Day 1,riots aboard

Surprisingly, the plane was new and clean, only if its seat arrangement being quite narrow for airbus 320. Mine was in front of emergence seats and I found out the space between was not wide enough, either.

We boarded the plane at 15:00, which was already late for 14:55 flight, and very quickly the plane was filled up. However it didn't take off , until one hour later. During this period, the attendants brought each people one bottle of water and magazines, then kept making announcements on the microphone that the plane was still waiting for the approval from control center.

To have such a permission for so long? The passengers began losing patience and rioted. Funny thing was attendants continued to explain the importance of such air traffic order, then hurriedly they pushed out the cart to sell foods and souvenirs. But easy to imagine, in such fury of waiting no one would spend any money.

All of sudden, one man in middle of forties, jumped up from seat, and shouted to the attendants. ' I will give you another half an hour. If you don't fly I will get off.' One boy came to him immediately and tried hard to comfort him. As returns, this man even swore foul words at him. The face of attendant flushed with anger, but he didn't say any word back. He left swiftly. A second later, over the mic, came another announcement mentioning the reason for this delay was a military practice in Xiamen, which effectively silenced the rebellious man. He sat down.
I felt a little sorry for the insulted young attendant. So when he pushed cart past me, I bought two bags of peanuts from him, which turned out my only food at Xiamen airport.

My original plan was, after I landed at Xiamen, I could take their airport shuttle bus to tour the island and city before I return for my transit flight of 20:30 to Bangkok. ( free for transit travelers). Due to the delay, I had to cancel it, but as a matter of fact, I felt so lucky and thankful about that the delay was not even worse. Because, when I collected my baggage after I landed was 6:00, exactly perfect timing for check-in for my next takeoff.

I didn't expect the biggest shock was awaiting ahead.