And waited.

And waited some more.

About 30 minutes past the time we were supposed to take off, the captain's voice over the loudspeaker explained to us that there was ice on the wing and that we needed to taxi over to where the de-icing trucks were. He also noted that this might take a little while, as we were third in the queue.

Waiting is the word for what we did next. After about an hour the captain spoke again. This time he told us about how he had made a walk down the plank to check on the ice. He said that the wings looked good, but that the tail was still in trouble. Here he made a point to say that we would have to wait and see whether the tail melting or the de-icing came first to know when we would leave. We were still third in the queue and there was no way of knowing when we'd be ready.

This time we were given lunch while we waited. Then, after about four hours of being on the plane and going nowhere, the captain came on again to state that the tail was still full of ice but that we would shortly be heading towards the trucks with the de-ice spray. All we needed to do was wait a bit more and things would be a go.

After a bit we did indeed taxi, and we did indeed get de-iced, but things were not, indeed, a go.

It seems that after and only after we were sprayed by the trucks, the captain decided to run through his wing heater tests, and they failed. We went back to our original spot and waited for the engineer to come aboard and fix the problem.

After a bit we were informed that the engineer was moving swiftly for a fix, but (and the captain here informed us about how terribly sorry he was) the airport had now canceled the flight.

Six hours we had sat on the plane, and we'd gotten only as far the de-icing trucks. Eventually the bus came back for half of the passengers (including myself and my wife, but not the sister or her husband). We went back to the original terminal, where we were blocked in around the desks where six hours before the lady had taken our boarding passes. A hundred people or so all pushed and prodded their way closer. Closer to what, we weren't sure, but closer we were getting. I did my best not to be pushed into small children, while several others began shouting at those poor people in airline uniforms. They yelled back. It was all in Chinese so I had no idea what was going on at any point.