The KDrama that rocked the first quarter of 2016 is no other than “Descendants of the Sun”. Song Joong Ki, who was fresh out from serving his 2 year mandatory military service, took up the role of Captain Yoo Shi Jin and Song Hye Kyo played the cardiothoracic specialist, Dr. Kang Mo Yeon. So when I cooked up a plan to visit South Korea, it was obvious that one of the sites on my must-go list is the newly opened Taebaek film site. Best thing is that they don’t charge for admission! It’s totally FREE!

Drama scene where Captain Yoo Shi Jin fixes Doctor Kang Mo Yeon’s shoe strings.

This abandoned building was the backdrop for the earthquake scene. It used to be a bath house for the miners and workers.

Drama scene where Haesung Hospital staff snaps a photo to commemorate the completion of their volunteer work.

Inside the barracks

Drama Scene where the boys showed that saving their faces is important when they’re not saving the country.

Medicube

One of the memorable scenes in the drama is the part where Captain Yoo Shi Jin tells Doctor Kang Mo Yeon to “Save Him” then (very handsomely) draws out his gun to protect her.

Drama scene where Captain Yoo Shi Jin, Sergeant Seo Dae Young and Private First Class Kim Ki Beom are cooking samgyetang for their ladies.

By the way, 2 Days and 1 Night did a drama-inspired episode so they shot episode 215 here in Taebaek as they parodied “Descendants of the Sun”.

Directions Seoul to Taebaek:

From Seoul, ride inner circle line 2 ) green line and alight at Gangbyeon station.Once you reach Gangbyeon station, take exit # 4. Across the street, you will see the building in below picture which is the bus station.

Purchase a ticket headed towards Taebaek (Dong Seoul to Taebaek). We purchased our ticket for 22,900 KRW/ person/ one way.

After around 3.5 hours or so, we arrived at the Taebaek bus station which was the last stop of the bus.

Once you exit the bus station, you can see a line of taxis so just ride the first one in the taxi line and tell them Descendants of the Sun Taebaek film site. Since our taxi driver looked confused, we showed him photos of the drama posters and he quickly understood where we wanted to go. The film site is located in an isolated area so taking a taxi is the best mode of transportation. Our friends who went a day prior paid 20,000KRW roundtrip because the taxi waited for them at the site. We approximately paid around 4,000KRW for one way. We wanted to make the taxi wait too but he declined and told us that we can just call their hotlines once we are done. If you want to call for a Taebaek taxi, here’s their number: 552 4747.

The film site is pretty small so an hour or two is more than enough to tour (and take a hundred of photos and mandatory selfies) the entire area. For our trip back, we approached the tourist information booth (see photo below) and asked help for calling a taxi back to the bus station. We waited less than 10 minutes and approximately paid around 4,500 KRW.

Once we reached the Taebaek bus station, we bought tickets back to Seoul (Taebaek to Dong Seoul).

We paid 22,900KRW for our fare and roughly around 3.5 to 4 hours to reach Seoul.

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I wanna thank my expedition partner-in-crime Grace for patiently touring with me. You can follow her at her IG account: getlostwith_grace.