Mr. Sunshine | Sunshine Studio, Nonsan — The Set That Was Built To Stay

Reply 1988's Ssangmun-dong alley was built, filmed, and demolished. Sunshine Studio is what happens when a set is built to outlive the shoot. Twenty thousand square metres in Yeonmu-eup, Nonsan, reconstructing Hanseong of the early 1900s: five Western-style modern buildings including the Hanseong Electric offices, nineteen tiled-roof houses, four thatched ones, nine Japanese-style buildings, and a streetcar of the kind that began running in 1899. Jongno Street with its arched bridge, the Glory Hotel, the herbal pharmacy, the French bakery, Bosingak. Nonsan kept it, made it one of the county's eleven designated sights, and it has been open ever since. Ten to six, closed Wednesdays. Adults 9,000 won, teenagers 7,000, children 5,000. Costume hire on site, which most visitors take — the point of the place is walking the street dressed for it. Allow an hour for the studio proper; the wider Sunshine Land has a separate 1950s set that is free. Two things travellers have flagged. There is no luggage storage, though ticket staff will usually mind bags until half five. And it is remote enough that taxis do not pass — call one through an app before you need it. Two and a half hours from Seoul. Go in late afternoon and stay until closing. The light on a reconstructed street is not the same as light on a real one, but Jongno at six in the evening with the tram standing empty is the closest thing to time travel this list contains. Cover photo: Hapcheon riverscape, by Visviva, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons — regional Chungcheong-Gyeongsang view, not the studio. Commons holds no image of Sunshine Studio.