Seoul for The Thrill Seekers: a Friday-to-Monday weekend

Skip the cable car: the stair path from the Myeong-dong side gains 200 metres in twenty minutes past the old beacon mounds, and the runners will overtake you.

The lift to the deck at 480 metres above sea level as the grid lights up; the padlock fences outside are for the couples, the view is for everyone.

Kalguksu in a chicken broth with a heap of garlic-heavy kimchi, four things on the menu since 1966 and a turnover that gets you seated in minutes.

The 836-metre summit by the fortress valley, four hours up and down with steel cables on the last granite dome and the whole city under you by eight.

The lift does 117 floors in a minute, then a glass floor at 478 metres you are dared to stand on; the legs that climbed Bukhansan will notice.

Whole chicken stuffed with rice and ginseng in a bubbling pot, the recovery dish Koreans eat on the hottest days of summer, in a hanok by the palace's west gate.

An hour out by subway and bus to the mountain fortress where a king held out in 1636; the full wall loop is eight kilometres of ridge with four gates.

The indoor park under a glass dome and the outdoor Magic Island on the lake: the Gyro Drop and the Atlantis coaster are the two worth the queue.

Fried chicken with green chilli peppers and draught beer at a shared table off Garosu-gil, the meal a day of rides was designed to end with.

Up the city wall from Sajik Park to the 338-metre summit as the sun comes over Bukhansan, two hours round with the palaces laid out under the rock.

A seven-floor jjimjilbang by Yongsan station: hot pools, a charcoal kiln room, a cold plunge and a nap on the heated floor before the airport train.

The clear ox-bone gomtang served since 1939, with rice already in the bowl and radish kimchi on the side; the kitchen sells out by mid-afternoon.