Can This Love Be Translated? — Filming Locations & Real Places

Finish Can This Love Be Translated? and everyone goes looking for the same scene first — the level crossing where the Enoden train passes and the guy vanishes without a trace.

Turns out that's not actually where the two of them first meet. It's a small ramen shop in an Enoshima alley — the scene where Mu-hee bursts in to confront her ex's new girlfriend, freezes because she can't speak Japanese, and Ho-jin, who happens to be there, steps in as her interpreter. That's where it really starts.

That ramen shop isn't even a ramen shop. It's actually a café called 'tenzan lab.' — only the exterior plays the ramen shop on screen. These days it quietly serves shaved ice and Japanese sweets, so don't go in asking for ramen.

The scene early in Episode 1 where the two pass each other without knowing it — that's Gokurakuji Station. A wooden station house built in 1904, and it turns out it also appeared in Hirokazu Kore-eda's Our Little Sister. Already a pilgrimage site for film fans before this show even existed.

가마쿠라 고토쿠인 대불(大仏), Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

The most famous shot, though, is a different one — an Enoden train passing in front of Goryo Shrine's white torii gate. Asahi Shimbun itself confirmed it as a real filming location. It was already a well-known photo spot during hydrangea season when the train and flowers line up, and apparently even more crowded since the show aired.

And that famous 'disappearing' scene — a small level crossing near Hase Station. So many fans from around the world started showing up that Kamakura City put up multilingual notice signs. Probably best to just take quiet photos and move on.

The Enoshima Sea Candle observation tower shows up too — but not for a romantic scene. It's where Ho-jin searches for his first love, Ji-seon. The exterior is the real tower, but the interior scenes were actually filmed separately at a tower in Sokcho, Korea. And some 'overseas' scenes go even further — the fancy Canadian restaurant and the Italian winery were both filmed entirely in Korea (Gangnam and Paju).

Worth talking about the show itself for a second — this is the newest work from the Hong Sisters (Hong Jung-eun, Hong Mi-ran), the same writers behind My Girlfriend Is a Gumiho, Hotel del Luna, and Alchemy of Souls. It stars Kim Seon-ho, Go Youn-jung, and Sota Fukushi, and topped Netflix's non-English TV chart right after its January 2026 release. 12 episodes.

The story structure is worth spoiling a little too. What starts as an interpreter-and-client bond between Mu-hee and Ho-jin gets complicated once Hiro, a Japanese actor who joins them on the same show, enters the picture — forming a love triangle. All three end up on the same global dating show, 'Romantic Trip,' which keeps pulling their relationship back together.

가마쿠라 쓰루가오카 하치만구, Wikimedia Commons

That triangle gets even messier in Banff, Canada, and comes to a head in Tuscany and Umbria, Italy — exactly who ends up with whom, I'll leave unsaid here.

What I will say for sure: the final confession scene on 'Romantic Trip' is the real climax of the show. And knowing that the road to that scene is only half genuinely overseas, half a set in Korea, makes a rewatch twice as fun.

The story doesn't stop there — it continues on to Banff, Canada, and Tuscany, Italy. I've only ever seen all three countries on a map myself, but knowing how precisely each scene lines up with a real place makes me picture someday following the whole route in order.

If I had to pick where to start, though, it'd be Kamakura and Enoshima. The ramen-shop alley where they really first meet, Gokurakuji Station, Goryo Shrine, the crossing near Hase Station — walking that route alone would probably feel like rewatching all of Episode 1.

And up on the Sea Candle, I'd want to sit with what Ho-jin was actually feeling while searching for Ji-seon. That scene, which never pretends to be romantic, is honestly the one that stuck with me most.