I made it to Taiwan on June 24 just in time for a big conference organized by Yau (who remains the sole Fields metalist of Chinese descent). It was a two week long conference with a break in between. During the break, the National Center for Theoretical Sciences (the place where I work) organized a trip to the Taroko national park. Here are some of the pictures I took. 

This is the entrance to the park. Taiwan is essentially a mountain of marble pushed up by the Pacific plate. The university I am at is on the north-west coast of the island while this park is on the mid-east coast. Since it is all mountains in the middle, the train ride took 6 hours going around the island. This road you see here goes through the central mountain connecting the east and west coasts of the island, but parts of it had been heavily damaged during the major earthquake last September. About a mile before reaching this entrance is an ugly cement plant. We saw cement plants everywhere during our six hour ride, but this one, the tour guide said proudly, does not emit anything... as if that is the only problem. 



This is probably the best shot in the batch (from an idiot camera that is perpetually out of focus). The slopes of these ranges are extraordinarily steep, most of them above 75 degrees. Taiwan is almost tropical, so is very wet and many of the tips are shrouded in clouds. 



There are many suspension bridges, but I don't seem to have taken any pictures of them. Maybe I will find them in the next roll. This is a real beautiful sight and the picture I have is also nice. Unfortunately, the scanner is doing a less than an adequate job. 



Not bad, but generic. You can probably see this kind of stuff in lots of places.



Believe it or not, there is actually a stream in the middle. Unfortunately, the scanner decided to make a very dark image. I artificially tuned up the brightness and this is the result.



Here is the famous Green river. The color comes from dissolved marble.



Again I sacrificed the right side, so you can at least see the left side. This is the gorge cut out by the Green river. Look how steep it is.



Looking directly down the gorge. The river is really green (as usual the color balance is a bit off).



By now you must be tired of my amateurish photographs, so here is a beautiful picture of a real babe done by real professionals (and no she is not Sandra Bullock).