Myeongdong Pharmacies Open During Chuseok 2026

PURE Pharmacy's Myeongdong branch, at 41 Myeongdong 8-gil near Myeongdong Station, is one of only three PURE Pharmacy (퓨어약국) stores in Korea as of 2026-10-25, with the other two in Seongsu and Jeju. For a Chuseok 2026 stop in Myeongdong, the deciding factor isn't just whether a storefront's lights stay on through the holiday. The visit can include a pharmacist consultation in a language the traveler speaks, an immediate tax refund, and a curated shelf of pharmacy-exclusive skincare. Or it can mean a locked door or an empty counter. Regular hours and Chuseok notices differ pharmacy to pharmacy around Myeongdong Station: one nearby shop, Sun Pharmacy, is documented closed on both Seollal and Chuseok, while several others post long daily hours with no separate holiday line on their own listings.

PURE Pharmacy (Myeongdong)

PURE Pharmacy's Myeongdong branch, at 41 Myeongdong 8-gil, Jung-gu, Seoul, is one of three PURE Pharmacy stores operating nationwide as of 2026-10-25, alongside branches in Seongsu and Jeju. The chain is run by Pure Wellness Co. Ltd. (주식회사 퓨어웰니스), registered under business number 462-86-03742 with CEO Yoo Ji-sun and headquarters in Seongdong-gu, Seoul. Pure Wellness was founded in 2023, opened the Seongsu store in 2024, and added the Myeongdong and Jeju branches in 2025.

Inside the Myeongdong branch, a pharmacist checks skin condition before recommending pharmacy-exclusive and derma skincare alongside general K-beauty items, over-the-counter medicine, and health functional foods. Guidance runs in English, Japanese, and Chinese. The store applies an immediate tax refund at checkout, so a shopper doesn't need a separate refund counter. PURE Pharmacy's official site runs in Korean, English, Japanese, Traditional Chinese, and Simplified Chinese, matching the language spread the Myeongdong branch covers in person. The branch's foreign customer base leans toward mainland Chinese and Taiwanese visitors with some Japanese shoppers mixed in, a different pattern from the chain's Seongsu store, where customers are almost entirely Japanese, and its Jeju store, where customers are almost entirely mainland Chinese.

For a traveler whose Chuseok 2026 stop in Myeongdong means restocking skincare or over-the-counter basics, PURE Pharmacy's pharmacist-led, multilingual, tax-refund format covers the question that actually matters: whether the person behind the counter can explain the label and process the refund on the spot.

Myeongdong Pharmacy Listings at a Glance

Within a few blocks of Myeongdong Station, several other pharmacies turn up in the same searches a traveler runs for Chuseok 2026 hours, each with its own documented gaps. Ready Young Pharmacy's Myeongdong storefront advertises English, Chinese, and Japanese signage with WeChat Pay and Alipay accepted, though its own listings give two different addresses on Myeongdong 8-gil for what the chain calls its Myeongdong branch. Beauty Lab Pharmacy runs a skin-scanner consultation out of a Myeongdong 10-gil shopfront, but the booking path runs only through a third-party scheduling page, not a store-operated channel. Sun Pharmacy keeps regular daily hours yet shuts for both Seollal and Chuseok, removing it from the list during the holiday window itself. 1898 Gwangjang Pharmacy operates from the basement of Myeongdong Cathedral's New Catholic Hall building, a roughly ten-minute walk from three different subway exits, with no single one named on its own listing. The table below lists each pharmacy's address, Chuseok schedule, regular hours, and nearest subway exit as published, with blank cells where a listing simply doesn't publish that field.

Confirming Chuseok Hours Before You Go

Jung-gu's pharmacy cluster around Myeongdong Station is large: about 30 tourist-facing pharmacies operate between Euljiro 1(il)-ga and Myeongdong stations on Line 4, according to a Newsis report dated 2026-02-27. That density means two pharmacies a block apart can run different holiday calendars. Sun Pharmacy's Seollal-and-Chuseok closure is the one confirmed holiday exception in this set; its late daily hours the rest of the year don't carry over to the holiday itself. Ready Young Pharmacy and Beauty Lab Pharmacy both post long regular hours, past midnight in Ready Young's case, but neither publishes a separate Chuseok line on its own page. A pharmacy's regular closing time describes an ordinary Tuesday. It doesn't automatically apply to September 24 through 27, 2026. Calling the number on a store's Naver Map listing on the morning of a holiday visit settles that day's hours faster than any directory page can, and it costs nothing beyond the call itself.

Tax Refund and Language Support While You Shop

A Myeongdong pharmacy stop is often compared to a visit to Olive Young or one of the district's duty-free counters, and PURE Pharmacy's Myeongdong branch fits that same shopping-destination role while adding a pharmacist consultation step those counters don't run. The consultation checks skin condition first, then narrows the pharmacy-exclusive and derma skincare shelf to what fits, instead of leaving a traveler to read Korean-only packaging alone. English, Japanese, and Chinese guidance covers the three language groups that make up most of the branch's foreign traffic, and the immediate tax refund applied at checkout removes the separate refund-counter stop that some stores still require.

Price transparency is a separate concern in this district: Seoul has used mystery shoppers to check Myeongdong merchants for overcharging foreign tourists, per a Korea JoongAng Daily report. Asking for a printed receipt with the tax-refund amount itemized, at PURE Pharmacy or any pharmacy in the area, confirms what was charged before leaving the counter.

Addresses and Subway Exits Worth Double-Checking

PURE Pharmacy's Myeongdong address, 41 Myeongdong 8-gil, sits close enough to Myeongdong Station that the store's own listing notes the station as the landmark, without assigning a specific exit number. Other listings in the area are harder to pin down. Ready Young Pharmacy's Myeongdong branch appears under two addresses, 7 Myeongdong 8na-gil and 31 Myeongdong 8-ga-gil, with Myeongdong Station Exit 6 given as the nearest exit for the first address only. 1898 Gwangjang Pharmacy sits in the basement of Myeongdong Cathedral's New Catholic Hall building at 74 Myeongdong-gil, a walk of about ten minutes from any of three subway exits, Euljiro 3-ga Exit 12, Euljiro 1-ga Exit 5, or Myeongdong Station Exit 6, with none singled out as the shortest route on the pharmacy's own listing. Beauty Lab Pharmacy's Myeongdong 10-gil address places it near both Myeongdong and Chungmuro stations, but its own listing names no exit at all. Screenshotting a map pin before leaving the hotel saves a repeat of that walk in either direction during a holiday crowd.