Secret Garden | Saryeoni Forest Path — The Fork Where She Took the Wrong Trail

The cedars close overhead before you have walked a hundred metres. Volcanic soil darkens the path. The air smells of resin and wet leaf, not of the sea that sits only a few ridges away.

In Secret Garden this mid-mountain trail on Hallasan was the Jeju fork that sent Gil Ra-im the wrong way while Kim Joo-won and Oscar raced toward the coast. The drama called the finish a coastal road. The mistake began here, under trees that do not care who is winning.

Saryeoni means a sacred forest, or thread wound so it will not come apart. The path runs between Bijarim-ro and Bulgeun Oreum at about 550 metres, through Japanese cedar, oak, hornbeam and cypress inside Jeju's UNESCO biosphere reserve. Admission is free. The gates keep ordinary hours. After heavy rain the trail can close.

Walk until the light breaks in stripes on the volcanic gravel. The fork is still a fork. The trees have not moved for the plot.