Seoul

Seoul moves fast, and it packs everything into the same few blocks: glass towers, barbecue alleys and wooden palaces. Gyeongbokgung Palace opens onto a wide forecourt where the guard changes in bright costume, and many visitors walk it in a hanbok hired by the hour. Just above, the curved roofs of Bukchon Hanok Village climb a hill of traditional houses that people still live in. The city eats outdoors and late: skewers, steamed dumplings and mung-bean pancakes at the stalls of Gwangjang Market, trading for over a century. An open stream, the Cheonggyecheon Stream Walk, crosses the centre a few metres below the traffic. The mountains are never far — the granite ridges of Bukhansan National Park begin where the apartment blocks stop. At night, N Seoul Tower lights up above the rooftops, and the city runs out to the hills.