charset issue

[Yossi Natanson]

I use 2 php scripts: group-office & dotproject

both scripts are running in the browser as utf-8
both databases are defined charset as utf8-general-ci

in both scripts, in the app I see the data just fine
but, when I try to see the data directly (say, with phpmyadmin) I see gibrish

why is it so?
and how do I overcome it?

thanks