Scene: Hong Kong airport

A gremlin and her mother stagger thankfully off the flight from London.
Their mission: to find the shuttle bus to take them from the airport to
their hotel. They have a printout from their travel agent with the name
of the hotel on it.

Having passed through customs without a hitch, they find themselves in
the airport. Very swanky. They look for signs for the airport shuttle
buses. No signs. They walk to another terminal. No signs. They study
a map of the airport and discover that the buses leave from area E.
They walk to area E. There are lots of shuttle buses lined up but no
help, signs, or advice. The senior gremlin accosts one of the drivers.
He doesn't speak English. They ask a woman at a help and advice counter
and are directed back to the place they started from. Suddenly they are
confronted by a Chinese man in a lime green jacket. He is Not a Happy
Bunny.

"Mrs and Ms Riggs."
"Yes. How did you know?"
"You should wait here. Why you go off?"
"We were looking for the bus."
"You should wait here. Your travel agent should have told you."
"I'm sorry, we didn't know that. No-one told us."
"All airports are the same. Singapore, Tokyo, all. You wait in line."
(I think, "Do we look like we're from f-ing Tokyo, mate?")
I say, "I'm sorry."

I cannot bring myself to feel annoyed because it is all so bizarre and
amusing and I can sense my mother appreciating the comedy.

He leads us to a group of other travellers and grumpily slaps a couple
of stickers on us.

"Stand in line. Follow the man in the orange shirt."
"Thank you very much," I say.

The man in the orange shirt leads us in convoy to the place where the
senior gremlin accosted the driver.

We stand or sit in a bemused fashion while the drivers of the coaches
take it in turns to shout out the names of the hotel shuttle buses.
When the shuttle bus name is shouted, a small group is allowed to get on
the appropriate bus. The pronunciation of the hotel names makes it
extremely difficult to tell whether we are in fact on the right bus. We
exchange amused glances with the other passengers.

Eventually our name is called and we are allowed to carry our luggage
onto the bus. I put my backpack (which is rather heavy) in the space
underneath the vehicle, earning a further glare from the driver.