Seoul is one of the biggest, densest, and most relentlessly modern cities in the world. Home to roughly half of South Korea's population in its wider metropolitan area, it is a place of endless neon, twenty-four-hour street food, and 5G on the subway — and yet, tucked between the office towers, it still contains five Joseon-era palaces, a city wall, and the shrines and hanok villages that have been there for six centuries.
The city fills a valley on the Han River, ringed by mountains (Bukhansan to the north is a national park right at the city limits). North of the river, Jongno and the old downtown contain Gyeongbokgung and Changdeokgung palaces, the craft-and-tea alleys of Insadong, the hanok lanes of Bukchon, and the market chaos of Gwangjang and Namdaemun. Myeongdong is the tourist shopping heart, brash and crowded. South of the river, Gangnam is the money — glass skyscrapers, plastic-surgery clinics, and the Lotte World Tower. Itaewon is the old foreign quarter, Hongdae the student and indie-music district, and Seongsu the current hipster favourite for third-wave coffee and craft beer.
Food is a reason in itself to come. Korean barbecue and Korean fried chicken are obvious pleasures; the deeper ones are the late-night pojangmacha tents, the 24-hour seolleongtang joints, the temple-cuisine restaurants, the dakgalbi dens, and whatever new fried-rice-cake combination has caught on this month. A day trip north to Panmunjom and the DMZ is the strangest excursion any capital can offer — you can look directly into North Korea from a few kilometres inside the Republic of Korea.
