My Korea tour Day 2 at night in Dongdaemun wholesale marketplace of Seoul
We planned to go up Namsan hill to catch the sunset in our second evening in Seoul, but were too tired that we fell asleep in our hotel after getting back from Chandeokgung Palace. When we woke up, it was already a starry night out there. 🙂 Never mind. We were on travel, and it was FIT, nothing meant to be at rush so it did not bother us much. We could still visit the N Seoul Tower on our last 2 nights later in our Korea trip anyway, and we did. So where could we go at that night? Which shopping malls offer 24-hour-business? Dongdaemun wholesale marketplace!
Dongdaemun is located a few subway stops from Myeongdong towards east in Jongno-gu district. Dongdaemun means the Grand East Gate and it is one of the major shopping districts and tourist destinations in Seoul with many large shopping malls and shops selling especially fashion goods.
Even at late night, the area was full with people doing their late night shopping. Most of them are local youths. We could spot some foreigners as well but not that many.
Doota, one of the major shopping mall in Dongdaemun located next to the Dongdaemun subway station.
Migliore, a chain of department stores in South Korea that specializes in selling clothing and fashion accessories, has its footprint here.
Area6. I did not enter which I suspected to be the same type of business. After strolling down streets and checked out some of the malls around the stations, I would say it is more like a wholesale center for fashion goods. Mainly selling local brands products, we tried to bargain for some T-shirts but eventually turned down the offer which we found unreasonable.
Nuzzon, the wholesale centre frequented by local and international vendors. As you can see from the above photo, many logistic agents had setups readied to deal with vendors who bought fashion goods from Nuzzon and tried to expost to China. Bags being filled up and queued up in front of the mall. What a sight!
Designer’s Club, together with Nuzzon, are the favourite malls for youngsters.
There were also street stores selling leather goods, handphone casings, street foods and more. Prices offered were not the cheapest we found in Seoul. Malls are normally open until 5AM the next morning.
It is nice to experience to atmosphere late at night when we still stayed out at midnight shopping while most others went to beds. Unfortunately, it is not so nice to actually buy anything there especially when you are tourists. Price tags are not normally shown and you have to ask and bargain, which I felt sick all this while and it is similar to Xiushuijie in Beijing.
If you really wish to buy some clothes home, Myeongdong or Insadong would be a better option. – Travel Feeder
p/s: View all above travel photos of Seoul and Korea in my Flickr page
About The Author
Cecil Lee
The author is an avid traveler and photography hobbyist who loves to share with others his travel and photo-taking experience in many popular tourist destinations around Europe, Asia and Australasia. Read the exciting stories with many photos captured on his journeys.
