A Korean Odyssey | Oil Tank Culture Park — The T1 Pavilion Where Subodhi Waited

The tank sits under Maebongsan like a drum that lost its oil and kept its echo. VisitSeoul names T1 Pavilion as the hideout of Subodhi, the heavenly messenger played by Lee El, in A Korean Odyssey.

The park at 87 Jeungsan-ro was built after the 1973 oil shock as Mapo’s reserve depot. Five tanks held enough fuel for Seoul for a month. They closed the site before the 2002 World Cup for safety, then reopened it in September 2017 as Oil Tank Culture Park — the same season the drama went to air.

T1 is the glass pavilion now. The other tanks became a stage, a preserved hull, a classroom, a story hall, and a cafe. The grounds stay open. The exhibition halls rest on Mondays.

Walk in from World Cup Stadium Station. The grass is ordinary. The cylinders are not. Stand at T1 and you see why a messenger of heaven could hide in a city that had already emptied the tanks.