This whole water debate is as old as the hills and a comman feature on this board.
Water is important. It keeps your body moving, it hydrates you (and does good things to your skin!), helps reduce bloating and flushes excess toxins out of your system. How much you drink is up to you. I don't agree or disagree with the 8 glasses a day thing, I actually feel better/less bloated the more water I drink and aim for 2 liters a day, I can sometimes manage 3 but any more than that and you might aswell just move my desk into the bathroom
. Like I said though, there is no written in stone rule about how much you should drink, it's up to the individual. If you are exercising regularly though you do need to think about replacing lost fluids.
I must, however, disagree with the notion of replacing water with tea/coffee/fizzy drinks. Coffee and tea will dehydrate you more than hydrate you. Like Saoiree (god woman it took me a full minute to spell your name out
)said, every now and again is good.
As for how to drink water, I agree with nelee that it is very much a time will tell thing. I used to hate drinking water. I started off buying those ProPel drinks and crystal light but ProPel was getting expensive (I drink a lot!) and crystal light inconvinient. I then moved onto squeezing lime or lemon juice into my water and now I can drink water plain. Infact, after working out I look forward to my water.