Not strictly in the rules but fly into hong kong and you can walk straight onto the train (in the terminal building its self) out in the central busines district and into the four seasons hotel on the waterfront without going out side at all.

in the moring you could attend meetings in the IFC2 building (lots of banks (3rd tallest building in the world) or wander around shopping in the attached IFC mall, should you so wish you can cut through the subway through the (MTR) train station (walking) to another block of shopping and hotels where you can walk completly inside to half of the major buildings in Central.

All this is air conditioned indoors and walking except for the train (but thats allowed right) , but would you have been to hong kong?

...but here's a writing tip from someone who loves travelogues and geography: Please ditch the metaphors and the flowery adjectives. Your stories are interesting enough on their own, and your complicated prose style distracts the reader from what's going on. You don't write your Salon columns that way, so why are writing a manuscript that way? It's like you're trying to impress your high-school English teacher.

I hope I haven't offended you. I mean only the best. And I look forward to your next column as always.

I worked with a woman who flew around the world aboard Air Force One with LBJ and never got off the plane.

... a visit to Guam is a visit to the United States. Practically speaking, though, it isn't. When someone says "United States," the first place thought of is not Guam, of course. So, technically, yes, you did "visit" Haiti, Patrick, even if you never did set foot outside the airport.

(A similar exercise would be to determine if John McCain, born in the US-controlled Canal Zone, is really a naturalized US citizen. The Canal Zone was neither a territory or commonwealth of the US. However, like US embassies overseas, US military bases are considered US soil, e.g. Guantanamo Bay.)

I've always found it amusing that while I traveled through Belgium on a train, I've never actually visited the country. The train was taking me from Paris to Rotterdam.

I could also say the same thing about more than a few U.S. states. See, I once took a circle trip on Amtrak around the eastern third of the country -- New York to Chicago to New Orleans to Atlanta to New York -- and quite a few of the states I traveled through I've never actually visited: Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky, Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama, South Carolina, and North Carolina. Some of those states, I think I slept through, though I'm not completely sure.

I was in Covington, at the Cincinnati airport. My "time" in Kentucky consisted of walking two gates down to make a quick connection.

... and yet if feels as if there's no there there...

Is that the kind of thing you're talking about Patrick??

;-)

I flew to Lanzarote in the Canary Islands, via Madrid, Spain. I was in the airport in Madrid for a couple of hours. I do not consider myself a visitor of Spain. Anyone who visits Guam and thinks they've visited the U.S. is welcome to their illusions.

On the other hand, I was in Beijing for a week, and I felt I had earned the right to say I'd been to China. Upon approach to Beijing on China Air, an acquaintance showed me a book on Tiananmen Square that she was reading. I was shocked that she'd brought it with her, and then I shocked myself by insisting that she give it to me to put in my luggage. Our luggage was never even checked, as far as I recall.

I was driven with a couple of other people to a restaurant in which I couldn't identify any of the food. I skated on the Great Wall in my Rollerblades, to be able to say I did. The awards ceremony of the triathlon I covered was in the Great Hall of the People. I felt like an intruder, like I shouldn't be there. I saw people sweeping a wide, dusty highway with brooms made of local brush. I saw graffiti on walls; I assumed it was pro-communist. I bought a watercolor from a local artist for $100. We were both happy with the transaction, and I was deeply disappointed when it was ruined in a fire a few years later. I still have my Russian-style rabbit-fur hat that I bought near the Great Wall of China for $10. My ice hockey buddies find it hilarious.

All this said, I saw a miniscule amount of China. Can I really say I traveled to China? Yes, I can, and I do. But my knowledge of that country from that trip is a just a little deeper than someone who visits Guam and feels they know what the U.S. is like.

Nice article, Patrick.

I happened to look back to see if there were any additional letters added after I wrote my response to Patrick's previous column:

< The Six Continent Club, lithium batteries, more defunct airlines: The pilot takes on a grab bag of topics. >

and I learned that DC-10's have three engines, not the two I remembered when one went out of service dramatically on a flight from Miami to Grenada some 20 years ago.

How embarrassing. As a writer, I like to be as accurate as possible.

But then I thought, if Patrick is going to be attacked for errors he's made when writing a column that I assume he's paid for, and he's SOBER, then I'm doing pretty good writing these anonymous letters late at night after several beers.

So, I say to the nitpickers, remember the old adage:

Never let the facts get in the way of a good story.

And, get a life.

My father would likely agree. He has a certificate he received from the Chief of Staff of the Air Force in the late sixties congratulating him on having made 50 flights to Vietnam in the service of his country. He was a navigator for Airlift International at the time, working flights shuttling American troops back and forth between Japan and Da Nang. He was very amused by it, because, as he told us, he never even got off the plane while it was on the ground in Vietnam. (Probably an exaggeration, but also probably not by much. The only photos he took while there were all out-the-window shots.)