Jeju -do Tropical currents

Jeju is an island of the southern coast of South Korea. Because of its position in the yellow sea it picks up warm currents from south east Asia. This makes for an island filled with tropical crushed coral and white sand beaches, palm trees and mandarin orange groves,. The island was formed 450,000 years ago, or so, by massive volcanic eruptions. In fact the whole Island is made up of Lava rock covered in sediment.
This is a small farming and fishing village on the Island of Udo off the east coast of Jeju. We rented scooters and drove around the island; about a one hour trip.
In this photo you can see about six of the many craters that grew out of the ocean when this place erupted . I hiked three hours up to the top of Hallasan volcano, and four down. The trip brought me above the clouds as you can see. I had an image of the crater This is another sub -crater of the this geologic wonder. I hiked to the top of this crater at night under a full moon with a blanket and hiked through bamboo and brambles to the far side of the crater and slept in on a green shelf ledge with the sea smashing into the crater wall about 150' below me. I didn't bring my camera and so cann't share the beautiful sight that greeted me in the morning. Here are some basalt columns similar to the ones in Scotland. Formed from molten Basalt lava pouring into the ocean and cooling fast enough to shock it into a this form . The rock cracks and pulls away from itself in a hexagonal pattern. Here is a Palm shrub bloom . How cool is that.Bodhisattva won't you take me by the hand... Funny story . The ship you can see down in the Harbor is actually on land and is a remake of a dutch sailing ship captained by a guy named Hamel. He shipwrecked on this island in 1468 or 1648 . He and his crew survived and befriended the locals . But the governor of the island decided that they were in violation of the immigration laws, and threw them in jail for 13 years. The memorials that are around this place only mention that Captain Hamel and his crew "stayed" in Korea for 13 years. Nothing changes. Yummy mackerel steaks in hot sauce over an ocean front view. Back in Seoul .....................a wellOne last thing . I took this photo of bottled ginseng yesterday I thought it quite beautiful.