The city of Dandong, with an unspoiled ecosystem and vast intertidal mudflats, offers a perfect stopover for migratory birds. (Photo/China Daily)
Bird billows. Wonder water. Magic mountains.
Ecology meets enchantment, and geology meets geomancy, in Dandong.
Its potion of pristine nature steeped with fantastic feng shui casts a potent spell over travelers.
Yet such environmental offerings have long been painted over by China's largest border city's proximity to the Democratic People's Republic of Korea and consequent role in New China's first war.
So, it's re-coloring its tourism to add copious splashes of green to its traditionally red palette.
It hopes to entice visitors with unspoiled ecosystems and natural landscapes, in addition to its established appeal as a peephole from which to peek into the DPRK.
The hope is that its preserved wilderness and unpolluted downtown will conjure an alchemic tonic to transform green into gold.
Some locals declare that Dandong's mineral water can not only be guzzled straight from the source but also flows from a fountain of youth. The city claims the most centennials among northern Chinese settlements.
Others attribute local longevity to Dandong's feng shui－the supernaturally serendipitous arrangement of alpine and aquatic geography.
This is nudging its tourism shift, as environmental degradation elbows urbanites toward rural ecotourism.
Flocks of birdwatchers descend on the Yellow Sea's coast to view about 1.2 million birds in October, when migrations from New Zealand amass at Dandong's intertidal mudflats. The birds don't eat, drink or rest the week before or after gorging themselves along the shoreline. The area hosts 250 avian species viewed from two-story log-cabin towers flanking the boardwalk.
The spectacle brought 37,000 naturalists last year.
Roads to the oceanfront meander through desolate kilometers of shipyards and fish farms. They're lined with abandoned boats. Marooned ghost ships, the absence of residents and the mist, all conspire to create an otherworldly ambiance.
The ocean swarms with seafood made delectable by the cold.
And the Yalu River that empties into the sea brims with some 88 fish species.
