Lovely Runner | Hwahongmun, Suwon — Where Seon-jae Confessed

Hwahongmun is a sluice gate. That is its actual job — the point where the Suwon Hwaseong wall crosses the Suwoncheon stream, seven arches with water running through them, built in 1794 with a pavilion on top so soldiers could watch the approach. It is also the place Ryu Seon-jae finally says it.

The scene is a night scene, and it has to be. After seven the lights come on and the arches throw their reflection down into the stream, and the pavilion above turns into a lit box over moving water. Photographs of this place taken in daylight look like a heritage site; taken at night they look like the drama.

Stepping stones cross the stream just below, with a footbridge beside them, and the whole thing is open around the clock with no ticket. There is a visitor centre on the Haenggung-dong side where you can take your shoes off and sit down, which matters if you have been walking the wall.

Everything in this collection is within about ten minutes of here. Banghwasuryujeong and the Yongyeon pond are two minutes upstream; Haengnidan-gil runs west from the gate.

Come after dark and stand on the stepping stones looking back up at the arches. The drama's premise is a girl travelling fifteen years into the past to keep a boy alive, and it chose for its confession a structure that has been doing the same job in the same spot since 1794.

Cover photo: Hwahongmun, by Bernard Gagnon, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons.