Hurry up and sit

We had precisely one thing on the agenda today: get back to Kaohsiung. We had had enough of the wind, the rain, the cold, and, to be honest, Kinmen itself, and we were eager to drop off our scooters and board our 12:15 flight back home.

But things were not to be that simple.

Our home-stay owner gave us directions back to the Nissan dealership before we left, and all went smoothly as we stopped at a 7-11 familiar from our first night's drive for a supplementary breakfast (the home-stay offered just plain noodle soup with cabbage, hardly filling). From there, we set off back down the known road to a known roundabout, and turned right. Then came back to the roundabout and went straight. Then came back and turned left. We then gave up and called the scooter place, who said they would send someone to come guide us back, so we spent a good 15 minutes just sitting on the side of the road on our scooters, me thinking all the while about whether it would be worth it to take off my mask and drink my 7-11 coffee while it was still hot, or if doing so would just end up cooling it down more and end in spilled coffee on the rest of our trip. (I refrained.)

We did finally make it back to the dealership, and they offered to drive us back to the airport, though they were perplexed by our desire to get there so early. But, beside our cumulative training in getting to airports earlier than needed for flights, my basic thought process was that it had to be warmer there than in the dealership. (It was.)

Still, we arrived at the tiny airport a good hour and a half before our flight, so we sat at a little cafe overlooking the runway and had some coffee/tea/cheesecake/pasta (depending on the person) while we waited, finally strolling through security 10 minutes before our boarding time.

Except that our boarding time turned out not to be our boarding time. About a half hour late, we boarded the plane amidst a cloud of fumes, sat down, got comfortable, and were then herded back off the plane, with the promise that we would board again in a half hour. By the time we boarded what I took to be a different plane altogether and took off, we were at least an hour and a half behind schedule, which meant we had been at the airport waiting in the cold for roughly 3 hours.

Needless to say, we were thrilled to see Kaohsiung appear through our windows, and to step off the plane into a climate where we could strip off our outer layers and enjoy a bit of sunshine.