Seoul is bustling. For markets, check out the stalls in Namdaemun for loads of interesting and (mostly) fresh foodstuffs. This is also a good area to scope out clothes and accessories; many Japanese tourists loiter around here in particular, trying on their Louis Vuitton impostor bags and the like.

For cuisine, options are seemingly as limitless as Japanese counterpart Tokyo; there’s food everywhere. Even in the business districts, there were stalls around with roasted chestnuts, unidentifiable meat-on-a-stick-with spicy-sauce type objects, and smiling ladies who would happily gut up an octopus and serve it wriggling.

A word of caution though: the full Korean culinary experience is delicious and who would have known hot, spicy foods could be so varied in their flavour, but it can play hell on the tum the first couple of days.