Hundreds of local people joined a charity run at Shanghai's Century Park on Saturday, which rounded up the China leg of a Japanese doctor's international journey.

Hiroshi Nishida, a 65-year-old pediatrician at Tokyo Women's Medical University, started his "Silk Road" running project from Rome in February 2004 to support the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

The Shanghai run was joined by nearly 1,000 primary and secondary school students, who put on colorful T-shirts to run around Century Park.

About 20 pediatricians from China and Japan also showed their support for Nishida's charity project by offering free consultations in the park.

Dating from the ancient Han Dynasty (about 139BC), the Silk Road is one of the oldest and most important trade routes connecting China and Europe.

Nishida planned to run the length of the route to his home town of Nara in Japan within four years.

Since 2005, Nishida started running from Kashi, Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, across the nation. He has run through 29 Chinese cities, covering more than 7,100 kilometers before arriving in Shanghai. More than 4,000 supporters have joined him along his route, according to the project sponsor, Aprica Childcare Institute Japan.

Along his journey, Nishida has given 23 lectures on child health and gave free medical services to 285 sick children and more than 5,000 people, said the institute.

Nishida said his main inspiration for the run was to bring happiness to all the world's children. "As the Silk Road was used to promote understanding between Eastern and Western people, it is also my dream to make people understand each other."

(Shanghai Daily November 5, 2007)