True Beauty | Ikseon-dong — The Hanok Lane After the Makeup Came Off

Jongno 3-ga Exit 6 dumps you into a grid of 1920s hanok that the city never quite managed to flatten. Ikseon-dong is 118 old houses pressed between Unhyeon Palace and Jongmyo. The alleys are narrow enough that two people cannot walk abreast without deciding who yields.

True Beauty put Ju-kyung here with the friends she made after the transfer, Kang Su-jin and Choi Su-ah, in rooms that look like they have always sold tea and soju. One late episode brought her back to these lanes when the makeup was no longer doing the work she asked of it. The cameras liked the timber and the string lights. The neighborhood had already spent a century being used by other people for other nights.

Seoul's hanok portal still lists Ikseon-dong as a protected cluster. Cafes took the courtyards. The roofs did not move. You turn off Supyo-ro 28-gil and the street noise drops by half a second, which is all the drama needed.

Sit on a step if a shop will let you. The wood is older than the plot. The face you brought with you is the one the lane will keep.

Photo: Wikimedia Commons, Bukchon and Jongno hanok roofs looking toward the same timber city that holds Ikseon-dong.