13 timestamped notes explaining the Korean cultural context in this episode — customs, idioms, food, honorifics, and history, at the moment each appears on screen. These notes discuss events across the whole episode. To see them revealed scene-by-scene as you watch, use the episode page to find an airing.
Young Jeong-u calls out "Sia-ya" (시아야) — adding the particle -야 after a name is the warm, informal way Korean speakers address someone close to them, the way an English speaker might say "hey, Sia" to a younger sibling or child. Hearing it here underlines how personal and tender this moment is before the police arrive.
The beeping sound is a 삐삐 (ppippi), the Korean word for a pager or beeper. In the early-to-mid 1990s, before mobile phones became common, pagers were how Koreans stayed in touch; sending a numeric code to someone's beeper was standard communication for young adults and professionals alike. The detail pins this flashback firmly in that pre-smartphone era.
The reporter tells young Seon-u that his brother will likely receive 정상 참작 (jeongsang chamjak), meaning "mitigating circumstances" — a legal principle where a judge reduces a sentence because the crime lacked full intent or was partly forced. It's a real term from Korean criminal procedure, and hearing a journalist explain it so casually shows how embedded legal vocabulary is in everyday Korean conversation.
Cheol-min jokes that a 방송 기자 (bangsong gija), a TV broadcast reporter, needs good looks as a baseline — "면상이 기본 받쳐 줘야 된다" (your face has to hold up). This reflects a real and widely discussed feature of Korean broadcast journalism: on-camera reporters, especially at the major networks, are often held to high appearance standards in a way that print or online journalists are not.
Both the adult and the child Seon-u frame their words as a "마지막 메시지" (majinak mesiji) — a final message — each speaking to the other across the 20-year gap the nine incense sticks created. Recording a voice message on an answering machine and treating it like a letter was a common emotional ritual in the analogue 1990s, giving these scenes a nostalgic texture for Korean viewers who grew up with that technology.
Drunk Min-yeong loudly announces she is a "CBM 기자" (CBM reporter) to embarrass Seon-u in the ER. CBM is the fictional television news network the characters work for in this drama, modelled closely on real Korean terrestrial broadcasters like KBS, MBC, and SBS, whose reporters carry strong institutional prestige — which is exactly why Seon-u is mortified.
Seon-u says Min-yeong's brain has gone to 안드로메다 (Andromeda), a hugely popular Korean internet and slang expression meaning someone's thoughts are completely off in outer space — hopelessly out of touch with reality. It took off from online communities in the 2000s and is now part of everyday spoken Korean, used affectionately or in exasperation.
Min-yeong requests a "딥 키스" (dip kiseu) — a direct phonetic borrowing of "deep kiss" into Korean. Korean has absorbed a large number of English words for modern romantic situations, and phrases like this one sit naturally in casual speech between younger Koreans without feeling foreign to them, even though they would sound odd translated back into formal Korean.
The crew is heading to cover an 안나푸르나 원정대 (Annapurna expeditionary team) — the Annapurna massif in Nepal is one of the most famous Himalayan climbing destinations and a recurring subject of Korean mountaineering culture. Korea has a disproportionately strong high-altitude climbing tradition, and Annapurna expeditions regularly make national news, making it a plausible and resonant assignment for a Korean TV news team.
Min-yeong says she emigrated — and therefore met the mystery man — in 1993 (93년도). This is the key chronological pin for the whole drama: the nine incense sticks carry Seon-u exactly 20 years into the past, landing him in 1993 Seoul. Confirming the year through Min-yeong's childhood memory is the moment the two timelines visibly click together for the first time from her perspective.
Seon-u books a flight via 카트만두 (Kathmandu) to 포카라 (Pokhara) — this is the standard real-world route foreigners take to reach the Annapurna trekking region. Pokhara is the gateway city for Annapurna Base Camp expeditions. Booking it "오늘 당장" (today, right now) signals how urgent and last-minute his decision to follow Min-yeong has become.
Seon-u lays out the puzzle driving the entire series: if his 2013 self already died in 1993 (the past), is that death a fixed historical fact, or can knowing about it let him change it? Korean time-travel dramas love this bootstrap paradox — events in the future causing events in the past that then cause the future — and this episode finally lets the protagonist state it out loud in plain terms.
Seon-u just bought a 듀얼 타임 (dual-time) digital watch, and we now hear the soft beep as he sets it. Throughout the series, tracking two time zones — past and present — has been essential to his survival; the watch is a mundane object freighted with dramatic weight, echoing the nine incense sticks that first gave him access to two different moments in time.