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.
The first of 10 new high-capacity trains purchased from South Korea’s Hyundai Rotem arrived at the Port of Taipei yesterday to meet the demands of an expanding metro network, Taipei Rapid Transit Corp (TRTC) said yesterday. The train completed a three-day, 1,200km voyage from the Port of Masan in South Korea, the company said. Costing NT$590 million (US$18.79 million) each, the new six-carriage trains feature a redesigned interior based on "human-centric" transportation concepts, TRTC said. The design utilizes continuous longitudinal seating to widen the aisles and optimize passenger flow, while also upgrading passenger information displays and driving control systems for a more comfortable
Taiwan's first indigenous defense submarine, the SS-711 Hai Kun (海鯤, or Narwhal), departed for its 13th sea trial at 7am today, marking its seventh submerged test, with delivery to the navy scheduled for July. The outing also marked its first sea deployment since President William Lai (賴清德) boarded the submarine for an inspection on March 19, drawing a crowd of military enthusiasts who gathered to show support. The submarine this morning departed port accompanied by CSBC Corp’s Endeavor Manta (奮進魔鬼魚號) uncrewed surface vessel and a navy M109 assault boat. Amid public interest in key milestones such as torpedo-launching operations and overnight submerged trials,
Quarantine awareness posters at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport have gone viral for their use of wordplay. Issued by the airport branch of the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency, the posters feature sniffer dogs making a range of facial expressions, paired with advisory messages built around homophones. “We update the messages for holidays and campaign needs, periodically refreshing materials to attract people’s attention,” quarantine officials said. “The aim is to use the dogs’ appeal to draw focus to quarantine regulations.” A Japanese traveler visiting Taiwan has posted a photo on X of a poster showing a quarantine dog with a
Taiwan’s coffee community has launched a “one-person-one-e-mail” campaign, calling for people to send a protest-e-mail to the World Coffee Championships (WCC) urging it to redesignate Taiwanese competitors as from “Taiwan,” rather than “Chinese Taipei.” The call followed sudden action last week after the WCC changed all references to Taiwanese competitors from “Taiwan” to “Chinese Taipei,” including recent World Latte Art champion Bala (林紹興), who won the World Latte Art Championship in San Diego earlier this month. When Bala received the trophy, he was referred to as representing Taiwan, as well as in the announcement on the WCC’s Web site, until it
RSS