Alchemy of Souls | Nongwoljeong, Hamyang — The Pavilion on the Moon Pool Rock

You reach the pavilion by stepping from stone to stone across the stream. Nongwoljeong sits on Wolyeonam, the Moon Pool Rock, in Hwarimdong Valley at Nongwoljeong-gil 9-13 in Anui-myeon, Hamyang. The name means a hall for playing with the moon that collects in the water. Jijokdang Park Myeong-bu built the first version in the 1630s. Fire took it in 2003. The county put the hip-and-gable hall back in 2015 on the same bedrock. In Alchemy of Souls the valley and its pavilions stood in for Sejukwon, Songrim's quieter ground beside running water.

Hwarimdong is one of Anui's three famous valleys, a line of halls that scholars used as an outdoor school. The slabs in front of Nongwoljeong are broad enough to hold a class. The current is loud after rain and thin in a dry week. Nothing about the place was designed as a set. The camera borrowed a Joseon scholar's view and left it where it was. Visitors still take off their shoes on the rock and look upstream toward Deogyusan. The moon, when it comes, still lands in the same pool.