It’s Sunday in Insadong, the perfect time for wandering the cobblestone streets of this historic Seoul neighborhood that is closed to traffic on weekends. Narrow, winding alleys are lined with teahouses and restaurants, plus galleries and shops with all sorts of tempting artwork on display – celadon pottery tea sets, colorful hanbok robes, textiles, masks, calligraphy on handmade paper. My sister-in-law, Kathleen, stops to admire a rich indigo scarf, then backs away suddenly, glancing over her shoulder.

Too late. Eun Ok Lee, senior editor of The Rotary Korea, has spotted her. Eun Ok scoops up the scarf and glides off to the cash register, returning with a beautifully wrapped package, which she hands to Kathleen.

We’ve only been on our tour of Seoul for a couple of hours, and already we’ve become well-acquainted with the generosity of the Korean people. A beautiful inlaid box, ceramics, engraved chopsticks – it seems that whatever we admire, our hosts want us to have. My first clue came early this morning when Eun Ok and Yun Jin Lee, an assistant editor, arrived to pick me up and insisted that my relatives join us. I’ve come to Seoul with my brother, Bill, and his wife, along with their son, Owen, 3, to help bring home their baby daughter, whom they are about to adopt. This is my second trip to Seoul; in 2003, my husband and I made a similar, memorable trip to adopt our son.

This generosity doesn’t surprise me. Korean Rotarians donated nearly US$10 million to The Rotary Foundation in 2006-07. They support a wide variety of humanitarian projects, including a major Health, Hunger and Humanity (3-H) Grant project to plant trees in Mongolia to create a natural windbreak against dust storms off the Gobi. A recent issue of The Rotary Korea includes a verse on service: “It means giving body and soul/Without taking care of one’s own interest.” The author and editor in chief, Jae Yoon Lee, will join me later, with Dae Jin Shin, vice editor in chief. In the meantime, he’s arranged a tour of his favorite places in Seoul.

State-of-the-art transportation

We walk down the street a short way to the subway, which, like everything in Seoul, is not only clean and well-run but also artfully decorated, with life-size photos of forests and cheerful displays by schoolchildren. After a few minutes, a glass door slides open; the train has arrived, and we’re whisked silently and smoothly to Insadong.

As we stroll along the main street, we hear the roar of a crowd. A man in white robes, full yellow apron, and white headband is heaving a giant wooden mallet into a large wooden bowl filled with white rice-cake dough. Eun Ok prods me very gently, but insistently. I clearly have no choice, so I heave the mallet, which lands with a disappointingly weak “shup,” much to everyone’s delight. But I’m content with my reward: sweet rice cakes, cooked streetside. Like so much of the street food here, it’s delicious. There’s chewy, honey-glazed rice puffs, fried sweet potatoes, succulent mung bean pancakes, grilled chicken and fish on a skewer, and much more. You can also find less familiar fare, like giant strips of dried squid and silkworm larvae. They taste musty to me, but I’m told Korean children gobble them up like popcorn.

After a stop at Jogyesa Temple, the headquarters for Korean Buddhists, the editors insist that my relatives join us for lunch. We head to Hanul Poong-Kyoung, a restaurant in a hanok, or traditional Korean home. Inside the serene, wooden structure we take our shoes off and step onto the platform, sitting on red cushions on a soft floor, nicely warmed by the ondol (radiant) heating system.

Lunch is no simple affair. There are at least 100 dishes, all exquisitely presented like individual works of art. About halfway through, Owen suddenly looks up, holds out his hands in puzzlement, and exclaims, “Where are the chairs?” We understand what he means. At times everything is so smooth, so comfortable, it’s easy for Westerners to forget where they are. And then a bite of blazing-hot kimchi serves up a reminder that this is a 5,000-year-old society with some truly distinctive cultural traditions.

A city of contrasts

Seoul is full of surprises, the traditional and cutting-edge contemporary juxtaposed around every corner, even here, in one of the city’s best-preserved historic neighborhoods. Although nearly all of Seoul was flattened during the 1950-53 Korean War, Insadong survived. Today, it is a city of 10 million people in the most wired country in the world, where modern skyscrapers tower above ancient palaces, gates, and temples.

At Jeontong Dawon, a traditional teahouse nearby, I get lost in reading the elaborate descriptions of what each tea has to offer – long life, strength, emotional balance, peace, a strong stomach, good temper, a good night’s sleep. I finally settle on yujacha, citron tea, which promises energy. The tea is bursting with flavor, thick with delicate strips of lemon rind, and sweetened just right. It’s like no tea I’ve never tasted before, and I am truly energized.

That’s a good thing, because the pace of our tour has picked up – we still have so much to see. We taxi across town to Gyeongbokgung Palace, the Palace of Shining Happiness, and the newly reopened National Palace Museum of Korea, located on the grounds. There are more than 40,000 artifacts here, but it doesn’t feel cluttered. Even in the hectic 600-year-old Namdaemun Market, which we visit another day, the 10,000 shops are meticulously ordered.

Next we time-travel to a new architectural marvel, the Cheonggyecheon Stream, opened in late 2005. Once covered in concrete, this symbolic stream runs several kilometers through the center of Seoul and is a popular gathering spot. Owen is finally exhausted, and we say farewell to Kathleen and Bill. (On the flight home, they tell me how much this day meant to them; as nervous expectant parents in a country halfway around the world from home, they found a memorable personal connection to their daughter’s birthplace.)

Soon, the editors and I meet up with Jae Yoon and Dae Jin for a performance of Jump. This global hit combines broad comedy with acrobatics and martial arts, such as tae kwondo and “drunken boxing” – think The Honeymooners meets Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. The audience, which includes young kids and their grandparents, explodes with laughter. This is a side to Korean culture that’s entirely new to me – and one I never would have known without my Rotarian guides.

Rotary's amazing growth

Over dinner atop one of Seoul’s tallest towers, we enjoy amazing city views and talk about Rotary’s astounding growth in Korea. “Editor [in Chief] Lee started 25 Rotary clubs during his year as district governor,” Dae Jin tells me. From 2004 to 2006, Rotary in Korea grew from 40,000 to nearly 55,000 club members, and is now fourth worldwide in membership. The Rotary Korea recently published its 100th issue. “We have been very involved in the Mongolian project, and Editor Lee visited there recently,” he says. Then the editors tell me about a Korean past district governor who was paralyzed in a car accident in Mongolia, where he was helping with that project. They want to make sure others know of his sacrifice. “We understand suffering,” Dae Jin says. “We lived through the war. Now it is our turn to help others.”