When one resident signed up for a municipal outdoor initiative earlier this summer, taking a walk in the rain was not part of the plan. But after checking off a challenge to visit a nearby neighborhood garden, the experience offered a rare moment of solace. “If not for the challenge, it’s a place I never would have stepped foot in,” the participant later recalled in a city survey. “Stepping out into the rain with an umbrella felt unexpectedly wonderful, and watching others enjoy their stroll made me realize I need to get out of the house far more often.” That quiet epiphany is precisely what municipal officials are aiming for. Facing a growing national crisis of social disconnection and loneliness — a phenomenon exacerbated by rapid urbanization and changing family structures — the Seoul Metropolitan Government is leaning into a gamified strategy to coax isolated residents back into public space. City authorities announced, Monday, the second phase of the "365 Seoul Challenge," an initiative designed to ease chronic feelings of loneliness by transforming everyday outdoor ac