE MY HOTEL IS. This guy doesn't have a GPS so we resort to Google Maps. It turns out OK, eventually 😡

So it looks like my hotel is in the middle of what passes for Jeonju's red light district. I present photographic evidence. Panther condoms, "Love Gel" wtf. Anyway it's not exactly the Reeperbahn 😉

Not a lot of English spoken at the hotel, but they do my laundry for free which is great. I have a black garbage bag for dirty clothes, so when my laundry was returned in a clear plastic bag I asked them (via Google Translate) to find my black bag. Some time later my room phone rings - "black bag, black bag" on the other end, so I head downstairs and trade bags 😄Read more