You step out of the subway into a river of people and light—Seoul’s streets are moving, bright, and intensely now. Your local host meets you near a landmark station, introduces themselves with a quick bow, and points toward an alley where steam rises from a food tent and a hanok roof peers over a modern façade. For the next three to four hours the city becomes a sequence of lived-in scenes: palace courtyards, narrow craft shops, glass-and-steel design plazas and a coffee shop where conversation flows like the nearby Han River daring you to slow down.