Urban Retreats for Stressed-Out Seouls

Illustration for TIME by Nick Dewar

Seoul. To the English speaker the name suggests peace, calm, harmony. A sort of Buddhist New York, so good they named it nice. But to those who have visited, the South Korean capital will forever conjure up images of smog, traffic and crowds. If Seoul has a song, it is played on that ubiquitous instrument of sonic torture, the jackhammer. Home to 10.8 million people, which by some estimates makes it the world's fifth largest city, Seoul could scarcely be called a haven of serenity. Or could it?

Nestled between office blocks on beautiful Sam Gak Mountain to the north of the...

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