8 hours in Beijing worthwhile?
 

It's possible that I will attend a meeting in Singapore. Is it silly to sneak away to Beijing for a day? Assuming I can redeem an award, there's a Singapore Airlines flight arriving in Beijing at 0710 and a return flight leaves at 1600.

If a go, should I hire a driver for a day? How do I find one? The next question would be whether I should head for the Great Wall and see the aviation museum at Datong (we are FT'ers, after all) or stay in town.

Trying to get to the Great Wall and back in 8 hours is an invitation to miss your connection. Head for town. If you're not carrying bags with you, I wouldn't bother to hire a taxi for the duration. Get some Yuan from the ariport ATM (get and keep the receipt so you can change back what's left), take a reliable guidebook, ignore ALL the touts inside the terminal building, go outside to the taxi rank, tell him to take you to TianAnMen square -- and start from there.

The guidebook should have Chinese characters describing place names so you can point to where you want to go. I found Frommer's Beijing guidebook to be far more realistic than the tired old Lonely Planet.

Taxi between PEK and the center of town is about Y90 plus a Y10 toll each way, if you get into a taxi marked "Y1.60" (more comfortable, a/c works), a bit cheaper if you get into a taxi marked "Y1.20".

If you end up buying enough schlock to need a backpack, there are so many phony North Face backpacks for sale that the local expats call them "North Fake." I limited my kids to 4 "Rolexes." We also ended up with some Foakley sunglasses and all sorts of phony Mao-era memorabilia, plus 4 battery-powered thingies that are supposed to seal plastic bags -- or at least they did when the guy was demonstrating them. Plus a "Burberry" scarf for $1!

Beijing is not exactly around the corner from Singapore. There are many other places that you can do a "day trip" from Singapore that are also interesting, and much closer. Here's a random list to get you started:

Brunei Darussalam
Hong Kong
Kuala Lumpur
Bangkok
Bali
Penang
Hanoi

Is it true you dont need a visa for <24 hour visit?

unless you hold non US passport. Recently, US passport holders were even denided to get off cruise ship in Shanghai.

Bander Seri Begawan (Brunei) sounds intriguing. Bali is probably ok but has a bad image to me ever since JI killed so many Australians in a bomb attack last year or so.

I found Brunei okay for a day trip but wouldnt have wanted to stay longer. Not sure how it fits in with flight schedules from SIN though as there arent that many flights.