Thanks for that link. The experience described hit home for me. MrLapLap went to work in Seoul a few years ago and I got to spend a week there (all I had to spend was £350 on a flight as I could share his lodgings).
We had a base in the southern inner suburbs of Seoul where the institution he was working is based and then moved to a central location for the last two nights. Seoul does have excellent local transport so getting around wasn’t a problem and it was easy to get to anywhere I wanted to.
Turns out what I enjoyed most was being part of every day life in the outer Seoul neighbourhood. Any time I attempted to go to an area recommended by guidebooks my experience paralleled that described by [MENTION=41593]kevincrumbs[/MENTION]. I never did get a handle on the city. Thankfully, my father in law came over from Japan to see us for a weekend. He is fluent in Korean and lived there for a time in the 1980s. He said is it was unrecognisable now from how it was and he struggled to get a handle on it too. We did have a couple of great nights out, MrLapLap’s dad loves Korean food and was the ideal companion for evening drinking and dining.

Which brings me to 2023. We had the chance to travel to Japan this summer with long stopovers both ways in Seoul. It being hot and having a child as a companion we decided not to go. Instead we paid the modest extra and got direct flights. I’d love to return to Korea, but not central Seoul with someone who is still a child. (Bangkok was a whole different story, Shanghai and Beijing also)