Seoul Activities and best Starwood Hotel

I%26#39;m headed to Seoul in April on business. I%26#39;ll have about 1.5 free days and a few evenings. A few questions:

1. What are the best activities for someone looking to get a ';feel'; for the city?

2. Where should I stay? I%26#39;d like to stick to Starwood, but can be flexible on which specific hotel. I generally like W Hotels, however I%26#39;ve heard the W Seoul has a poor location. Thoughts?

Thanks in advance!

Seoul Activities and best Starwood Hotel

First thought on W hotel. It%26#39;s a very nicely decorated hotel (check out the Woo bar, it%26#39;s beautiful). However, yes the location is a major bummer. It%26#39;s only accessible by cabs and on top of a mountain so for a one-nigth drunk excursion awesome, but not the most conveniently located hotel.

Seoul really has lots to offer, but what%26#39;s most imp is what kind of tourist you want to be (are you the, tourist trap one? the adventurer..the shopper? etc)

For spots to hit, I%26#39;d say ignore all other tourist traps and hit

1) Insadong - turning a little more touristy than it used to be, but def has the old Korean tradition feel to it (please do google it =D)

2) Clubbing - if you do want to check out the Seoul night scenes (I%26#39;m from NYC, and I%26#39;d say clubbing scene here is better...now skip this part if you are way over your 30s). There are places called Circle and Answer, and of course the spot in W hotel is also another cool one.

I%26#39;m in a hurry (going to work soon..) so just throwing basic ideas- feel free to ask more.

Seoul Activities and best Starwood Hotel

Not sure if you left on your trip yet, but most of the major hotel chains are nice. you can stay at the lotte hotel, the intercontinental, or the ritz, which all have good locations. the W is beautiful but as mentioned, location is inconvenient.

depending on what you are interested in, you could go the cultural route and see the historical sites or insa-dong. or, if you are into shopping, you can check out Coex (near intercontinental), which is essentially a shopping mall, check out the kangnam bus terminal, where they have tons of stalls selling everything from hairpins to cheap clothes to $10 shoes, etc. or, you can see the huge department stores- Lotte, Hyundai, and ShinSaeGae. all the dept stores have a lot of restaurants in them (check out Oodles in ShinSaeGae) and a whole floor dedicated to food and food courts. all have free samples! kyobo is the big bookstore. you should go to an hot spring sauna and get a body scrub. if you are a night owl, go to Migliore, which is night-time shopping (starts around 10pm) for fake bags, hair accessories, etc. for the inner child in you, you could go to Lotte World, which is an indoor amusement park. the current hot spot for clubbing is called MASS in kangnam. everyone there is in their early 20s. you can go to Lotte Dept store and then walk a few blocks to myung-dong, which is closed to traffic and everyone walks around.

hope that helps!