[update: Solved - A friend of mine over in Europe identified this as a Camellia.]
The other weekend I went on a little day hike up a mountain near my place called Ariake, and along the way there were many of these, leaving my friend and I wonder what they are called. They are all over the mountains!
Mystery flower from the mountains.
If you happen to know the common or scientific name of these trees, please leave a comment.
Along the way we met some friendly tourists hailing from Seoul, a group of middle-aged ladies who knew each other since high school and seemed very much in shape. They were all decked out in the bright coloured nylon characteristic of the many industrious Korean visitors to Tsushima, and carried hiking sticks while singing some chorus-like tunes.
One of the women spoke English with us a few times as we passed each other, enlightening us on a little bit of the history of Tsushima as well as disputed territories of small islands between Japan and Korea.
Apparently, Tsushima was once colonized by a Korean king of the Joseon Dynasty, but eventually the island was abandoned because they couldn’t farm effectively. Later, the Japanese settled there. The hiker lady mentioned something about important undersea resources as well, but not sea life and not the minerals that the Japanese have mined out already.
Occasionally, as I was previously aware, a silly minority of Korean people demand that Japan cede Tsushima back to South Korea, but nobody takes them seriously.
A group of islets referred to as Dokdo in Korean and Takeshima in Japanese, administered by South Korea are officially disputed between the countries. This area, which geographically certainly looks like it should be part of Korea, is said to have valuable fishing and natural gas resources.
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