The week that starts on Sunday night: Ethan’s eight bars of opening hours for Dongdaemun’s wholesale malls

The business trip ends on Saturday, but the flight home is not until Monday evening. That leaves the whole of Sunday empty. On Saturday night at his hotel desk, Ethan, a 44-year-old engineer who designs machines in Seattle, turns to a fresh page in his notebook. True to a man who counts everything by switching units, he starts with the empty day and writes “1,440 minutes”. Below it goes a single line: “Dongdaemun — who opens when”.

In his six years living in Seoul, Ethan heard “Dongdaemun stays open all night” more times than he could count. But he never worked out which building opens when, or whether a traveller can buy anything there. When he goes through the malls’ notices one by one, the answer refuses to fit on one line. Some open at 8 p.m., some at 00:00 and some at 10:30 in the morning. The closing days differ from building to building, too.

So Ethan decides to spend Sunday measuring the timetable of Dongdaemun Fashion Town. By day he will walk the retail malls, Doota Mall and Migliore. From 8 p.m. he will move over to apM and DDP Fashion Mall, where the night trade — wholesale business done after dark — gets going, and on Monday morning he plans to drop in on Jeil Pyeonghwa Market. The empty Sunday turns out to be a stroke of luck. The wholesale malls open on Sunday night and Migliore closes on Mondays, so this one day lets him see both day and night.

The Cue — At a glance

Most of Dongdaemun’s wholesale malls open at around 8 p.m. and close early the next morning. apM’s three buildings and DDP Fashion Mall open from Sunday to Thursday night, and close on Friday and Saturday nights. Wholesale buildings deal with wholesale buyers and businesses. If you are a traveller who wants to buy, go to Doota Mall and Migliore, which focus on retail, or to Jeil Pyeonghwa Market, which does both wholesale and retail. The hours, closing days and exits for each mall are gathered in one table below.

What time do Dongdaemun’s wholesale malls open? 8 p.m., late night and 10:30 a.m., in turn

Dongdaemun’s malls don’t all open at once. They open in three broad waves. First, at around 8 p.m., come the wholesale malls. apM’s three buildings, Nuzzon and the night session at Jeil Pyeonghwa Market start at 20:00, and DDP Fashion Mall at 20:10. Next comes late night, when Pyeonghwa Market opens at 22:00 and Cheongpyeonghwa Market at 00:00. All of these hours are for people who come to do business.

Open in Kakao Map — Dongdaemun History & Culture Park Station

The last wave is the morning, the one travellers know best. Jeil Pyeonghwa Market’s day session starts at 09:00 on weekdays, and Doota Mall and Migliore open at 10:30. Ethan names the three groups “8 p.m. shift · late-night shift · morning shift”. They look to him like the factory shift rotas he has seen so often in his design work. Each shift switches its lights on before the one before it has shut, exactly like a change of crews.

With the rota drawn, Ethan notices something fun. From 20:00 on Monday to 24:00 on Friday, there is not a single gap between the bars. Yet building by building, even Pyeonghwa Market’s bar, the longest, is 20 hours a day, and Migliore, the longest among the retail malls, is 15 and a half. Going by the shopping hours of the eight malls in his table, the “all-night Dongdaemun” turns out to be not one building trading for ever but several buildings handing the hours along. In his notebook Ethan writes “On weekdays, several malls pass the day along”.

Opening hours and closing days by mall, in one table

Here are the hours of all eight malls in one table. The order is the one Ethan copied into his notebook, from the malls that open at night to the ones that open by day. “Next day” means the hours run on past midnight. At the major holidays and in the summer break, each mall closes for a long stretch on its own dates, so if you are going around then, check the mall’s notice first. The last column gives the exit number, or the address where there is no exit number.

Ethan gets this table wrong once before he gets it right. At first he sets up the week like a calendar, seven columns with a scale from 0:00 to 24:00 in each, and draws the bars in. A bar that starts at 8 p.m. then snaps off at midnight and carries on in the next column, and the breaks multiply across the page. Friday is stranger still. In apM’s Friday column, marked “closed on Fridays”, there is a bar running up to 5 a.m.

Only after staring at it for a long while does he see why. A mall that opens at 8 p.m. on Thursday closes at 5 a.m. on Friday. So at 4 a.m. on Friday it is open, and at 9 p.m. on Friday it is shut. The calendar date may change at midnight, but in this neighbourhood the day of the week belongs to the night, not the daytime. “My calendar was wrong,” Ethan says quietly and laughs. A wrong table is still a record, so he doesn’t tear the page out and simply rules a line through it.

In the new table, Ethan moves the start of the day. He cuts the day at noon rather than midnight. Now a bar that starts at 8 p.m. runs on in one unbroken line, and with night in the middle of the table it is easier to read, too. When you read the days for apM and DDP Fashion Mall, it helps to think “trading that starts that night”. Remember that “closed Fri, Sat” means they don’t open on Friday night or Saturday night.

Who is closed on Friday and Saturday nights? apM and DDP Fashion Mall open five nights out of seven

Head out to see the wholesale malls on a Friday night and your plan falls apart. apM’s three buildings and DDP Fashion Mall are closed on Fridays and Saturdays. Jeil Pyeonghwa Market has no night session on Friday either. Its Friday night closure has been a weekly rule since October 2022. If your trip falls on a Friday, you are better off moving forward a day to Thursday night, or back two days to Sunday night.

Ethan recounts the week as seven nights instead of seven days. apM and DDP Fashion Mall open on five of them: Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. For these buildings, the week starts on Sunday night. For someone used to turning the calendar from Monday, it is an odd way of counting. At the very top of his notebook Ethan writes “Start of the week = Sunday night” and underlines it twice.

Not that Dongdaemun empties out during the day on Saturdays and Sundays. Doota Mall keeps the same hours from Monday to Sunday. Migliore also keeps its weekday hours at weekends, and its closing day is Monday. Jeil Pyeonghwa Market opens 09:00–17:00 on Saturdays, and on Sundays it skips the day and opens from 20:00. If you are going during the day at a weekend, plan around the retail malls, and for the night trade, skip Saturday and pick Sunday night.

Where can tourists buy? Telling wholesale buildings from retail malls

If you are going to buy, choose Doota Mall, Migliore or Jeil Pyeonghwa Market. A building with its lights on at night isn’t automatically a place for travellers to shop. That is why Ethan gives his table a separate column, “Mainly serves”. Go by the hours alone and turn up at a wholesale building at 9 p.m., and the time may be right, but the customers it mainly serves are other people. This is the column to read before the opening time.

For the three apM buildings, apM, apM Luxe and apM Place, this column couldn’t be clearer. Wholesale buildings deal with wholesale buyers and businesses at wholesale prices. Overseas buyers can also visit in person or stock up online. Tourist tax refunds aren’t available in the wholesale buildings, either. On this line Ethan writes “Not a traveller’s shopping column”, and decides his own sightseeing stops at the front of the building.

DDP Fashion Mall, too, is registered as a shopping centre in the wholesale trade. Cheongpyeonghwa Market specialises in wholesale casual womenswear, and Nuzzon is a wholesale mall as well. Pyeonghwa Market is also mainly wholesale, with retailers as its main customers. Doota Mall and Migliore, on the other hand, focus on retail. That they open at 10:30 in the morning and close late at night tells the same story in the table.

Between wholesale and retail stands Jeil Pyeonghwa Market. It is a fashion mall that does both. It opens by day and by night, and it is the only line in Ethan’s table with two bars drawn on it. Ethan cuts his traveller’s retail column down to three lines, and on the Jeil Pyeonghwa Market line he puts a star by the daytime bar alone. “Doota Mall · Migliore · Jeil Pyeonghwa (day)”: those are the three names he has for travellers.

Which exit for Doota Mall? 5 minutes on foot from Dongdaemun Station Exit 8

Doota Mall is a 5-minute walk from Exit 8 of Dongdaemun Station on Lines 1 and 4. You can also reach it from Exit 14 of Dongdaemun History & Culture Park Station on Lines 2, 4 and 5. On Sunday afternoon, Ethan takes the subway from his hotel and comes out of Exit 8. The distance from the exit to the building is 207 m, which he converts at his own stride and notes down as about 230 steps. The address is Doosan Tower, 275 Jangchungdan-ro, Jung-gu, Seoul.

This is exactly where the similar station names trip people up. Dongdaemun Station is on Lines 1 and 4, and Dongdaemun History & Culture Park Station is on Lines 2, 4 and 5. For Doota Mall and Migliore, you want Dongdaemun Station Exit 8 or Dongdaemun History & Culture Park Station Exit 14. On a first visit, just remember the number for the station on the line you are riding. Coming from Incheon Airport on AREX, one way is to change at Seoul Station for Line 4 and come out of Dongdaemun Station Exit 8.

Doota Mall’s whole building is open 10:30–24:00, Monday to Sunday. One shop alone stays open until 02:00. This is the only line in Ethan’s table with the same bar drawn on all seven days. That is 13 and a half hours a day, 94.5 hours a week. Since this line needs no thought about the day of the week, Ethan switches his order here, walking Migliore first because it closes tomorrow, and saving Doota Mall for the evening.

Back from Migliore, Ethan has dinner at Doota Mall before the night trade begins. The food court on B2 is open 10:30–22:00, with last orders at 21:30. The real end is 30 minutes before closing, so go down at 22:00 and you are too late. Ethan had planned to eat after seeing the night trade, but that number changes his mind. If you are bringing a car, the car park is on B3 to B6 of Doosan Tower, and Migliore has an underground car park as well.

When is Migliore closed? Mondays, and the building’s hours aren’t the shops’ hours

Migliore’s shopping building opens at 10:30, closes at 02:00 the next morning, and is closed on Mondays. Weekday and weekend hours are the same. The address is 263 Jangchungdan-ro, Jung-gu, Seoul, and you get there from Dongdaemun History & Culture Park Station Exit 14 or Dongdaemun Station Exit 8. Since Ethan leaves on a Monday, he puts this building on Sunday daytime to avoid its closing day. At 15 and a half hours a day it is the longest bar among the retail malls, and six days of it come to 93 hours.

The building’s hours aren’t necessarily the shops’ hours, though. One shop on B2 opens 12:00–22:00 on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays and Sundays, and 10:30–22:00 on Fridays and Saturdays. Its closing day is Monday. So even with the building open until 02:00, this shop closes at 22:00. It is a shop’s bar sitting inside the building’s bar, and Ethan hatches in the four-hour difference.

If you have a particular shop in mind, don’t rely on the building’s hours — look up that shop’s hours separately. Arrive at 10:30 on a Sunday morning and the building will be open, but this shop will still be waiting for noon. If you pass Migliore on a Monday, the shopping building is closed, but the 1st-floor lobby of the office building stays open 24 hours, even on closing days. Those aren’t shopping hours, so they stay out of the table. At the end of the Migliore line Ethan writes “Building hours ≠ shop hours” and leaves the building.

What time does apM open? About 3 minutes from Exit 14, starting at 8 p.m.

apM’s three buildings open at 8 p.m. on Sunday and close at 5 a.m. on Monday. From Monday to Thursday the hours are the same, 20:00–05:00 the next day. From Exit 14 of Dongdaemun History & Culture Park Station, apM is about a 3-minute walk. After dinner, Ethan crosses towards Exit 14 before 8 p.m. He wants to mark the moment the night trade starts as the left-hand end of the bar.

apM is not one building but three. apM is at 40 Majang-ro, apM Luxe at 51 Toegye-ro 73-gil, and apM Place at 276-1 Eulji-ro. A free shuttle bus runs between the three, 20:00–05:00. The shop counts are about 449, about 234 and about 384, which Ethan adds up to about 1,067. The oldest of the three, apM, opened in 1999, which makes this its 27th year.

The floors inside are divided by goods, too. At apM, B1 to the 4th floor is womenswear and the 5th to 7th floors are menswear. apM Luxe and apM Place centre on womenswear, with floors of women’s shoes and accessories in the basement. For a buyer who comes here to work, these floor divisions are the walking order. The line that holds Ethan’s eye for a moment is the menswear floors, but having settled on sightseeing no further than the front of the building, he only reads it and moves on.

When 8 p.m. comes, Ethan looks up from his watch. He is a spectator rather than a customer, so he stays out on the pavement instead of going in. Not getting in the way of people here to work comes first, he thinks. Still, he fills in one blank in his notebook. At the left-hand end of the bar he writes “Sun 20:00 — start of week confirmed”, and the line he drew in the hotel last night looks real for the first time.

What kind of place is DDP Fashion Mall? A publicly run wholesale mall that opens at 20:10

DDP Fashion Mall opens at 20:10 from Sunday to Thursday and closes at 05:00 the next day. It is closed on Fridays, Saturdays and over major holidays. The address is 22 Majang-ro, Jung-gu, Seoul. It is a 7-minute walk from Exits 1 and 2 of Dongdaemun History & Culture Park Station on Line 2, and a 10-minute walk from Dongdaemun Station Exit 6 on Line 1 or Exit 8 on Line 4. If you are on Line 6, it is a 7-minute walk from Sindang Station Exit 10.

This is the only publicly run mall in Dongdaemun, operated by the Seoul Facilities Corporation. It is also a mall that charges no entry fee when taking on shops. The building has five floors above ground, 293 shops, and car parking down to six floors below ground. The number Ethan likes best in this building isn’t the shop count but the time. Everyone else on the 8 p.m. shift starts at 20:00, and this building alone starts 10 minutes late at 20:10.

Those 10 minutes leave Ethan with a choice for Sunday night, too. One person can’t stand in front of two buildings to see both 20:00 and 20:10. He decides to watch the 8 p.m. shift begin and picks the front of apM, and on this building’s bar he just draws a small step at the left-hand end. Ten minutes a night comes to 50 minutes over five nights, a difference only someone making a careful table would see, but for anyone who arranged to meet at 8 sharp, it is 10 minutes of waiting outside the building. If you are meeting someone at DDP Fashion Mall, make it after 8:10 p.m.

What time does Cheongpyeonghwa Market open? Weekdays 00:00–12:00 from 17 August 2026

Cheongpyeonghwa Market trades 00:00–12:00 on weekdays. It runs a five-day week, closed on Saturdays and Sundays. These hours took effect on Monday 17 August 2026. Before that it opened at 11 p.m., and some shops closed early, at any time between 11 a.m. and noon. That early closing has now gone, and the whole mall stays open until noon.

So if you have read “Cheongpyeonghwa, 11 p.m.” in an older article, correct your notes. Ethan, too, had put the left-hand end of this bar at 23:00 in his table on Saturday night, until at 9 p.m. on Sunday he stops on the pavement, rereads the notice and moves it to 00:00. Opening hours change, but old articles don’t correct themselves, so updating them is up to the reader. On public holidays the mall closes early, and closures such as Seollal, Chuseok and the summer break are announced on its website and in notices inside the mall.

Cheongpyeonghwa Market is at 334 Cheonggyecheon-ro, Jung-gu, Seoul, and specialises in wholesale casual womenswear. B1 to the 5th floor is all womenswear. This bar does a big job in the rota. Between the 8 p.m. shift closing before dawn and the morning shift starting at 9, this is the bar that carries the hours across, together with Pyeonghwa Market. Without this line, only Pyeonghwa Market would be left in the table from 06:00 to 09:00 on weekdays.

When do Nuzzon and Pyeonghwa Market open? Until 6 a.m., and until 6 p.m. the next day

Nuzzon opens at 20:00 and closes at 06:00 the next day, the latest close on the 8 p.m. shift. It is closed on Saturday night and reopens at 20:00 on Sunday, and the address is 62 Eulji-ro 45-gil, Jung-gu, Seoul. Pyeonghwa Market opens at 22:00 and runs through to 18:00 the next day, 20 hours a day, the longest bar in the table, and it is closed during the day on Sundays. Ethan writes 95 m beside Dongdaemun Station Exit 8.

After 11 p.m., Ethan closes his notebook. He wavers for a moment over standing another hour until Cheongpyeonghwa Market opens at 00:00, but if he wants to see the morning shift tomorrow, stopping here tonight is the right call. If you are out late, you will feel more at ease having sorted out your way back first. The wholesale malls may keep their lights on until dawn, but a traveller’s day doesn’t have to match them. Ethan, too, decides not to see the 05:00 right-hand end with his own eyes, and returns to the hotel, planning to come back when the morning shift switches on its lights.

When does Jeil Pyeonghwa Market open? Twice, by day and by night, wholesale and retail together

On weekdays, Jeil Pyeonghwa Market opens twice a day: 09:00–17:30 by day and 20:00–05:00 the next day by night. Saturdays are 09:00–17:00, Sundays are 20:00–05:00 the next day, and Friday night is closed. Use Dongdaemun History & Culture Park Station Exit 1 or Dongdaemun Station Exit 6. Just remember that it isn’t Exit 14 or Exit 8, and this mall won’t leave you wandering round the station.

At 9 a.m. on Monday, Ethan comes out of Exit 1 of Dongdaemun History & Culture Park Station. His flight is in the evening, so there is plenty of time to watch the morning shift switch on its lights. This is the line in the table that surprised him most. The five weekday bars, the Saturday bar and the five night bars add up to 95.5 hours a week. That is almost the same as Doota Mall’s 94.5 hours and Migliore’s 93.

The bars couldn’t look more different, yet the totals are close. Doota Mall is one solid block each day, while Jeil Pyeonghwa Market is split into day and night. “This looks like someone planned it,” Ethan mutters, tapping his notebook. Nobody did, of course, and the multiplication just came out that way. Even so, for an engineer, a coincidence like this is reason enough to start the morning in a good mood.

Jeil Pyeonghwa Market opened in Dongdaemun in 1979, 20 years before apM, and the address is 13 Majang-ro, Jung-gu, Seoul. There is womenswear on B1 and the 1st to 4th floors. The 3rd floor also has children’s clothes, and the 4th floor has places to eat. The 5th floor is for leather, fur and shoes. In a building with womenswear floor after floor, the 5th floor is where Ethan heads straight up.

In the pocket of his padded jacket is the old tape measure he picked up in Dongmyo the day before yesterday. It has inches on one side and centimetres on the other. Ethan asks first, then holds a jacket up against his arm. At 193 cm, his wrist ends well below the cuff, and the tape measure says he is 5 cm short. Ethan laughs out loud, and the shopkeeper laughs with him: “With arms like that, it’ll take you a while to find one.”

Ethan hands the jacket back and writes “Sleeve −5 cm” in his notebook. He hasn’t found a jacket that fits, but he has gained something all the same. The “wholesale and retail” entry in his table is no longer just words but a scene he has held in his hands. If you want to feel the clothes for yourself in Dongdaemun, this mall is a good choice. To choose clothes, drop in during the day on a weekday or Saturday, as Ethan did.

Eight malls in one timetable on Monday — where to shop, which days to go, and the way to the airport

Back at the hotel, Ethan packs and reads his notebook again from the start. Eight lines of bars sit stacked from noon to noon the next day. The answer for anyone coming here has become short, too. To buy, go to Doota Mall and Migliore, and go to Jeil Pyeonghwa Market during the day on a weekday or Saturday. For the feel of the night trade, go after 8 p.m. from Sunday to Thursday, and avoid Friday and Saturday nights.

On the way to the airport, Ethan posts a photo of the bar table in the four friends’ group chat. “Dongdaemun’s week starts on Sunday night. I’ve redrawn the calendar.” The first to reply is Rina, who has a habit of writing things down in boxes. Her one line says the table would be better with names on the columns. Reading it, Ethan smiles to himself and writes each mall’s name once more, neatly, to the left of its bar.

Common Mistakes

• 01

  Going to see the wholesale malls on a Friday night

  apM’s three buildings and DDP Fashion Mall close on Friday and Saturday nights, and Jeil Pyeonghwa Market closes on Friday night too. Go on a night from Sunday to Thursday.

• 02

  Reading the days as daytime

  apM’s three buildings, open from 8 p.m. on Thursday, close at 5 a.m. on Friday. For apM and DDP Fashion Mall, it helps to read each day as that night.

• 03

  Assuming you can buy in any building with its lights on at night

  apM’s three buildings deal with wholesale buyers and businesses, and tourist tax refunds aren’t available. Travellers should go to Doota Mall, Migliore or Jeil Pyeonghwa Market.

• 04

  Going to Migliore on a Monday

  the shopping building is closed on Mondays. Doota Mall keeps the same hours from Monday to Sunday.

• 05

  Taking building hours for shop hours

  Migliore is open until 02:00, but some shops close at 22:00. Look up the hours of any shop you have in mind.

• 06

  Thinking Cheongpyeonghwa Market opens at 11 p.m.

  from 17 August 2026 its hours changed to 00:00–12:00 on weekdays.

• 07

  Looking for Jeil Pyeonghwa Market from Exit 14

  it is Dongdaemun History & Culture Park Station Exit 1 or Dongdaemun Station Exit 6.

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