Seoul for The Night Owls: a Friday-to-Monday weekend

The stream below street level, lit along its stepping stones from Gwanghwamun to Dongdaemun; walk it east with the office crowd heading for the beer tables.

The nogari alley at full tilt: dried pollack, draught beer and plastic stools filling the lane between the print shops, the oldest cheap night out in the city.

A bookcase that opens when you pull the right spine, then a bar that has won every regional award; the dress code is enforced and the ice is carved by hand.

Raw beef with pear and a raw egg yolk on top, served at a counter inside the market since 1961; the day's first meal and the queue starts before noon.

A 1920s block of tiny hanok, now cafés and bars, where the lanes are a metre wide and fill at dusk; find the one with the garden and wait for dark.

The Itaewon basement that put Seoul on the touring-DJ map, hip hop and house under a low ceiling; the door is slow after midnight, so go early and stay.

Pyongyang naengmyeon the plain way, the broth so clear newcomers add vinegar and regulars wince; a bowl and a plate of suyuk cure most nights.

The 1962 cable car from Hoehyeon-dong to the tower, three minutes of swinging over the pines as the city lights come on; the terrace at the top is free.

The jazz club that has been going since 1976 above an Itaewon lane, with two sets a night and a cover that includes a drink; the late set is the better one.

The fashion wholesalers trade from nine at night until five, buyers hauling plastic bales to vans while the city sleeps; walk through as the shutters come down.

Ox-bone soup for breakfast at the oldest restaurant in Seoul, where the first customers at seven are the ones who have not yet been to bed.

Free, enormous and quiet on a Monday morning: the Goryeo celadon, the gilt-bronze pensive bodhisattva in a room of its own, and a lawn to lie on after.