From the top you’ll see what’s in every brochure worthy of the name Busan: the world’s fifth largest container port, the country’s second largest fish market, and the layer cake of nature’s simplest ingredients of land, sea and sky. You’re in Busan Tower. Since 1973 it’s been here, guarding the southeastern tip of Korea’s Gyeongsangnam province. The structure itself is bare seagull-white and no-frills, unassuming except vertically. Souvenirs that look like souvenirs and a book cafe in need of volumes welcome you on the base level, not that you’ve come for that. 

Up above, the tower serves its higher purpose, access to an incredible 360 degree view of this coastal city. Look north for Democracy Park and south for Mt. Bongrae and Oryukdo, the island that splits into 5 or 6 when the tide rolls in. Lotte’s new mega-mall sits like a road block in the center of it all. What is God’s and man’s seems quite clear at 120 meters. The view changes its character from north to south, between the chunky colored-villas that crawl up the mountain sides and the heavy commercial zone that follows the waterline. Tour vessels and container ships conduct business across the Korea Strait.

Outside the tower, Yongdusan Park is quiet, but there are people here. Could be the surroundings have rendered them sedate. Japanese tourists and Korean families wait for a musical performance, others walk the trails around the mountain or relax with a can of caffeine at the look-off. The seniors make up the rest. Many of them take the long hillside escalator or trudge up the covered staircase from Nampo-dong, a livelier district of bars and brand names. Up here they socialize under wooden awnings or share a long game of paduk under the trees. A statue of Joseon war hero Yi Sun-shin, and the tower, watch their moves. 

While Busan Tower politely requests a moment of your time, N-Seoul Tower demands commitment. Just north of the Han River, the mountain park underneath it is thick with vegetation and walking trails that cut here and there, around and up. You climb and the effort runs down your back. But even with a compassionate supply of rest stops, fountains, botanical gardens and a public library, should Seoul’s must-see attraction require this much heavy breathing? Well it is on a mountain, Namsan, where such a true view can’t simply be had, it must be earned. For the less adventurous there’s a cable car and a bus that circles the park on schedule. Absolutely it’s cheating. 

At the mountain’s peak an official pamphlet is waiting, along with the tower that it calls an “urban refuge.” Maybe on a weekday. On a weekend it borders on unlikely and the greater relief comes in snapping a picture without the passing of a wayward head. Such is the big smoke. If Busan Tower is the good friend, N-Seoul Tower is the energetic first date. The main plaza is bustling with shops and stabs of modern art. A look-off lounge in a glass box is tempting while close by a museum accounts for Korea’s chronology with teddy bears. There’s a traditional pavilion here too, Palgakjeong, as colorful as Yongdusan Park’s though this one stands without a bell. Visitors can sit in its shade or stroll about, munch popcorn or have a portrait keepsake drawn by hand. 

The 237-meter communications tower has been available to the public since 1980. In 2005, it was realigned to the times with “newly designed high-tech multi media,” the official website says. As flourishes, the digital displays are neat. In the media play zone you can catch up on your videos but compared to the view through the glass they’re insignificant. It is, in a word, spectacular. By day, a confusion of buildings that just might be beautiful. By night, a million pinheads of light. There are four observation decks in the upper tower, two that are free to wander and another two within restaurants. Daehang-ro. Central City. Namdaemun. Yongsan. The windows in the Sky Cafe are lettered with descriptions of what you’re supposedly looking at, what’s somewhere down below. At this height it’s helpful but as nice to be uninformed.