The rooftop room every Korean drama rents, seen from Haebangchon's stairs

In Korean dramas, a character who has just lost a job, left home or arrived from the provinces tends to land in the same room. It is a small box on top of someone else's house, with a green floor outside the door and the city below. It is called an oktapbang (옥탑방). In Haebangchon (해방촌), on the southern slope of Namsan, dozens of them can be seen from a single staircase.

Why the camera keeps climbing

A rooftop room shows a character's budget in one wide shot and gives the actors an outdoor stage for late-night conversations. The rooms are also real housing. They are usually added on top of multi-family buildings and rent cheaply because they are hot in August and cold in January.

Reading a Haebangchon roof

The green surface is waterproofing paint, laid over the concrete so monsoon rain runs off instead of soaking in. Around it sit the details set dressers copy: a plastic table, a laundry rack, styrofoam boxes planted with chilli peppers or lettuce, a water tank and a low door. The name Haebangchon means liberation village, and the area was settled by people who came to Seoul after 1945. Its houses climb the hill so steeply that each roof is visible from the lane above.

옥탑방은 여름에 덥고 겨울에 춥지만, 서울에서 하늘과 가장 가까운 방이다.

Looking without intruding

Take Line 6 to Noksapyeong, walk uphill to Sinheung-ro, then follow the side stairs toward Sinheung Market. Keep to public steps and lanes. These are homes, and the laundry on the line belongs to tenants, not a props department. Several cafes along Sinheung-ro let customers sit on their upper floors. From there, the late-afternoon light on the green roofs below looks very much like what the dramas try to recreate.