South Korea!

 I was the one who insisted on Macau, but my dear friend Adrienne wanted to visit South Korea. First off, South Korea is much colder than Macau, and secondly, it's far less crowded!

We took a redeye flight into Seoul--which we thought was really smart, but which we both regretted the next day--so our first day there was pretty low-energy. 

The airport we flew into wasn't actually in Seoul. We had to take public transportation to get to Seoul. This being South Korea, however, that wasn't much of a problem. 
Plus there was some beautiful scenery on the way. 

The sky and the sunsets in Shenyang are gorgeous. But after all that time in a city that is, essentially, flat as a pancake, I was craving mountains and large bodies of blue water. This was a relief for my soul. 

Seoul is a high-tech metropolis interspersed with wooden temples and towers. It is also something of a party city. 

Oh. And it was freezing. There must have been an 80 degree (F) difference between Seoul and Macau. 

But me being me, I appreciated the sight of skeletal trees right in the middle of the buildings. 

Shiny buildings! 

My favorite part about Seoul was all the different coffee shops we saw everywhere! And I mean everywhere! Seattle still has more Starbucks, but I think Seoul actually has more coffee shops total.

We saw a lot of these around Seoul--old-fashioned gates or towers in the midst of some highly electronic displays. 

We did one thing that was super cool that first day--but I'll get to that in the next post!