What makes Taekwondo different to Karate?

Seems there is a lot of confusion about the difference, and which is "better" between Taekwondo and Karate. There are some fundamental differences of course:

1. Taekwondo is has a focus on destruction and high spinning kicks. These are distinctly Korean aspects of martial arts. As a result, Taekwondo practitioners will have a tendancy to use kicks at least as much, if not more than hand techniques, particularly in competition. Karate (which means "empty hand" incidentally) typically focuses more on hand techniques.
2. Taekwondo comes from Korea. Karate originates in Okinawa. Both are really international martial arts today with high Dan grades of different nationalities to the art's founder country spread across the globe. Korean martial arts were influenced by Japanese styles during the Japanese occupation of Korea. But the flipside is that some distinctly Korean techniques (destruction & high spinning kicks) made their way into Japanese styles.
   
3. Taekwondo has just two major styles - WTF (World Taekwondo Federation) is the style I train in. It's the bigger of the two and is the one that is now an Olympic Sport. ITF (International Taekwondo Federation) is a breakaway style of Taekwondo started by General Choi (one of the original founders of Taekwondo). Karate on the other hand, is split into hundreds, possibly thousands of different styles. There is no unifying body. This makes it impossible to make an Olympic Competition sport.

Personally, I know practitioners of various Karate styles and some are quite similar in many ways to WTF Taekwondo, others are extremely different.

So which is better? Neither. Unless we want to bring in personal choice. I'm passionate about Taekwondo because I enjoy almost every aspect of the way it is taught and practiced. I've visited a few Karate classes but only found one I liked which was the Wimbledon Kyokushinkai club. Kyokushinkai seemed very similar in a lot of respects to Taekwondo, so while I enjoyed the lesson I attended, there seemed little point moving styles, particularly as Wimbledon is further away for me.

The choice between schools/clubs should come down to the quality of the school itself. And that comes down to who is running them. If the master of the club is both passionate about, and accomplished in the art he teaches, you're in the right place.