nest hotel is the first Design Hotels property in South Korea. It is located in Yeongjongdo island of Incheon, a neighbouring city near Seoul with a bunch of new development, ranging from luxury resorts, cultural centres, golf courses, casinos, adventure parks and malls — the future Northeast Asia’s cultural hub.

The architecture of the building was inspired by the hotel’s main focus of becoming a hideout for their guests. The designers first drew up plans for each room individually, blending the views of pine trees, reed fields and the calming Yellow Sea into the interior. These 370 rooms were then constructed through the “piling up” design, forming a unique nest-like facade.

It is a perfect blend of post-modernity with simplicity. I love the combination of a huge amount of white, natural light and earth tone colours, all tastefully selected for their interior colour palette. The hotel is fairly new. In fact the hotel is in a soft launch mode since 12th this month. I absolutely love the feather-like chandeliers hanging gracefully in the lobby.

Taking the island airport hotel to the next level, nest hotel, set in Incheon near Seoul, is the perfect getaway for today’s jet-set crowd.

The Room

I didn’t manage to get satisfying pictures of the hotel room since we only checked in at 11pm, but the standard twin room was pretty comfortable. The quilts and pillows are in soft, good sinking-in material to ensure a restful slumber. Standard rules for most S.Korean Hotels also applied here: Free soap and shower utensils, but extra charges apply if you use the brand new toothbrush provided.

The Lobby

If there is a word to describe the hotel, that would be “Industrial Elegance”. I love the neat colour arrangement and I appreciate the designer’s attention paid to the tiniest detail of the  bricks, the carpet and the pillars. Personally I love natural sunlight, and I must say here at the hotel you really feel the connectedness between the building at the warm daylight. Staffs are friendly and attentive, creating a welcoming atmosphere throughout my stay. Casual chats with their staffs offered me with the information that the hotel is also providing some unexpected services such as Glamping (glamorous camping) facilities, biking courses through the reed fields and adventurous watersports!

My denim overalls and me, soaking up in the glorious morning sunshine at the lobby.

The Surroundings

I was so blown away by the spectacular view of the hotel surroundings, especially the reed fields nearby, and the reservoir (or was it a lake?) right outside their restaurant. Since there is basically nothing nearby the hotel and the nearest convenient store is like 5-10 minutes drive away,  this place is certainly a recluse paradise.

The PLATZ

One highlight of the stay would be their beautiful restaurant. Tiered seating were designed to ensure a romantic theatrical dining experience — enjoying the food while overseeing the sea. The whole white and ivory colour settings give off a minimalist, contemporary simplicity atmosphere. The restaurant is surrounded by tall glass windows, make it a gem day and night. Natural sunlight shining through the glass window, lighting up your palate, making the food even more appetising.

The Platz goes quite international on their breakfast menu. Fine western cuisine was served, from fresh garden salad to a good selection of antipasti (not extravagantly wide in selection but good at what they got). Cheesy potato gnocchi and even Chicken Tandoori, the dining experience at their restaurant were a pleasant surprise. Korean style dishes like pa-jeon and haemul-jeon (green onion and seafood pancake), the holy-jeonbukjuk (abalone porridge) and even Chinese dimsum were on the breakfast buffet table as well. Not to mention the artisan croissant, hearty full-grain muffin and the beautifully baked tarts. Certainly (and perhaps, literally) a feast for the eyes and stomach!

The KUNST Lounge/ Library Café

Fancy a drink over some interesting, good read? Head to their library café at the other end of the lobby. They have a rather impressive library of books, with a few major families of genres ranging from unique culture from all over the world, design, architecture, interior and even humanities. The cosy library actually offers a collection of 1000 books for any reading enthusiast!

I would definitely love to and get cosy up with a glass of martini and getting my hands on The Design of Everyday Things by Donald A. Norman at the KUNST. But it was a pity that we were having a super tight schedule during our stay : ( To my surprise, their lounge closes as early as 11pm so if you want to get your drinks at night, you’d better be early to avoid any disappointment.

Writer’s Note: The 2d1n stay during my visit to Incheon at nest hotel was perfect — though there is certainly space for improvement. We actually checked into a room with an empty fridge and empty snack bar lol. The spa (jacuzzi pool) in the hotel was closed due to maintenance as well. (We were certainly out of luck!) Though some of the facilities (the garden, the jogging course etc.) are not exactly ready, I feel that everything had lived up to my expectations since the hotel is on soft launch. I heard from the staff that they will be all ready by mid-October 2014! So do check it out if you’re interested! I do hope I can enjoy their hospitality once again when they are all ready! ; )

Contact Details

nest hotel
19-5, Yeongjonghaeannam-ro,Jung-gu,Incheon,Korea
Incheon 400-340, South Korea
Tel. +82 32 743 9000

Our stay costed KRW 250,000-360,000 (USD 239-344) per night. Buffet Breakfast cost KRW 22,000 (USD 21+-) for adults and KRW 11,000 (USD ) for kids if you booked your meals together online.

If you decided to walk in for your breakfast, it’ll cost KRW 27,500 (USD 26) and KRW 13,750 (USD13) for adults and kids respectively. 

Promotion during the Asian Game period: Show your ticket for the games and be eligible to enjoy your breakfast at the PLATZ for free.

Disclaimer: This trip is sponsored by Korea Tourism Organization (KTO). However opinions are my own.

As many of you might have followed the live broadcast provided by your home broadcast stations, I am going to keep the post sort and simple, and let the pictures tell the stories ; )

It happened that I had to take a very important exam on the day of the Opening Ceremony, so instead of travelling together with the Wow Korea Supporters team, I had to find my own way to Incheon Asiad Stadium as my exam ended late.

I took public transport (Airport train 공항철도 towards Incheon Airport 인천국제공항, and alight at Gom-am Station 검암역, then take a bus to the stadium.) The organiser of the AG was quite thoughtful in providing high-frequency shuttle service right from Gom-am Station to the stadium, but the queue for the shuttle was way too long. So I decided to take the Incheon city bus to the stadium and ended up alighting halfway through and walking over to the stadium as the traffic was really bad. Well, I expected this so it doesn’t affect my mood anyway.

Entrance at about 630pm, 30 minutes before the opening ceremony. It was quite confusing at the entrance as there wasn’t proper instruction on where and how the people should queue up to pass the security gantries. However, it didn’t take us long to get into the stadium. Since we were hungry, we went to grab something at the snack kiosk before meeting up with the group in the stadium.

After packing our bags up with food and titbits, we went into the stadium! Look at the crowds!!!!

On my way in I saw TV crews and foreign correspondents busy at work. Observing them reminded me of my past profession. The media industry is such a charming but taxing industry. Bittersweet emotions. Sigh..

Finally, we found our seats, somewhere high up, right opposite the place where President Park Geun Hye was seated at!

So this is what I discovered at the snack bar that I find astonishing: A self-heating instant lunchbox!

It is a kind of instant rice that comes in an amazing self-heating pack. Once you pull & hold the white grip for about 15 seconds, the heat pack in the package will start to heat up your rice. All you need to do now is to put the heating rice pack back in the box, leave it standing for 10 minutes and lay flat for 10 minutes, and your pippin’ hot bento box will be ready!

This is what you’ll get after unboxing the packaging. A self-heating pack contains of rice, another pack that consists of your main toppings, a packet consists of fried kimchi, and a packet with paper bowl and plastic spoon.

Just take out the rice pack and the dining utensils bag. Pull the white grip on the rice pack upward and hold for about 15 seconds, you’ll feel the heat from the bottom of the rice pack. Make sure you see smoke coming out from the lid, and it is time to put it back in the box. It will heat up the rice, as well as your toppings. When it is time to eat, get your paper plate ready and carefully take out the rice package and squeeze it from the top part. Your rice will slip out from the BOTTOM of the package.

I was so amazed by this brilliant invention and judging by the eyeballs I get when we walked past half of the stadium to locate our seat with this smoking package, I guess not many Korean know about this either!

FYI, this self-heating bento box comes in different flavours. I see Rice topped with Spicy Tofu, Rice topped with black bean sauce and Bibimbap flavours.  Mine was the black bean sauce rice and it taste good too. (it was too dark to take any pictures of my food, but I will do one more about this bento next time!)

And again, photos of the fireworks at the AG opening ceremony 2014.

Fireworks.

The exact scene when Kim Soo Hyun appeared.

The passionate crowds at the opening ceremony.

And when the athletes marched into the stadium. Personally, I feel that the highlight for the night was when the North Korean team paraded into the stadium. The crowd cheered their approval for team North Korea, despite North and South technically remaining at war.

When Psy rock the stage with his Gangnam Style.

and more fireworks.

Ending scene of Asian Game Opening Ceremony 2014.

Photo of one of my favourite heartfelt moments of the night- fuzzy, but glittering. Thank you KTO for having me there to witness this event.  ; )

Of course we went to watch Sepak Takraw Game at Pucheon Stadium the next day.

In case you don’t know about the game yet, Sepak Takraw is a sport native to Southeast Asia. Certainly, most S.E.A countries like Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia and etc. are good at Sepak Takraw. It is quite similar to volleyball, but the ball they use is usually made of rattan. It only allows players to use their feet, knee, chest and head to touch the ball. And the game between Indonesia and Laos was intense!

So this was basically what I did on the first night at Incheon. I am going to blog about Incheon and its tourist attraction, as well as a brand new designer hotel that I stayed at during my trip to Incheon, so stay tuned!

Disclaimer: This trip is sponsored by Korea Tourism Organization (KTO). However, opinions are my own.