Four toilets from the Chungyo Department Store in Greater Taichung were featured on a list of the world’s top 10 public restrooms recently announced by the UK-based Cheapflights Web site.
The list, released to celebrate Toilet Day on Nov. 19, featured themed Taiwanese toilets alongside restrooms from New Zealand, Alaska, Japan, Texas and countries throughout Europe.
According to Chungyo Department Store, it began renovation on 16 of its 49 public restrooms in 2003 and planned to give each of them a different theme.
Photo: Liao Yao-tung, Taipei Times
The renovated bathrooms have attracted hordes of tourists, many of whom take pictures inside the elaborately decorated rooms. The toilets have also been covered in Time magazine.
The four themed restrooms chosen by the Cheapflights Web site were “Secret Garden” on the 12th floor of the department store complex’s Building A, “Under the Sea” on the seventh floor of Building C, “Coca Cola” on the 10th floor of Building A, and “Heineken” on the sixth floor of Building A.
The department store’s “Shadow and Light” bathroom received the Greater Taichung County Government Lifetime Achievement award for cleanliness based on it consistently receiving an A+ rating in the city government’s Environmental Protection Bureau public restroom assessments.
On Thursday, the department store announced the opening of two more newly renovated themed restrooms — “Sweet Chocolate” on the third floor of Building A and “Romantic Burgundy” on the second floor of Building C.
The department store said the design of the “Sweet Chocolate” room is based on the candy house from the Hansel and Gretel fairy tale, while “Burgundy” was based on the color burgundy, adding that it hoped to attract more tourists to the store and netizens to its Web site.
A year-long renovation of Taipei’s Bangka Park (艋舺公園) began yesterday, as city workers fenced off the site and cleared out belongings left by homeless residents who had been living there. Despite protests from displaced residents, a city official defended the government’s relocation efforts, saying transitional housing has been offered. The renovation of the park in Taipei’s Wanhua District (萬華), near Longshan Temple (龍山寺), began at 9am yesterday, as about 20 homeless people packed their belongings and left after being asked to move by city personnel. Among them was a 90-year-old woman surnamed Wang (王), who last week said that she had no plans
China might accelerate its strategic actions toward Taiwan, the South China Sea and across the first island chain, after the US officially entered a military conflict with Iran, as Beijing would perceive Washington as incapable of fighting a two-front war, a military expert said yesterday. The US’ ongoing conflict with Iran is not merely an act of retaliation or a “delaying tactic,” but a strategic military campaign aimed at dismantling Tehran’s nuclear capabilities and reshaping the regional order in the Middle East, said National Defense University distinguished adjunct lecturer Holmes Liao (廖宏祥), former McDonnell Douglas Aerospace representative in Taiwan. If
TO BE APPEALED: The environment ministry said coal reduction goals had to be reached within two months, which was against the principle of legitimate expectation The Taipei High Administrative Court on Thursday ruled in favor of the Taichung Environmental Protection Bureau in its administrative litigation against the Ministry of Environment for the rescission of a NT$18 million fine (US$609,570) imposed by the bureau on the Taichung Power Plant in 2019 for alleged excess coal power generation. The bureau in November 2019 revised what it said was a “slip of the pen” in the text of the operating permit granted to the plant — which is run by Taiwan Power Co (Taipower) — in October 2017. The permit originally read: “reduce coal use by 40 percent from Jan.
‘SPEY’ REACTION: Beijing said its Eastern Theater Command ‘organized troops to monitor and guard the entire process’ of a Taiwan Strait transit China sent 74 warplanes toward Taiwan between late Thursday and early yesterday, 61 of which crossed the median line in the Taiwan Strait. It was not clear why so many planes were scrambled, said the Ministry of National Defense, which tabulated the flights. The aircraft were sent in two separate tranches, the ministry said. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Thursday “confirmed and welcomed” a transit by the British Royal Navy’s HMS Spey, a River-class offshore patrol vessel, through the Taiwan Strait a day earlier. The ship’s transit “once again [reaffirmed the Strait’s] status as international waters,” the foreign ministry said. “Such transits by