After a restful night, I began my first full day of quarantine in the Checkpoint #19 in Shanghai Pudong.

Closer Look

There’s no choice for your room type, it’s all randomly assigned. I had a closer look at the room. It was quite a spacious room for ¥350 per night. I guessed this was heavily subsidised by the state. It has a King-sized bed, plenty of space to walk around and an armchair for the relaxing. I never used the armchair in most hotels, never got the time to stay in the room long enough. Now I think this would used.

I spent a lot of time last night wiping down the bathroom. All the doors are removed or screwed shut, so there’s no privacy in the bathroom. There’s a wonderful bathtub, not that I would having long, hot baths. During this period, I strongly do not recommend. This was one of the hardest thing to wipe down yesterday for the size of it.

• 

• 

• 

There’s a mini-bar that was emptied out and semi-functioning (not cold enough as all these mini-bars are). I have left the windows opened as I do not trust the air circulating through the central AC would be properly filtered.

Here’s a little trivial: Do you know who were the first to put a bible in hotel rooms and why? Marriott – they wanted to provide some reading material in the hotel rooms, but magazine and books were often brought home by the guests. Bible was placed and there was not another theft since!

Daily Routine

This is something that I have to get to use to for the next 14 days. Before I can use the toilet for my daily business, I need to dump 10 of these disinfectant tablets into the bowl to prevent any cross-contamination from the sprays.

Actually I was really impressed with this step. Imagine that hundreds of people would come in from Pudong and undergo these quarantines. This one simple step would have prevented the probability of cross-contamination by miles.

The next thing I need to do twice daily is to take my own temperature. Since I checked-in, everything was done either through the hotel phone system or through mini-apps in WeChat. Minimal human contact. All I need is to take my temperature at 9am and 2pm, and key them into an online form to inform them that everything is OK.

Meals

This quarantine point did not allow food delivery. So I had to order everything from their room service menu. Again everything was done electronically through the cafe/restaurant mini-app and paid in WeChat.

First Breakfast

• 

• 

• 

This was the most rushed breakfast ordering system. The online app only accepted orders from 7am, and delivery was only available between 7-9am. I ordered quickly the Chinese Breakfast set (¥10) that consisted of a pack of reconstructed OJ, a hard boiled egg and two Chinese buns. Around 30 min from ordering, I heard a quick knock on the door, opened it and saw the package hanging on the door knob. I guessed that’s all the interactions I will be getting for the next 14 days. The buns were just as I expected – not nice – mental note to self, don’t order this again.

First Lunch

Another quiet knock on the door at noon signalled the arrival of my lunch. I did not expect to see any one, and the lunch was left in a paper bag on a luggage rack outside the door.

OK, I wasn’t having any expectation given the quality of the breakfast, so the lunch of two style of Cantonese BBQ meats was actually OK. The condiment was just a tub of vinegar, so that’s straight to the bin, and the meal came with rice and half a hard boiled egg disguised as braised egg. There wasn’t enough greens in this one, so I ordered a vegetable to go with it.

Interestingly, the black wood fungus with scrambled eggs came with a side of sautéed cabbage and another bowl of rice. I couldn’t even finish the first one.

First Dinner

Had a heavy lunch, so I ordered only a vegetable (baby Romaine lettuce in stock) and a salad with chicken breast, with leftovers from lunch. I can live 14 days with the quality of the room service