Beijing Museum of Tap Water.

I bought coupon books from a group-buy Squid had arranged a little while back and as I was flipping through the pages of savings towards museum admissions of all sorts, I came across a free admission coupon for the Beijing Museum of Tap Water. "There's a museum of tap water?!" I said to myself with a whimsical and quizzical look on my face.

So for the sole purpose of wanting to write an interesting blog about the Beijing Museum of Tap Water, I had organised a group of friends to join me for an outing.

In an obscure part of town, we finally located this obscure water museum surrounded by dry soil, dead plants, and a lawn of dead grass too late for any amount of water for revival. As lawn decorations, large sections of water pumps, turbines, and plumbing were placed sporadically about the place.

Inside the actual museum, there were interesting displays of how this place supplied water to the Forbidden City in the ancient past, and how water is supplied and distributed around Beijing at present. But despite all the heavy machinery used to purify, sanitise, and filtrate particles at a microscopic level, the water that comes out of the tap is still not fit for human consumption. Pair that with the constant threat of a water shortage and Beijing's got itself in hot water, pun intended.

With all the new developments in and around Beijing as it gears up for the undeserving 2008 Olympics, the city muddies the waters, both literally and figuratively speaking. I hope city planners and government officials aren't treading water around this growing concern, and find the strength to chart through uncharted waters. Come hell or high water, they're going to find themselves like a fish out of water if they continue to treat this issue like it's water under the bridge.