3 April 2026
Go and get pho immediately
Pho in Myeongdong
Tomorrow I am going to Changwon in the very south of the country. I have not been there before. It occurred to me that my 35km train ride back to Seoul this afternoon took longer than it will take me to go all the way to the other end of the country on the bullet train. Fascinating.
Anyway, I was hungry after my hike, so all I did was a final lap of Myeongdong and decided pho would be very filling, so I had that. I thought at first I had chosen a cool hipster independent place run by a grumpy guy, but as it turns out there is an exact same franchised store right next to my hotel, with a different grumpy guy.
Not many pics, but there is neon.
The Shinsegae store does not mess about with their giant faux 3d projection thing. It is bright enough to be a traffic hazard.
Time to re-enter Myeongdong, not too many people here.
More people, more neon.
There are a lot of generic k-pop stores around these days.
Fancy coffee shops are still popular. Most also sell clothes.
This is a bit hard to see, but there is a huge number of people down there. I turned down a side alley rather than battle the crowd.
And then finally, my pho. It was decent too.