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Published: January 1st 2022
Journey The bus journey to the hotel took about an hour to an hour and a half. I'm glad that there was only eight of us on the bus as it meant we got to spread out. The driver was in full hazmat gear and roped off from us. It was weird leaving the airport and driving along the empty roads. Traffic must have really dropped off now there are so few international flights and I presume domestic flights still aren't at pre-pandemic levels. Looking at the slightly hazy sky, I was thinking yes I am back. The nice empty roads didn't last too long and as we got further into central Shanghai, we met up with plenty of traffic. I was starting to get a bit travel sick on the bus as I was so tired and there was this ringing/buzzing noise going off on the bus which was sending me insane. We came off the motorway and into a commercial/residential district. I was trying to follow along on my map app where we were, but since it is all in Chinese I was clueless. Later, I found out that I was staying in Minhang District. Every time we
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Day Twopassed a hotel I was sad if it looked nice and happy if it looked crappy. I have to say I didn't really have that high expectations when we finally pulled up to our hotel, the Home Inn Selected.
Arrival The bus pulled up in the car park around the back. We were greeted by people in hazmat suits shouting at us. I had no clue what they were saying, so I just followed the others. We had to get our bags from under the bus and then piled all our luggage up so that they could be sprayed with disinfectant. We had to stand at the other side while this was being done. Then we collected our bags and walked round to the entrance. We lined up, were given an information sheet and once again shouted at in Chinese. I only got a few things; the room price, the food price and that we couldn't use the air con (for heat). A nice bloke (passenger from my flight) asked if I had understood, so I said not really and he went over some of the points I hadn't understood. There were some QR codes that
I had to scan and add the accounts to my WeChat. These were for the hotel and the hotel's medical team. He also told me when we could check out, the same time we had checked in in two weeks time. Also he explained the pills that the staff were giving us were for the toilet. You had to put 2 tablets down the toilet when you have a number one and ten when you have a number two. Then leave it all to brew for 30 minutes before flushing. Next up was payment. Luckily, the hotel accepted credit cards as I would have been screwed if they didn't. I have heard that some places only accept Chinese forms of payment i.e. WeChat and Alipay. The total fee was 5,600 RMB; 4,200 RMB was the room fee and 1,400 RMB was the food fee. I know in some places you can skip paying for food and just order in your own, but for ease I couldn't be bothered to find out if that was possible here and just paid it. Then I was given my bag of toilet pills, a mask and a thermometer and led to my room by
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Day Three one of the staff.
Room I'm happy to say that I was pleasantly surprised by my room. The brief outside glimpse I got of the hotel didn't look great and the corridors looked like they were undergoing renovation, I think it was that the original flooring was covered with lino and the walls were a bit scruffy because everything is sprayed with disinfectant daily and it just dries in big white clumps. Anyway, back to the room. I have seen some shockers of rooms that people have had to quarantine in and was mentally prepared for the worst. I've also seen some really nice hotel quarantine rooms, but didn't think I would be lucky enough to get one of those, not unless I was forking out big bucks. There were pros and cons for the room, which I will go over.
Pros - The room was nice and modern. There were loads of plugs and USB charging points. The big windows let in plenty of natural light, which was great on non overcast days. Since the room was on the back of the hotel, there was little noise. The bed was comfortable and the duvet was
super thick so you could get nice and snuggly. There was a huge tv, not that I really watched it. The bathroom was also well stocked with shampoo, shower gel, toothbrushes, toothpaste, toilet paper, towels and amenities kits. The room was supplied with a few packets of hankies and plenty of rubbish bags.
Cons - The cold this was due to the lack of heat and that the windows were a bit janky, so didn't close properly letting more cold air in. The lack of a view as my room overlooked the carpark, this did make the room quieter but I would have loved to have seen more than the binmen everyday and the occasional coach load of new inmates. There wasn't a tonne of space, having one bed instead of two would have been better and the wardrobe space was also quite small but it's not like the hotel was designed to be a quarantine hotel with people bring cooped up there for two weeks. Another weird feature was that they had glued the drawer shut on the bedside table meaning it couldn't be used and the desk had been turned around so you couldn't use the drawer space
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Day Three in there either. The mirrors were crap, especially the one in the bathroom and while there was plenty of lighting it wasn't near the mirrors. However, on the whole I was happy with the room and could see myself passing the two weeks quite happily there.
Food If you want a crash course in Chinese cuisine do 2 weeks of quarantine. It's a good introduction. I am totally used to Chinese food, I used to love eating the canteen food when I was at uni in China and the thought of eating it for two weeks is fine by me, but I can understand why some people might not like the idea of it. I also packed plenty of snacks in case I got a duff meal or two. There were some meals I didn't like, but having four small dishes with rice meant that there was always something I could eat. Also there was a kettle in the room, but no tea or coffee, I had brought plenty of coffee to see me through the two weeks. I think you could order in supplies from the grocery shop/convenience store if you were struggling for
snacks and drinks. You were provided with 14 litres of water on arrival all in 500 ml bottles and it was easy just to text the hotel and transfer some cash via WeChat when I needed more. One thing I hated was all the plastic waste I produced. Every meals was served in a disposable plastic container and I drank so much water, it was heart breaking throwing out those little bottles each day. I have detailed my meals, but somethings I don't know the correct names for and some vegetables I have to guess at for their names as we don't use them in the UK. Also I use tofu and bean curd interchangeably. Breakfast was served around 7:30 am, lunch 11;30 am and dinner 5:15 pm. Breakfast and lunch were generally on time, but dinner was often late, not that I minded.
Day One: Due to arriving mid morning I only had lunch and dinner at the hotel. Lunch - stir fried green vegetables, stir fried mushrooms and winter melon(?), lion head meatball, fish, rice and an apple. Dinner - a yogurt, rice, stir fried spinach, hong shao rou, egg and courgette, and some meat that looked
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Day Four like an organ. I was pretty happy with the food I received. I had recently been thinking about making lion head meatballs as I hadn't had one in forever, but ran out of time pre departure so it was a nice surprise to see one in my first meal. I was also glad to get some hong shao rou (red braised pork) as it is one of my favourite Chinese dishes. Also the organ looking thing was actually meat, not sure what through, it was okay and I managed a few nibbles of it. However, since I was knackered off the travelling, I was asleep when the meals turned up so ate them both a few hours later, which meant they were stone cold. I will have to get into a better routine so I can my food hot.
Day Two: Breakfast - flavoured rice porridge, pickled veggies, a little cake thingy, a tea egg, you tiao, and meat filled baozi. Lunch - chicken curry, stir fried greens, -processed fish and meat, a pork chop, rice and an orange. Dinner - a yogurt, rice, stir fried cabbage, winter melon(?) in gravy, beef in black pepper sauce, and a meatball
wrapped in tofu. I was so happy to have my first Chinese breakfast in a long time, I really love Chinese breakfast food and I got some of my favourites here with the tea egg, you tiao (deep fried dough stick) and baozi. The lunch was fairly decent, I'm not a huge fan of chicken on the bone but managed to eat most of the curry, before finding something that could have been an innards or chicken body waste. The cabbage and beef were the best parts of the dinner. Eating the food hot was so much better as well.
Day Three: Breakfast - plain rice porridge, red bean filled bun, meat filled baozi, a piece of sweet potato, hard boiled egg, and pickled veggies. Lunch - an apple, rice, stir fried cauliflower and pork, egg and shrimp, seaweed, and ribs. Dinner - a yogurt, gammon, cabbage and tofu(?), fish in sauce, and courgette. I enjoyed the breakfast again. Red bean paste gets a bad rep with lots of westerners, but I really like it so the bun was tasty, as was the rest of breakfast. On my inspection of the lunch box, I though it was going to
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Day Four egg and tomato, which I was gutted about, I hate tomato and love egg, so didn't want egg polluted with tomato. So I was buzzing to find it was egg and shrimp. The ribs were also great, the gravy on them was so, so good. Dinner was a bit of a duff meal as the gammon was meh (it's not my favourite way to have pork) and the fish was bony and the sauce a bit nasty. Good job I brought snacks as I could make up for the disappointment with plenty of chocolate. One duff meal so far isn't bad though.
Day Four: Breakfast - plain rice porridge, sweetcorn, hard boiled egg, pickled vegetables, you tiao, and a sweet custard baozi. Lunch - a banana, rice, stir fried cabbage, mage tout, spicy pork and squid, and a KFC style chicken drumstick. Dinner - sausage fried rice, scrambled eggs, stir fried greens, a strange lilac vegetable that tasted a bit like potato, and a yogurt. I'm glad I got to have a sweet custard baozi as it is not something I would ever order myself as I am more of a savoury person and would always pick a meat
or veggie one. I really enjoyed the sweet baozi so those will be going on my shopping list. Also my porridge was really thick today which was great. The spicy pork and spicy was my favourite dish of the day. The sausage fried rice was okay, Chinese sausage is a bit weird (for me) as it's quite sweet. It's not terrible, but not amazing either.
Day Five: Breakfast - meat filled baozi, small custard filled baozi, pickled vegetables, hard boiled egg, and flavoured rice porridge. Lunch - an apple, rice, winter melon (?) in gravy, breaded pork cutlet, Suzhou sour vegetable and fish soup and green beans with minced pork, chilli and chips. Dinner - a yogurt, rice, stir fried greens, stir fried cabbage and pork, pork and egg pie, braised beef and potato. The pickled veggies are the same ones as the day before and whilst I like the spiciness of them they are a bit too sweet for me. Hopefully, we will be due a change soon. I was disappointed with the Suzhou fish soup as it was no where near as tasty as the one i had in Suzhou. The green beans with pork, chilli and
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Day Four chips were amazing. I loved the addition of chips, this needs to go into this dish all the time. The pork and egg pie reminded me of a dish I used to get at uni, this was slightly different, but still delicious. It's not really a pie, but I don't know how to describe it.
Day Six: Breakfast - plain rice porridge, sausage bread, hard boiled egg, pickled veggies, sweet potato, custard filled baozi and rice dim sum. Lunch - a banana, rice, stir fried greens, egg and tomato, beef and potato, and meat and tofu. Dinner - yogurt, rice, chicken drumstick, beansprouts, mange tout, spicy Korean style pork. Breakfast seemed a bit more substantial today, while I do enjoy the breakfast foods were are given, it isn't the most filling meal and usually means I have to have a mid morning snack. It finally happened at lunch I was given the dreaded egg and tomato. I wasn't going to try it, but curiosity got the better of me, after picking out the hunks of tomato, I ate it. It actually wasn't too bad. Would I order it in a restaurant or for delivery? No, but if I was
starving, I know I can stomach it. The chicken for dinner was weird, it was a reddy pink coloured, I don't know if it had been smoked or treated in some way. Not usually a fan of cooked beansprouts, but these ones were laced with chili so that helped. The Korean style pork was also delicious.
Day Seven: Breakfast - sweet bread bun, plain rice porridge, hard boiled egg, pickled veggies, sweetcorn and a giant rice dim sum like the smaller ones we'd had the day before. Lunch - an apple, rice, fish, winter melon, cabbage, and fish flavoured pork. Dinner - yogurt, rice, stir fried green beans with minced pork, braised turnip in gravy, pork and veggies in a black bean pepper sauce and a processed fish slice covered in what looked like cornflakes. I enjoyed the giant dim sum thingy for my breakfast, was a bit gutted that the bread bun was plain and sweet some red bean filling would have made it tastier. The fish was similar to the one I didn't eat the other day, but the sauce didn't taste as pungent and as it was a whole fish it was much easier to slide
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Day Five the meat off the bones. Fish flavoured pork is one of my favourite dishes, but this one was pretty bland. I enjoyed dinner, the fish slice thing looked a bit dubious, but it was fine and there was even a real prawn hidden inside it. I have noticed that we never get aubergine/eggplant, I'm gutted by this as I love the different ways it is prepared in Chinese cuisine.
Day Eight: Breakfast - plain rice porridge, purple sweet potato cake, pickles, sweet potato, hard boiled egg, and meat filled baozi. Lunch - banana, rice, drunken chicken, beansprouts, stir fried cucumber and sweet and sour pork. Dinner - yogurt, rice, stir fried cabbage, mapo tofu, hong shao rou with potatoes, and prawns. Total disaster as when I opened my breakfast bag this morning the porridge container had split and most of the porridge had leaked all over the bag. Since everything is in plastic nothing was spoilt and I just chugged what was left of the porridge. I wasn't sure what the purple sweet potato bread would be like but it was pretty decent. I wasn't a fan of the drunken chicken, it had a really sweet smell to it,
like laundry that has been left to dry with out being aired out properly. The sweet and sour was good, the sauce was so viscous it was one giant lump. It might seem strange that cucumber is cooked in Chinese cuisine as in the west it is always raw, but I really enjoy it stir fried. Dinner was fab, some of my favourite foods and Chinese dishes.
Day Nine: Breakfast - flavoured rice porridge, two slices of white bread, pickled vegetables, sweet potato, hard boiled egg, hot dog wrapped in mantou. Lunch - an apple, rice, stir fried greens, fish, scrambled egg and onions, and beef in pepper sauce. Dinner - two yogurts, rice, stir fried cabbage, chicken, tofu and vegetables, and meatballs wrapped in tofu. Breakfast was a bit unusual as when I opened the packet of bread I thought it would have some kind of filling in it, like a sandwich but it was just two plain slices of bread. The hot dog mantou concoction was a bit strange, but edible anyway. The fish was a pain in the arse to eat at lunch time and nothing really stood out on that meal. I somehow scored two
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Day Six yogurts for dinner, normally the yogurt is in its own little bag on top of the main food bag, I got this, but then in the large food bag there was also a yogurt. The chicken tasted like the drunk chicken from the day before so I left most of that. The tofu dish had a nice kick to it and the meatballs were tasty.
Day Ten: Breakfast - plain rice porridge, pickled vegetables, sweet potato, hard boiled egg, you tiao and meat baozi. Lunch - an orange, rice, stir fried greens, processed fish balls in curry sauce, shredded winter melon with chili, and braised pork spare ribs. Dinner - yogurt, rice, pork chop, bok choy, squid and celery, and chicken and beansprouts. I was happy to see you tiao make a reappearance on the breakfast menu. The baozi was really good, too. I liked the shredded winter melon and it reminded me of the potato dish with chili and vinegar that I love. The spareribs were really good. It was nice to see squid make an appearance on the dinner menu. It was tasty, but I think my favourite was the chicken and beansprouts, maybe I am turning
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Day Seven into a beansprout lover.
Day Eleven: Breakfast - plain rice porridge, sweet potato, baozi, hard boiled egg, a little cake and this random thing. Lunch - an apple, rice, KFC style chicken drumstick, stir fried greens, tea egg and pork, and some kind of processed meat with real meat, too. Dinner - yogurt, rice, stir fried cabbage, celery and pork, fish stew, and roast duck. The random thing for breakfast I'm really not sure what it was. At first I thought it was stinky tofu as it smelt a bit, but not like stinky tofu. Also the texture wasn't like other stinky tofu I'd had before. This was kind of melted and a bit like a paste, but had a really gritty texture. It was strange. It tasted a bit like a strong cheese. While I liked the taste, the texture left a lot to be desired. Lunch was so good. I loved the pork and tea egg dish the most. I even enjoyed the KFC style chicken drumstick even though it is not something I would normally eat. I enjoyed the duck for dinner as it made a nice change.
Day Twelve: Breakfast - plain porridge, sweet
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Day Seven potato, pickled vegetables, hard boiled egg, sausage mantou, and rice filled dim sum. Lunch - orange, rice, stir fried greens, pepper and minced pork, scrambled egg with prawns, and pork steak. Dinner - yogurt, rice, chicken feet, braised ribs, stir fried greens, and root vegetables with bean curd. Lunch was my favourite today as it was all things that I really like. Had to skip the chicken feet on the dinner as just touching them freaks me out.
Day Thirteen: Breakfast - plain porridge, pickles, hard boiled egg, sweet potato, meat filled baozi and you tiao. Lunch - apple, rice, pop corn chicken, stir fried greens, pork and tofu skin, and bean curd with veggies in a spicy sauce. Dinner - yogurt, rice, beef curry, scrambled eggs with veggies, fish, and winter melon with pork. I was happy that you tiao made a reappearance for breakfast. Lunch was, once again, the best meal of the day all dishes that I really like. Once again, dinner was a bit of a let down with the bony fish and the beef in the curry was pretty tough.
Day Fourteen: Breakfast - plain porridge, sweet potato, red bean filled bun, salted
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Day Eight egg, and a veggie baozi. Lunch - orange, rice, scrambled egg with prawns, two types of cabbage; one plain and the other with pork, and pork chop. Dinner - yogurt, rice, sweet and sour fish, braised pork and potatoes, bok choy, and spicy mange tout with minced pork. I was very happy with all my meals today, it was a perfect last day menu for me. I was so happy to have the salted egg as it made the porridge taste so good. The veggie baozi was a good change. I'm also happy I got to have the scrambled egg with prawns again. I really need to make that myself in the future. The braised pork and sweet and sour fish were delicious.
Day Fifteen: Breakfast - plain porridge, sausage bun, the tiniest ever sweet potato, pickles, a hard boiled egg, and rice dim sum. Have to say breakfast looked a bit meagre. The size of the sweet potato was ridiculously small. The sausage bun didn't taste as good as last time but everything else was great.
Health Checks On check in, we were given an information sheet and told to register some form online,
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Day Eight within two hours of checking in. I tried to do it, but it didn't like my name so I just ignored doing it. A few hours later the health team messaged me to ask why I hadn't done it, so I sent them a screen shot of the problem. Their response was to just make up a Chinese name and put that it. Love writing a fake name on official looking forms. I did it and was able to submit it. The form was just basic info and to take your temperature. During your first 21 days in China, you have to undergo a lot of PCR tests. The first one was on arrival at Pudong Airport (day one) and the other occur on days 4, 7 14, 16 and 21. This meant that I would do three more tests while in the quarantine hotel. I had been told that on day four the doctor would come at 6 am to do the test. I woke up early and waited and waited. At about 6:40 am I heard them start to do tests at the far end of my corridor. They got so far down the corridor and then they
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Day Eight stopped and buggered off. I just love getting up early for no reason. I thought maybe they would do it at morning temperature check, but that didn't happen. Eventually, they came and did it in the late afternoon. The test was thorough but not as intrusive as the one at the airport. Also they make you check that the sample bottle has your name and passport/ID number on it. The test on day 7, I can't remember what time it was, but it was the most half arsed thing in the world. I'm surprised that they collected enough of a sample to do the test as she barely stuck the swab in my mouth and just brushed my tongue not right to the back of my throat and barely entered my nostril. On day 14, they came at 7 am to do the test. Because this was the day before release, they were very thorough and really I think I had two PCR tests as they swabbed my throat and one nostril and put those samples into one jar, then did my throat again and the other nostril and those samples when into another jar. I went back to doing
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Day Eight what ever I was doing but I could hear the staff rustling about in the corridor. After a while, a member of staff knocked on my door and I thought that they wanted to give me another Covid test, but no, they wanted to swab my room. The woman came in and swabbed quite a few places; the light switches, the toilet flush, toilet lid, kettle, and desk. I really like how thorough they are with the Covid testing, Boris Johnson take note.
Each day at 9:30 am and 3:30 pm was temperature check. This started off pretty well but soon fell off. Some days the staff didn't bother to come around. I think this was on PCR testing days. Also the times were a little loose as it was more like any time between 9 am and 10 am, and 3 pm and 4 pm. The temperature check was straightforward and painless. They would knock on the door rather insistently, and I would mask up and answer the door. Then they would point one of those fancy digital thermometers at my head and it would turn green to show I was okay. One time the woman did my
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Dinner - Day Eight wrist, which broke up the monotony a bit. Another time, the woman actually touched my forehead with the thermometer. I wasn't sure if they used the same thermometers for more than one person, especially as they don't really touch you, but I decided to be safe and coated my forehead with a load of hand sanitiser to kill of any germs.
Day to Day Life In all honesty, my two weeks went by pretty quick and I didn't find it tough at all. I am used to and like spending time alone so that probably made it a lot easier for me than for others. Also, I think it helped that the day was a bit regimented with the set meal times and temperature checks. After taking the first couple of days to get over my jet lag. I basically just slept and ate, and watched a bit tv, I got myself into a good routine. I woke up early had a couple of cups of coffee before breakfast, I love a nice slow start to the day. I managed to do quite a bit if exercise, which is good and also found the time to
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Dinner - Day Eight do plenty of back stretches, which got rid of my back pain. I watched some tv, but the internet was a bit hit and miss, so getting my VPN connected and to the right server wasn't always possible. I did manage to listen to lots of instrumental Christmas music on youtube to get me in the Christmas spirit. I also read a lot. I think I averaged just under a book a day, which is a lot. I did have a little bit of work to do, but nothing that took up too much time. Another task that took up quite a bit of time was laundry. I had decided to do what people did when I was on the Trans Siberian and just wear a tracksuit for the whole time I was in quarantine. I kept the rest of my wardrobe limited and just washed stuff through each day. Drying it was a bit of a pain as having the windows open made the room even colder.
Also with my prime view of the carpark, I got to see some comings and goings. The binmen would turn up every morning to take our rubbish away. If the people
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Day Nine in the other rooms were anything like me, they would have generated a lot of waste. Our rubbish was locked up in a garage type thing, I suppose for safety as they didn't want someone scratting through it looking for things they could use or recycle and then get Corona from it. Also the binmen were in PPE, not full on hazmat suits like the hotel staff, they looked more like surgeon about to go into theatre. I also got to watch a few bus loads of new inmates arrive. I was surprised that most of these buses had about 15 people on them. I guess I lucked out being in a small group. Also on the last day I saw an ambulance drive away from the hotel, I had missed its arrival and if anyone had got on. Was somebody showing Covid symptoms? Has someone got a positive on their PCR test? Had something else happened? I will never know.
Departure On the morning of departure, I was kicked out of the hotel around 8 am. They never really communicated the departure time and luckily I was pretty much packed and only had a
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Day Nine few things to throw in. I thought that we would be given time to eat breakfast, but that was a no so I packed mine to take with me, after all I had paid for it and I hate food waste. I headed along to the lift and had to wait ages. The lifts had been disabled, I think to stop us escaping, and I had to wait for another bloke on my floor to be ready before they turned the lifts on and escorted us downstairs. Once out of the hotel proper, it was into a little tent to pick up our release papers. These detail that you have completed government quarantine and where you will go next and for how long and your final destination. There is also your negative Covid test results from the day before. Also a load of stuff in Chinese that I thought about translating, but the translation by WeChat might confuse me a bit more, ignorance is bliss in this case. I walked round to the front of the hotel and booked a taxi to take me to my next hotel. I had thought about taking the subway since I had the green
code, but had too much stuff to deal with. I didn't have to wait too long for a taxi which was good as it was freezing and my fingers were numb. On to the next part of the adventure.
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RENanDREW
Ren & Andrew
Wow
I was wondering how long you'd been living in China and looked up your arrival blogs for this stint :) I'm so glad you detailed your travel and quarantine experiences so well, because even though we lived through all this relatively recently, it already sounds so strange and cumbersome. I like the look of your 'bento box' quarantine meals :)