Addendum

Something I wanted to mention in the last post but forgot--in response to Japan, Korea decided to "open up" the islands, which previously had been a sort of nature preserve, to more development in order to better establish a Korean presence. This struck me as a further misfortune, that an area should lose its preserved status because of this political conflict.

Today it was reported in the newspaper that a large reserve of natural gas has been detected in the deep sea areas surrounding Tokdo. I'm sure projects to claim this resource are already in the planning stages. Good bye, nature preserve.