Beijing’s fast modernisation for the reason that Fifties has seen the town progressively encircled by six ring roads at ever better distances from the centre, just like the ripples in water created from a dropped stone. Beijing’s Daxing Worldwide Airport, sitting far south of the town, past the furthest ring, appears at first an unlikely location for sight-seeing.
However whereas the airport is well-connected by high-speed rail and metro to the town’s world-famous palaces, temples and monuments, the outlying Beijing districts similar to Daxing, Fengtai and Fangshan additionally include a lot to discover. These sights are inside two hours’ ride-share or taxi journey from the airport, however few Beijing guests enterprise far sufficient out to see them. Listed here are underrated experiences you received’t need to miss.
1. Expertise native pastimes at Shilihe Tianjiao Market
A forty-minute drive from Daxing Worldwide Airport, on the labyrinthine market of Shilihe Tianjiao on the sting of the town’s third ring, you’ll discover flowers, fish, birds and bugs – every part wanted for the 4 nice conventional pastimes of Beijing. Mynahs compete in your consideration, schooled to name out: “Are available in. Are available in. Are available in.” Smaller birds such because the black-capped wutong spring skywards to gather blowpipe-blown beads, returning to their coach’s hand for a reward in flax seed.
In the meantime, sensible slivers of orange – lionhead and celestial eye goldfish, bred for his or her bulbous heads and skyward gaze respectively – dart round in colored buckets, and singing crickets pose on the fingers of potential consumers. It’s a rousing ambiance that gives loads of photograph alternatives. These searching for a memento that’ll survive the flight house also can discover vibrant, handmade ‘sand swallow’ kites and different native crafts.
2. Spot unique deer of their native habitat at Milu Yuan
At 60 hectares, this remaining fragment of the walled southern searching floor of the Qing emperors is modest in scale, however one of many best-run animal reveals in China. Milu Yuan in Daxing district, simply 40 minutes away from the airport, is house to endangered Père David’s deer, reintroduced from England in 1985 after the herd right here, the final in China, had all been poached. It additionally capabilities as an ecological analysis centre, and performs an necessary position in conserving this species.
Colloquially named sibuxiang, or ‘4 dissimilarities’, these creatures have the horns of a deer, the face of a horse, the hooves of a cow and the tail of a donkey – in keeping with a standard saying. Conservation-minded signage introduces different deer, too, and identifies owls, crows, kingfishers and extra, whereas making it clear that you just’re solely a visitor in what’s the deer’s area.
3. Go to spectacular but quiet imperial burial websites on the Western Qing Tombs
The Ming Tombs, a lot nearer to Beijing, are on most vacationer itineraries. However the Western Qing Tombs in Yi County, Hebei province, nearly two hours’ drive from the airport, provide a extra extravagant imperial burial web site with way more to see and a extra tranquil expertise. The 18th-century Yongzheng emperor first ordered his tomb to be constructed right here, slightly than along with his instant Qing forefathers about 300km to the east. There are multi-courtyard complexes right here for 4 emperors, 4 empresses, 4 princes, two princesses and 57 concubines, many with a charmingly timeworn air, together with ornate memorial arches and a semi-circular wall with curious sonic results – see should you can find the proper spot to face in the place something you say echoes again to you multi-fold.
These buried right here embrace the Pearl Concubine, who was thrown down a nicely and drowned in 1900, and the final emperor of China, Puyi, whose stays had been moved to a small trendy shrine in 1995.
4. Ask the query, “Did Marco Polo actually come to this bridge?”
The Luguo Qiao, that means “reed ditch bridge”, will get its English title from Marco Polo’s account of his travels. Initially constructed within the late twelfth century, the bridge lies about 45 minutes north of Daxing Worldwide Airport in Fengtai district and stays little modified since a 1698 restoration.
Its 11 balustraded arches are studded with carved stone lions, and counting these is meant to make you go mad. Even trendy guidebooks give the quantity as something between 140 and 501 – so watch out.
5. Stroll upon historic battlements at Wanping Historical Metropolis
The partitions that when surrounded even China’s smaller settlements had been torn down within the Twentieth century, and little Wanping’s attraction lies in being one of many few to retain them. This was not because of their Seventeenth-century development, however slightly to their Twentieth-century significance. Situated close to the militarily necessary Fengtai railway junction, about 45 minutes from the airport, this city witnessed the opening battles within the 1937–45 Sino-Japanese warfare. A half-hour stroll across the battlement partitions affords views of the tracks in a single path and of metropolis alleys within the different.
These battlements are uncommon in having no north or south gate, and no central drum and bell towers, however the west gate is true by the Marco Polo Bridge, and it’s right here that the partitions could also be mounted.
6. Learn what’s written in stone at Yunju Temple
This Buddhist temple within the Fangshan district, 70km southwest of Beijing and about an hour’s drive west of Daxing Worldwide Airport, was based within the seventh century. Though its present buildings are far more trendy, it’s house to greater than 10,000 stone tablets on which Buddhist sutras had been carved, which date again to the temple’s founding. Generally known as the Stone Canon of Fangshan, these had been found inside close by walled-up caves in 1957, and famed for being the authoritative variations of key Buddhist texts.
A few of them are translations by the seventh century expeditionary scholar-monk Xuanzang whose journey to India to acquire authoritative scriptures was mythologised within the basic Chinese language Novel, Journey to the West. The temple is stuffed with the sound of individuals tamping color onto wetted items of paper caught to the entrance of those stones with the intention to take impressions of the scriptures.
7. Admire Daxing Airport’s glossy design even should you don’t have a flight to catch
Just lately Beijing has change into a serious showcase for probably the most exceptional creations of modern overseas architects, and regardless of the opposite close by points of interest described right here, the airport itself, designed by the late Anglo-Iraqi architect Zaha Hadid, shouldn’t be neglected.
A Pritzker Prize winner, Hadid left a number of notable buildings within the metropolis, together with the world’s tallest atrium between the sinuous twin towers of Leeza SOHO and the Galaxy SOHO workplace, residential and retail complicated, copied elsewhere in China even earlier than it was accomplished.
However the 700,000m² terminal at Daxing, the biggest on the earth, is her biggest achievement. Inside, the easy-to-navigate, starfish-shaped constructing appears extra liquid than strong, pouring itself from one flooring to a different beneath a dizzying gridwork roof that enables pure mild into its huge halls.
From 11 November 2024, Singapore Airways (SIA) will function new each day providers to Beijing Daxing Worldwide Airport, along with current providers to Beijing Capital Worldwide Airport. Flights between Singapore and Beijing Capital Worldwide Airport can even improve from 18 to 21 weekly providers from 5 August 2024. For extra info on Singapore Airways flights to Beijing, go to the official web site.
For our full listing of issues to attempt to locations to see in Beijing, try our Beijing Metropolis Information.