A Trip To Flower Markets In Seoul Visited By Locals

Who doesn't love flowers? It's a great way to liven up your living space or office to bring some color into your life. 

It's also a great way to show appreciation for your loved ones- not just on special occasions! Different types of flowers carry different meanings and it's a wonderful way to express your love, appreciation, or empathy. It's a whole love language in itself!

Today we'll be exploring two different major flower markets in Korea. At these places, you can find batches of various kinds of wholesale flowers that will allow you to fill up your vase with beautiful flowers for under 10,000 won!

How about arranging your own flowers to make it extra special?

Yangjae Flower Market
양재꽃시장

Address: 서울특별시 서초구 강남대로 27
Gangnam-daero 27-gil, Yangjae 1-dong, Seocho-gu, Seoul

Hours: Varies by building

Parking: 1,000 won for the first hour
500 won additional for every 15 minutes

Public Transit: Yangjae Citizen's Forest Station exit 4

From exit 4, walk about 200m straight and you'll see the entrance to the flower market on your right.

You'll also find a map of the market near the entrance.

#1 is the main building for education and offices, #2 is an underground building with shops that sell bouquets and flower baskets, #3 is the wholesale building with fresh flowers and #4 and #5 are greenhouses with shops that sell plants and flowers.

#4 Greenhouse

Hours: 01:00-15:00
Closed on every other Sunday
(The other greenhouse is open on the days it's closed).

Inside, you'll see long alleys of shops that sell plants in pots, flower pots, cacti, trees, and many more!

The prices are much cheaper than you would find at flower shops in the city and you get a lot more options too!

The sizes of the plants vary widely from desk plants to ones that are taller than us!

You'll also find seeds for sale if you're feeling like getting your green thumb to work!

Come out of exit 7 of the greenhouse and you'll see the other greenhouse ahead and the underground building (#2 on the map) to your right.

We decided to check out the underground building first.

#2 Underground Shops

Hours: 07:00-19:00

Right when you reach downstairs, you'll find a cute little area where you can sit down and rest. You'll also find a water cooler there too.

The shops in the underground building sell flower bouquets and flower baskets.

This section is perfect if you're looking for a quick gift.

Feel free to pick the flowers and colors for the florists to make a bouquet or basket on the spot if you don't see one you like!

These flower bouquets go for anywhere between 15,000 won to 40,000 won depending on the flowers you choose.

Flowers that are off-season tend to be a lot more expensive, so talk to the florist before you pick your flowers!

#5 Greenhouse

Hours: 01:00-15:00
Closed on every other Sunday

It didn't differ much from the other greenhouse.

From exit 7 of the greenhouse, you'll see the wholesale building.

#3 Wholesale Building

Hours: 00:00-12:00
Hours are subject to change

Once you enter, you'll be surrounded by the scents of fresh flowers!

This is the most beloved section of the market among locals as they can buy fresh flowers in bulk at reasonable prices.

You'll find flowers displayed in boxes, bundles, buckets, and on shelves.

On our visit, spring was around the corner and we wanted to bring colors to welcome the warming season, so we went with yellow freesia.

Once you pick your bundle of freesias, the merchant will wrap it up in newspaper and secure it with an elastic band around the stems.

It was 7,000 won for a heavy bundle of freesias, which is a price not easily found at flower shops in the city!

Upon bringing the freesias home, we cut the stems of the flowers to fit our "vases".

Okay, we don't have flower vases at home, so we made do with a wine bottle and soju bottles.

We had a lot more leftover at the end too, so we gave them away to our friends!

For only 7,000 won, we were able to brighten up 3 different corners of our place, and we still had a whole bunch leftover.

If you're looking for fresh flowers for cheap with lots of options, we would highly recommend Yangjae Flower Market!

Namdaemun Flower Market
남대문 꽃시장 

Address: 서울특별시 중구 남대문시장4길 21 E동 3층
Seoul, Jung-gu, Hoehyeon-dong, Namdaemunsijang 4-gil, 21 E world, 3rd floor 

Hours:
Mon-Thu: 03:00-15:00
Fri-Sat: 03:00-16:00
Sun: Closed

Public Transit: Hoehyun Station exit 5

Once you walk out of exit 5 from the subway station, you will find this huge E-world building within a 5-minute walking distance! 

The flower market is located on the third floor right above a wholesale accessories store. There are no elevators, so you have to use the stairs. But it's only three floors!

As soon as you walk in, you are hit with the blissful scent of fresh flowers! It's a relatively small space with rows and rows of different stores so we took our time browsing around.

The prices are written on a piece of paper placed on top of each flower so you don't have to keep asking how much everything is. 

As you can see, this bundle of flowers is only 3,000 won!

There were, of course, a lot of roses and tulips with various colors. They also had carnations, lilies, hydrangeas, pompons, and much more! It was so hard to choose which ones I wanted. 

I don't know much about all the different kinds of flowers, so we asked the store owner for recommendations. She was very kind and recommended delphinium for my friend, which just so happened to match her wallet! This became her favorite flower on the spot!

A lot of people buy a bunch of different flowers so they can make their own flower arrangements at home. We wanted to get something else that will look nice with delphinium but we decided to just keep it simple for our first visit! 

I got some bright tulips which were only 5,000 won! If I were to purchase this at a flower shop, it will cost much more. 

The flowers were wrapped in newspaper and secured with an elastic band for us to carry around. It was quite heavy to carry around all day. 

Aside from fresh flowers, they have beautiful arrangements of artificial flowers, props for decoration, baskets, vases, dry flowers, and plants!

We were excited to arrange them when we got home, we looked for some vases and voila!

When wrapped in newspaper, it didn't look like there was a lot, but once we put it in a vase, it was so full! 

Although it isn't as big as the Yangjae Flower Market, Namdaemun also has beautiful flowers that you can purchase in small batches for wholesale price. 

Arranging the flowers myself was a lot of fun and I understood why people love buying fresh flowers to liven up their homes.

I'm even thinking about attending some one-day flower arrangement classes to pick it up as a hobby!

Have you been to a flower market before? What are some of your favorite purchases?

Let us know down in the comments below!