Hiking 🥾

Most of Korea is mountainous, so even in a big city you can ride the subway to a trailhead. Bukhansan is a national park on the edge of central Seoul. Summits usually carry a stone marker with the mountain's name, and queuing to photograph it is a familiar sight. It's the kind of exercise where your knees speak up on the way down rather than the way up.

Nature tops the pack. You chose a weekend of sweating over a weekend of resting. Adventure sits above the middle too — you're someone whose day only makes sense with a summit to aim at.

Aesthetic is on the low side for this pack. You buy achievement rather than atmosphere. One photo by the summit marker and a hot bowl of soup at the bottom, and the day is complete. A weekend of hunting down pretty cafés feels a bit empty to you.

You go well with an early riser. Mountains are less crowded and cooler the earlier you start, and someone who can't give up a lie-in throws the day off from the first step. Hiking polarises a bracket: fans push it all the way, everyone else knocks it out in the first round.

The nearest square is skiing, then camping — all three put the body to work. The furthest is the art museum. One climbs to the top; the other stands still and looks for a long time.