Flower Market in Namdaemun, Seoul

A couple of weeks ago Cooper and I went with our friend Aimee* to a large flower market in  Namdaemun, Seoul. 

The complex is made up of several buildings each with it's own specialty of flowers, pottery and garden. The main building we visited was two stories  packed with vendors selling fresh cut flowers and various blooming branches. 

There were rows of gorgeous roses in every color and stage of bloom. It was difficult to not snap a photo of every beautiful rose display. The blue roses below were especially unique. 

The fragrance emanating from the lilies was intoxicating. 

There were so many orchid color variations that I've never seen before. 

And there were more exotic flowers like these blooming branches of cotton. What a welcome sight that took me back home in a moment! 

And booth after booth of various other flowers - if I could read Hangul then I'd know what these were...

They also sell faux flowers, garden decor, and baskets... 

Wrapping papers, containers and ribbon. 

The prices were as beautiful as the flowers and they're wrapped in Korean newspaper or large packing paper for the longer stems. This bunch of azaleas only cost about 5000 won or a little over $4 dollars. 

The flower market was a welcome retreat on another cold day too far into what should be Spring. I can't wait to visit the market again now that our household goods have arrived and we have a home to display flowers in - after all I don't think there's much that's better than fresh flowers at home. 

*Actually, Aimee's become a bit of a rockstar on the blog - we've had fun purse shopping, visiting E-mart and the stationery store in Songtan, furniture shopping and taking our boys to play at Little Bear (pics coming soon!).