{"id":632,"date":"2007-04-06T03:00:37","date_gmt":"2007-04-06T03:00:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/walking-ixus.net\/blog\/?p=632"},"modified":"2007-04-06T03:00:37","modified_gmt":"2007-04-06T03:00:37","slug":"seen_on_the_square","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/walking-ixus.net\/blog\/seen_on_the_square\/","title":{"rendered":"Seen on the Square"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Seeing how I was in Beijing and I had a few hours to kill, I took the <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Beijing_Subway\">di tie<\/a> to Tiananmen West and walked through the square to Tiananmen East and then headed off to dinner.<br \/>\nAs soon as you come out of the station, you can see the new <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/National_Grand_Theater\">Beijing Opera House<\/a> AKA <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nationalgrandtheater.com\/index00.htm\">National Grand Theatre<\/a> taking shape.<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.walking-ixus.net\/blog\/archives\/photos\/bjegg1.html\" onclick=\"window.open('http:\/\/www.walking-ixus.net\/blog\/archives\/photos\/bjegg1.html','popup','width=640,height=480,scrollbars=no,resizable=no,toolbar=no,directories=no,location=no,menubar=no,status=no,left=0,top=0'); return false\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.walking-ixus.net\/blog\/archives\/photos\/bjegg1-thumb.jpg?resize=320%2C240\" width=\"320\" height=\"240\" alt=\"\" \/><\/a><br \/>\n<em>Quite controversial and round!<\/em><br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.walking-ixus.net\/blog\/archives\/photos\/bjegg2.html\" onclick=\"window.open('http:\/\/www.walking-ixus.net\/blog\/archives\/photos\/bjegg2.html','popup','width=640,height=480,scrollbars=no,resizable=no,toolbar=no,directories=no,location=no,menubar=no,status=no,left=0,top=0'); return false\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.walking-ixus.net\/blog\/archives\/photos\/bjegg2-thumb.jpg?resize=320%2C240\" width=\"320\" height=\"240\" alt=\"\" \/><\/a><br \/>\n<em>It looks like it will roll over and eat the Natural History Museum!<\/em><br \/>\nRemember, Tiananmen Square is still the largest public square in the world.  It serves as Beijing&#8217;s backyard.  People fly kites, hang out, smoke, ride bikes here.<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.walking-ixus.net\/blog\/archives\/photos\/tskites.html\" onclick=\"window.open('http:\/\/www.walking-ixus.net\/blog\/archives\/photos\/tskites.html','popup','width=640,height=480,scrollbars=no,resizable=no,toolbar=no,directories=no,location=no,menubar=no,status=no,left=0,top=0'); return false\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.walking-ixus.net\/blog\/archives\/photos\/tskites-thumb.jpg?resize=320%2C240\" width=\"320\" height=\"240\" alt=\"\" \/><\/a><br \/>\n<em>Tiananmen is still a good place to fly a kite<\/em><br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.walking-ixus.net\/blog\/archives\/photos\/tsflagpole.html\" onclick=\"window.open('http:\/\/www.walking-ixus.net\/blog\/archives\/photos\/tsflagpole.html','popup','width=640,height=480,scrollbars=no,resizable=no,toolbar=no,directories=no,location=no,menubar=no,status=no,left=0,top=0'); return false\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.walking-ixus.net\/blog\/archives\/photos\/tsflagpole-thumb.jpg?resize=320%2C240\" width=\"320\" height=\"240\" alt=\"\" \/><\/a><br \/>\n<em>A very tall and official looking flagpole&#8230;<\/em><br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.walking-ixus.net\/blog\/archives\/photos\/tsguards.html\" onclick=\"window.open('http:\/\/www.walking-ixus.net\/blog\/archives\/photos\/tsguards.html','popup','width=640,height=480,scrollbars=no,resizable=no,toolbar=no,directories=no,location=no,menubar=no,status=no,left=0,top=0'); return false\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.walking-ixus.net\/blog\/archives\/photos\/tsguards-thumb.jpg?resize=320%2C240\" width=\"320\" height=\"240\" alt=\"\" \/><\/a><br \/>\n<em>&#8230;guarded by a PLA honor guard.<\/em><br \/>\nDuring the long drawn out &#8220;lower the flag&#8221; ceremony, demonstrators jumped the line and tried to unfurl banners.  They were immediately and roughly wisked away by these PLA troops.  Twice.  And no, I didn&#8217;t get any pix.  Are you nuts??<br \/>\nSignage has always been an interest of mine.  And Beijing has lots of interesting signs.<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.walking-ixus.net\/blog\/archives\/photos\/tssign1.html\" onclick=\"window.open('http:\/\/www.walking-ixus.net\/blog\/archives\/photos\/tssign1.html','popup','width=640,height=480,scrollbars=no,resizable=no,toolbar=no,directories=no,location=no,menubar=no,status=no,left=0,top=0'); return false\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.walking-ixus.net\/blog\/archives\/photos\/tssign1-thumb.jpg?resize=320%2C240\" width=\"320\" height=\"240\" alt=\"\" \/><\/a><br \/>\n<em>I understand most of these signs but&#8230;<\/em><br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.walking-ixus.net\/blog\/archives\/photos\/tssign2.html\" onclick=\"window.open('http:\/\/www.walking-ixus.net\/blog\/archives\/photos\/tssign2.html','popup','width=640,height=480,scrollbars=no,resizable=no,toolbar=no,directories=no,location=no,menubar=no,status=no,left=0,top=0'); return false\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.walking-ixus.net\/blog\/archives\/photos\/tssign2-thumb.jpg?resize=320%2C240\" width=\"320\" height=\"240\" alt=\"\" \/><\/a><br \/>\n<em>What does this mean?  No farting cars? No backfiring cars? <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Seeing how I was in Beijing and I had a few hours to kill, I took the di tie to Tiananmen West and walked through the square to Tiananmen East and then headed off to dinner. As soon as you come out of the station, you can see the new Beijing Opera House AKA National &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/walking-ixus.net\/blog\/seen_on_the_square\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Seen on the Square&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-632","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2007-03-han-pek-sin"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2mgIi-ac","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/walking-ixus.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/632","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/walking-ixus.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/walking-ixus.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/walking-ixus.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/walking-ixus.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=632"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/walking-ixus.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/632\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/walking-ixus.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=632"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/walking-ixus.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=632"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/walking-ixus.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=632"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}