Seoul
— — a city built around its mountains.
Not only on a wall.
“The capital sits in a basin where the Han River cuts west toward the Yellow Sea, ringed by granite peaks the city never paved over. Gyeongbokgung holds the north, its tiled roofs lined up against the dark wall of Bukhansan. South of the river the towers of Gangnam reach high. Late at night the convenience-store lights stay on, and the subways start again at five.
Seoul, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
Seoul sits in a basin on the Han River in northwest South Korea, about 60 kilometres east of the Yellow Sea coast. The metropolitan area holds roughly 26 million people, nearly half the country's population. Granite mountains ring the city: Bukhansan to the north at 836 metres, Namsan in the centre at 262 metres, and Gwanaksan to the south at 632 metres. The Joseon dynasty made Seoul its capital in 1394, and the five great palaces from that era still stand in the northern half of the old city.
The mountains that hold Seoul are granite, eroded into steep faces and rounded summits over hundreds of millions of years. Bukhansan, the northern guardian, holds nearly 80 named peaks across 80 square kilometres, designated a national park in 1983. Climbers and weekend hikers fill the trails on Saturdays. Gyeongbokgung Palace, founded 1395 and rebuilt after the Imjin War, sits on a north-south axis pointed at the granite face of Bugaksan, in the older Korean tradition of siting capitals against the protective mountain to the rear.
Seoul moves through four full seasons. Cherry blossoms run early to mid-April, with peak bloom on Yeouido island. Summer is hot, humid, and monsoonal: July averages 26°C and brings most of the city's 1,400 millimetres of rain. Autumn turns the maples crimson through October on Bukhansan's southern slopes. Winter is dry and cold, with January averaging just below freezing. The Lunar New Year holiday, Seollal, and the autumn harvest holiday, Chuseok, empty the city briefly each year.