Namsan

This guide to Namsan in Seoul opens on the afternoon Japan surrendered in 1945, when priests quietly emptied a colonial-era shrine that had stood on this ridge since 1925, forcing every Korean schoolchild and worker up the mountain to bow toward Japan's gods. It follows what Koreans chose to build on that same ground in 1970, honoring An Jung-geun, who shot the official who engineered Korea's annexation. You'll also hear how stone beacon towers up here once relayed warnings of invasion by smoke and fire back in the 1390s.