Community & Clubs:

As you read today’s Daily Pilot, a group of 58 travelers on a trip sponsored by the Newport-Mesa Irvine Interfaith Council are meeting up in Shanghai as we conclude the last two days of our seven-day tour of China with visits to the Bund and China Town Shanghai.

Upon our arrival in Beijing last Friday, we visited Tiananmen Square, the largest public square in the world and the Forbidden City, home of 24 emperors with a total of 9,999 rooms.

Saturday we were off to the Great Wall of China, Ming Tombs, a jade factory and evening acrobatic show. Our Sunday started out at the Temple of Heaven where the emperors prayed to the heaven for a good harvest before visiting a Protestant church as their Sunday service was letting out.

The minister welcomed us, answered our questions about Christianity in Beijing and led us in prayer in Chinese and English. Following the church visit, we had lunch in the home of a family in Hutong, a older village area of Beijing before visiting a pearl factory. For the first time in my eight visits to Beijing, the sky was brilliant blue and the air was clean, but it wasn’t that way Monday, when 18 of us arrived in Xi’an to visit the Terra Cotta Warriors. The balance of the group went on to Suzhou and Hangzhou.

It was my first visit to Xi’an and I, with the others, was overwhelmed with the history as we visited the Big Wild Goose Pagoda, 800 years old, and the Banpo Museum, a settlement from 6,000 years ago. On Tuesday we spent four hours at the Terra Cotta Warrior site being escorted by our knowledgeable English-speaking tour guide, Amber.

Today, in Shanghai we will visit a silk factory before having dinner on our own in the New Worlds-International Zone. Thursday we explore the Yu Garden, a maze of marvelous pavilions, ponds, rocky works and overarching trees. Then it’s off to view the Bund, a famous waterfront park before we visit a Roman Catholic Church that was built from 1906 to 1911 in Shanghai. Friday, many of us will catch the 240-mile-per-hour high speed train from Shanghai to the airport before flying back to Los Angeles. It has been a great trip!

MARINE CORPS BIRTHDAY CELEBRATION