Taipei Museum of Drinking Water

I love museums, but I wasn't convinced a museum of drinking water would be terribly interesting. But the more I read about it the more interesting it became, so a couple of weeks ago we headed along to check it out.

The museum was actually less of a museum and more of a park with a museum at the centre. Below are some photo's from the museum itself - as you can see it is really a stunning building.

This building was originally Taipei's first water treatment plant which was constructed with the guidence of a Scottish engineer during Japanese colonisation of Taiwan.

Apparently at the time the Japanese colonised Taiwan there were a lot of problems with water bound diseases like malaria. So the Japanese constructed this building as the first ever water treatment plant in Taiwan.

The building is now a musuem which is delightfully steampunk - it also seems to be a hotspot for wedding photographs as there were two different couples having thier wedding photo's taken on this day.









When we had finished looking at the museum itself we decided to check out the park, which was pretty big. The first part we looked at was a pipe garden which consisted of all kinds of water pipes - big and small.



As we explored the gardens a little more we came across this peacock - I thought it was pretty cool.This huge bent pipe was also in the park - to start with I was unsure quite what it was doing there. I thought maybe it was some kind of "sculpture" but in fact its a pipe that was bent in an earthquake!However this is in fact a "pipe sculpture" - I'm not sure if I consider this art - but I guess it works in a water treatment plant themed park.We also did an extremely brief "hike" this sign was at the start of the hike - I think it says watch out for large ugly scary bugs and snakes. At the "summit" of the "hike" there were these striking dilapidated buildings which I assume were part of the original water treatment plant. I really like them - there's something about decaying buildings that I find kind of appealing.
Also from the summit you do have a good view of Taipei city - but this poorly taken photo really doesn't do the city any justice!