Two public restrooms at Taichung Park, one themed on a Japanese courtyard and the other on a merry-go-round, have drawn tourists seeking photo opportunities.
The restrooms are the result of a NT$35 million (US$1.1 million) project to renovate 17 public restrooms across the municipality’s seven parks to foster a children-friendly atmosphere, the Taichung Department of Public Works said.
Aside from an external face-lift, the 17 restrooms also had their internal facilities upgraded, including diaper-changing tables and other equipment that would benefit parents taking children to restrooms.
Photo courtesy of the Taichung Bureau of Construction
The height of toilets and bars to help elderly people and those with disabilities have been lowered to facilitate movement and ease of access, the department said.
Four of the restrooms — including the two in Taichung Park — cost NT$16.4 million and are open to the public, the municipality said.
The Japanese courtyard-styled restroom previously had wooden planks for walkways, which sparked concerns that the material would wear out quickly, the department said.
It replaced the pine planks with stylized cement and used plain bricks to replace wooden walls to retain a Japanese architectural style, the department said.
An owl-shaped stone lantern with freshly planted flowers gives the entire courtyard a refreshing look, the department said, adding that it also added more benches outside to allow people to sit while waiting for others.
As for the merry-go-round restroom, the department constructed a mushroom-shaped pavilion for people to wait under, with replicas of horses around the restroom for children to sit on, the department said.
Elsewhere, a public restroom on Pingdeng Street had the male and female portions swapped to ensure better safety and privacy, the department said.
Sources of lighting, as well as shades, were added to the structure, while the replacement of wooden paths with plain bricks has preserved the retro-Japanese look, the department said.
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods