My Sassy Girl|Hwaseong Haenggung Sinpungnu — The Gate a Princess Used to Leave the Palace

Sinpungnu is the east-facing main gate of Hwaseong Haenggung. Jeongjo first called it Jinnamnu when the gate went up in 1790, then renamed it in 1795 after the Han founder's hometown, as if Suwon were a second birthplace. The tablet still hangs over the three bays.

SBS put the Joseon court of My Sassy Girl inside this palace. Princess Hye-myeong's whole plot depends on getting out of the compound without being seen. The cameras used the halls behind this gate. The public walk still starts here.

Come off the bus at Hwaseong Haenggung and face the two-storey pavilion before you pay. The fortress wall climbs Paldalsan to the west. Market streets run east toward Paldalmun. That is the geography the drama borrowed: a palace that sits inside a working city, not behind a studio fence.

Walk through the gate and look back at the tablet. A scholar on the street would have seen exactly this facade. The princess who kept escaping would have had to pass it twice.